EPT-1 base lingbling bust that will kill me if I don't reinforce the wall-off.
-early 3rd hatch that will easily outmacro me if I don't attack.
All other games, mass marine+better macro works fine.
So macro is usually but not always king.
[D] How important is Strategy in lower leagues? - Page 2
| Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy |
|
Monkeyballs25
531 Posts
-1 base lingbling bust that will kill me if I don't reinforce the wall-off. -early 3rd hatch that will easily outmacro me if I don't attack. All other games, mass marine+better macro works fine. So macro is usually but not always king. | ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
if u go into a game without having a plan or a clue what u want to do u always lose no matter which league Please, stop making ridiculous comments. You act as if we are saying "macro only, and play counterintuitively otherwise". As long as you have, like, bronze level understanding of the interactions of units (hellions beat lings, etc) and planning (you want to expand, make units, expand, etc), and in-game goals (zerg, get 3 bases, defend, get map control, delay for hive, tvz, get 2 bases, rine/tank push, get third, max rine/tank/medivac/thor/upgrades) you will just need solid macro to carry you to masters. You think anyone is saying "fellow gold player, forget everything you know about unit vs unit, timing, builds, and in-game goals, and just macro well!". No. Everyone knows enough of what they need to do. Every bronze, or gold, or whoever, has seen a pro game, and has a general idea of how the game goes, and what they are working toward. No one just suddenly forgets their goals and plans, and focuses on macro. Macro well, and your plan will come together great. But it's like you are arguing against a straw man. It's such a ridiculous comment. Well they need atleast some stratetgic knowledge because sixpool is still pretty common in lower leagues I guess. Against 6 pool you pretty much just a-move. Pull 4 drones to focus spines if they make spines. If they don't make spines and have lots of lings, you can mineral walk a bunch. If they pull all drones, base trade. Not hard. The thing is, bronze to gold don't know what mineral walking is. I would not call a bronze to gold player 'lower level'. I would call them people who don't understand the controls yet. Which is fine,the game is complicated as fuck, it's not a bad thing at all, I was in gold for months. People even in diamond don't know all the controls, like what shift+ctrl+leftclick on a portrait coes in a control group, or camera hotkeys. But Platinum+? These people understand the controls enough, that if they get 6 pooled, as long as they plant pool early enough (hatch first with drone scout, pool first, whatever), they should always win against someone of equal skill. A 6 pool vs 6 pool defense is more a test of skill between two players. There isn't much strategy to it, and as long as the 6 pooler isn't like MUCH higher level than you, you should always beat it unless it's something like hatch first on a 4 player map with no scouting, or mismicro horribly. Because a diamond player cannot 6 pool at all. They can't. I don't know why, but the competency in 6 pool varies just as much as ranking. A GM 6 pool is much different than masters than diamond than plat than etc. But 2 people of similar skill, as long as they have read my anti-6 pool guide basically, they should always hold unless they don't drone scout. | ||
|
naggerNZ
New Zealand708 Posts
| ||
|
boppel
140 Posts
stay free thx for completely fucking up what i posted and putting words in my mouth which i never spoke out | ||
|
naggerNZ
New Zealand708 Posts
On April 08 2012 21:44 boppel wrote: too bad there is no ignore function on this forum, never read so much shit form one person (belial) stay free thx for completely fucking up what i posted and putting words in my mouth which i never spoke out Just, no, okay. Just no. | ||
|
Broesl
Austria75 Posts
On April 08 2012 21:03 Sianos wrote: I don´t agrre with the people saying Macro has nothing to do with strategy or your gameplan. Sure Macro is an on topic, but the way you Macro influence your strategy. For example, doing early double upgrades and getting a fast 3rd while having less production facilities, don´t allow you to do pushes aggainst players who invest in army/tech and taking their 3rd slower than you, because you won´t have enough units to do damage to them which results in direct attacks beeing pointless in the early-midgame. When your goal is to not allow your opponent to take his 4th base, then you can invest your ressources into upgrades/expandtions tech until your opponent want´s to take his 4th to get the most advantages you can have at this given point in order to achieve your goal. I think everyone agrees, that having 3/3 upgrades instead of 2/2 when your opponent want´s to take his 4th give´s you better chances in achieving your goal there. Otherwise when you want to pin your opponent on just two bases you have to invest more in production facilities, so that you have a bigger army at that point, when your opponent takes his 3rd. I´m also saying that strategy or your overall gameplan gives you triggers to attack. Everytime you want to attack you have a specific goal in mind, what you want to achieve with that attack. I often see the players in TvZ just attacking over the creep right into the opponents main army, which often results in stupid army losses. When you have the goal to deny X Y expandtion, you can make your army more efficient and you have a clear goal in mind what you want to achieve with that attack. With this your understanding of the game and of "How to Macro godd " becomes better, because like i said, the strategy influence your way to Macro. First off, why would you ever want to push someone who´s expansion was much slower ?! On topic: And there is not much ingame decision making involved aka strategy, if u do a preplanned build and attack at time x. Ur idea of Strategy is so simple, if u consider it like that, doing this build and attacking at a certain point, ofc there is "strategy" in lower leagues but a lower leaguer isnt gonna ask himself why or how something works, hes just gonna do it, not much decision making involved. And i said this in my first post, Strategy as a way of thinking what you wanna do is something that you have to develop through playing a lot, and until you are at the point of high masters youre not gonna have it. The way you are describing your strategy (which is just a gameplan) is something you hear someone say (like Day9 in your case), but if u dont develop your own thinking in order to be able to decide whats best to do on your own, how do you expect to play the game at a high level if u have to go and look up a strategy for every possible case a race on a map could do or sth. The Point i wanna make is, thats the Strategy part is something that you just get through experience, you just have to play a lot, and while you do that you gotta practice your mechanics, aka focus on makro, so that at some point you will not only be able to decide what to do but actually execute it. sry im just kind of ranting but i think u get the point im trying to make | ||
|
Jonas :)
United States511 Posts
| ||
|
TechSc2
Netherlands554 Posts
On April 08 2012 22:06 Jonas  wrote:Just harass a bit and try to do damage. If you do damage, you'll get more ahead so you should attack a bit after that. If you don't do damage, then play defensive and try to harass some more Oh wow no shit sherlock. Worst advice i've seen so far in the whole histoy of TL strategy section. If you want to up your post count, do it on another forum, here we actually expect a sensible post from someone. But one thing i do agree with: Too vague of a post, maybe even better suited for the quick question quick answer thread. Short answer is: not as important, macro is more important. | ||
|
Sianos
580 Posts
I get what you want to say. If i´m right you want to say, that your strategic decisions improve while playing a lot. I agree with you on that. But to improve that, you have to actualy thing about it. For example. You want to deny your opponents 3rd, but you failed. Then you should ask yourself: Was it my control or didn´t i have enough units to attack at that moment or did the map favor my opponent in that position? If you don´t think about it, your knowledge of the game cannot be build up and when the people say if you would have macroed better, you could have killed him at that time. So you only focus on improving your Macro, because everyone says that the attack works with good Macro. Noone says something like, look he just had 3 Gateways aggainst your 4 Raxes. If you had produced constantly your army would be bigger than your opponent, because he just had 3 Gateways. The amount of production facilties you and your opponent have in combination with your Macro ability, determine whether an attack can work or not. I mean the answer "Macro better" leads your attention away from other important things. If you played 1000 games until you reach Diamond league and you just thought about "macro better" than your opponent you have wasted 1000 games worth of gameknowledge. Do you understand what i want to point out? | ||
|
netherh
United Kingdom333 Posts
On April 08 2012 21:29 TechSc2 wrote: Enlighten me, what is the RL defination of Strategy? + Show Spoiler + Dictionary explanation of strategy: The ability to acomplish goals with the current available resources (Dutch english translated) ::EDIT:: you cannot agree or disagree on a word that is explained in a dictionary.... Your dictionary is broken. Google says: strat·e·gy noun /ˈstratəjē/ strategies, plural 1. A plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim - time to develop a coherent economic strategy - shifts in marketing strategy 2. The art of planning and directing overall military operations and movements in a war or battle 3. A plan for such military operations and movements - nonprovocative defense strategies | ||
|
aka_star
United Kingdom1546 Posts
| ||
|
Nhed
France14 Posts
Strategy tends to be more important when the macro between both player is equal. The difference isnt the ressource, it is the way you use it to the more efficient way possible. | ||
|
TechSc2
Netherlands554 Posts
On April 08 2012 22:39 netherh wrote: Your dictionary is broken. Google says: 2. The art of planning and directing overall military operations and movements in a war or battle wait so google even agrees with a REAL dictionary and you say it's broken? how can a real dictionary be broken? go ahead and learn language from the interwebz, it's gonna be very helpfull in your job later on if it's not flipping burgers. The art of planning and directing overall military operations A.K.A. doing something with what you have NOW, not thinking about how to get whatever you want in 2 minutes. Strategists such as Napoleon weren't bothered with recruiting new soldiers, he was responsible to put those soldiers to good use. 7Gameplan is how do i get new soldiers. Strategy is how do i use my current set of soliders to benefit me the most | ||
|
BeeNu
615 Posts
| ||
|
Cortza
South Africa328 Posts
In bronze a strategy might be to attack with 20 marines at 10 mins. In diamond it might be to take a fast third while abusing drops for map control. The goal is to win of course, but strategy is as broad and deep as the ocean. What you will find is that it is very limited in lower-league play. Furthermore, this thread is a waste. | ||
|
aggu
38 Posts
(I always try to do 2rax expo, with 2 naked rax--with 1rax expo I can't hold) Game 1 TvT. proxy 3rax 1-base (I win with bunker and repair) Game 2 TvZ. He had 23 lings at 6:55 at my expo, 15 drones in base. Total chaos. I won because I locked the lings inside my own base... no need to explain anything else... Game 3. TvP macro game! (W) Game 4. TvP 1-base blink stalker (loss, I have no clue as what to do, he comes with 10+ stalkers, my bunkers were at my expo, I have to think about this) Game 5. TvP 9:50 at my ramp with 2 immo, 3 sentry, 5 stalkers; I had bunkers but he forcefielded in some way so that my SCVs couldn't repair. His attack failed, then he attacks into my main with warp prism and to expo at the same time. I won for some reason. In my experience, this is to continue forever, 80-90% = 1-base play or cheese. ** How am I to survive all this while thinking about "macro better"? I am honestly (no irony) interested what's the trick. Here's what I understand so far. My macro and micro is HORRIBLE. But in all those games, my primary goal going into the game should be: how to survive past 10 minutes. What saves my poor life is micro (which is horrible, but still, I won 80% of those games). I have to repair bunkers with SCVs. I have to 9scout to spot cheese. I have to go around my base to find proxy pylons and proxy rax and proxy PF. I have to make bunkers. I have to 2rax expo instead of 1rax expo, since with the latter I can't hold (so poor skill). And here's another problem. You can say: just macro better and you will have more units at 5:00, 6:00, 7:00. But the problem is, when a 1base rush or cheese is coming, I can't macro normally. It distracts me so much if I have to repair bunkers, have my troops all shooting or retreating, building new bunkers. So if you watch those games, you will find a ton of hilarious macro and micro problems---yes, but I can't do it if I have to fight cheese or rush at the same time. Perhaps the trick is: macro is important once you defeat cheese and 1base rush. But that's meaningless. It's like saying, macro is not important, learn to counter cheese first. | ||
|
Monkeyballs25
531 Posts
The latter can be very effective for someone who needs all their mental focus for macro and army control. It might get hard countered now and then, but hopefully not too often. | ||
|
Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
A smart player in a lower league shouldn't ask about compositions or strategy, they should ask about the basic idea behind a matchup, then focus on getting their macro up. Whether you go ling infestor, ling/bling/muta or massroach doesn't matter in ZvT in silver, as long as your macro is good any "generally decent plan" works perfectly fine, so all you really need to know is what the general idea in the matchup is. | ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
On April 08 2012 21:44 boppel wrote: too bad there is no ignore function on this forum, never read so much shit form one person (belial) stay free thx for completely fucking up what i posted and putting words in my mouth which i never spoke out You made the most inane comment I've ever heard. "if you go into a game without a plan u lose no matter the league". Really? You don't say. What does that even mean. What does that even mean... it's such a meaningless comment. Everyone on ladder has seen a pro game and has a general plan of what to do - make shit, expand, get certain tech out, expand. Your comment shows exactly what is wrong with low level players who are arguing against the 'macro better' idea. You make it sound as if you have some great strategy, and that's why you lose games, but I guarantee 99.9% of the time, if you submit a replay of you losing a game, it's because you lost because of basic macro mistakes. Not strategy, not plan. I mean, I've seen some people do some pretty bad builds, but these bad builds are always the result of bad macro (8 gate where gates planted at 9:00 mark, etc, with no blink or upgrades behind it, etc). | ||
|
teamsolid
Canada3668 Posts
On April 08 2012 23:27 aggu wrote: Game 5. TvP 9:50 at my ramp with 2 immo, 3 sentry, 5 stalkers; I had bunkers but he forcefielded in some way so that my SCVs couldn't repair. His attack failed, then he attacks into my main with warp prism and to expo at the same time. I won for some reason. And here's another problem. You can say: just macro better and you will have more units at 5:00, 6:00, 7:00. But the problem is, when a 1base rush or cheese is coming, I can't macro normally. It distracts me so much if I have to repair bunkers, have my troops all shooting or retreating, building new bunkers. So if you watch those games, you will find a ton of hilarious macro and micro problems---yes, but I can't do it if I have to fight cheese or rush at the same time. Your anecdotes are in fact perfect examples of how just improving macro will get you out of bronze. How exactly were any of the above games you mentioned cheese? Like you stated, his "1-base rush" came at 9:50 with only 2 immo/3 sentry/5 stalkers. You could have made enough units to defend this push by the 6-7 min mark easily WHILE expoing if you had improved your macro. How exactly does an incoming rush 3 minutes later "distract you" from macroing the previous 6 minutes or the next 3 minutes? And then you can take it one step further. Once you are able to macro up an acceptable amount of units by the 6-7 min mark on one base, you'll have enough forces to crush your opponent's. Therefore you can repeat the same strategy and go on the offensive instead of just purely defending and easily rank up in leagues. To the OP: I think strategy combined with macro is important once you hit diamond or above, but macro alone will easily get you from bronze to plat. | ||
| ||
