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Hi!
I think I can help with the discussion. By my job (researcher in Didactics of Mathematics) i know some things about strategy in Mathematical Problem Solving.
There are 2 concepts involved: actions and strategies.
An strategy (as someone said before, using the dictionary) is a general plan. In SC2, it could be to play rush, make an initial push or try to defend to make a big army and then attack. you must choose 1 of thee options at the beginning of the game.
But then there are the actions, that are the exactly way you perform the strategy. You can rush by make a 6pool or 8pool, it's not the same thing. These are 2 different actions to develop a plan.
Then, I think there is strategy at every level. The difference between players is how to make the actions play well. It's not only a macro/micro discussion.
Another important thing is the way people can change their plan to adapt to the actual game. If you rush and the other defense well, you must change your strategy in-game. And that's not easy.
I'm platinum player. I'm not a good player because I'm very slow (40-50 apm) and my opponents usually have 80-90 apm, but I can equal them by a good study of what I wanna do. Then, I try to use the better strategy for my kind of game (studing my limitations) and I think it works for me.
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Hi there.
Here goes my first post, so I guess i've to say something about me: im a wooden league player with an incredible record of 50 apm and, like the rest of mortal people, i have a w/l rate of +-50%. I use to play terran (Blood, Rock & dust).
Saying that, and talking from my own experience (this threat is about low leagues players) I must say that i noticed some improvement in my game since i listen to Day 9 saying "[...]But it does not mater, because HE IS A MAN WITH A PLAN [...]" in some funday Monday. Since then, i always try to have a plan and work arround it. This makes me have a clear idea of what i need. Maybe im not following the right path to reach my objetives, but not building "random" structures (oh! hell, he got this stuff & i need to counter it... how?), or making "random" moves arround the map (he can be here... oh! whait, here! no... hum.. here!), made me improve my macro aswell my micro.
I notice (at least is my experience) that having a clear idea of what you want you lost less time & resources in stuff you really dont need. Hope timing attacks & map controll comes with experience (hell, my 4 hellions drop never come in time with blue flame, i should work arround it).
my 5 cents.
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A basic plan (even if it is pure macro) is a strategy.
So yes, it is important.
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On April 11 2012 13:36 HelloAnnyong wrote:
jEcho got his new account to Master league today by massing lings in every matchup.
Destiny got his smurf to Plat+ by massing queens.
Gonna go ahead and say that no, strategy doesn't seem to be very important.
Let's rephrase those(I assume both players have their main account in Grandmaster)
Using a poor strategy causes you to drop a league.
Using an absolutely terrible strategy causes you to drop 3 leagues.
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you dont need strategy.
what is useful is a standard 2 base opener, but its not even needed.
all you need to do is
a) constantly build worker - that means, RLY constantly till you have 50 on 2 base. never stop, not for a second.
b) spend that money, never float more than 500 minerals and 300 gas WHILE going up to 50 workers by building enough production facilities. dont spend too much on static defense, it wont help you to attack and its not rly well spent money in most cases (1-2 bunkers are ok).
if you do this, there is no way you can be rushed or your opponent will have more units at any time, cause your macro is simply superior. The mistake most ppl do is stopping to build workers cause they are feared which leads into less units AND less workers 1 minute later.
€: i went to high master with both, terran and zerg just by building marines / roachling on 1 or 2 base.
strategy is not even secondary till you reach master.
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I imagine there are some people in bronze/silver who have not heard of TL or build orders. I myself was purely an SCLegacy guy and just joined TL when I stepped into Gold. I did not know how important macro/micro/mechanics in a game.
All that was in my mind climbing bronze/silver was:
Gameplan
Gameplan
Gameplan
I wasn't using the keyboard much, and the build orders that I used I just pulled out of my ass.
I played protoss like terran, basically researching warp gate AFTER I got 4 gates. My gateways were hotkeyed to 6 and I "chrono-pumped" units. Only researching warpgate if I was gonna use it for offensive reinforcement later on.
I survived PvP by using fast zealots, and was doing OK PvZ and PvT, watching my enemy composition and adjusting my Zealot/Stalker ratio.
I got into high silver.
Then, 4 gate started to become popular and the zealot build time was nerfed. I started dropping in rank and was basically forced to learn build orders instead of using my homemade ones.
So I guess, up to a point you can get to high silver with your own strategies alone. But, at a certain point, if you want to get higher you have to:
1. Learn standard builds
2. Learn the proper way to play (mechanics/macro)
Basically I see it like this.
1. Bronze/Silver - You can choose between strategizing or playing better. A rush is a strategy, you can consistently win with it in these leagues. You can start playing decent and improve your macro/mechanics and not think of strategies etc and just out build your opponents -- you will also consistently win. But, since you are in such low leagues, anything might work.
2. Gold to Diamond - You cant just strategize anymore. Everyone is trying to perfect their macro/micro/mechanics. So you have to do so as well to compete.
3. Masters/GM - These guys probably got macro/micro/mechanics down. To a point that they all are just pushing how fast and how good they execute things at the same high level. So, strategies win them games. Whoever can out scout can capitalize on their macro/micro/mechanics.
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Strategy is important in all leagues, and, to be honest, the vast majority of strategy in even the highest levels of play are fairly broad in spectrum.
Have a game plan until you're breaking into Master league (or Diamond KR), that's when you start to hammer out builds and map focuses.
^As such is the tip of the iceberg in strategy.
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On April 11 2012 14:29 rauk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2012 14:11 GoldenH wrote:I've currently been demoted to plat. I macro pretty well: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=12864737I play against my cousin who is in gold. His macro has become very good. His builds are better than mine when I offrace. But I still roll him because he is not aggressive enough. IMO aggression is the only skill of note from gold-GM. Your macro and micro will naturally become better as you try and be more aggressive, because being aggressive takes a lot of attention to detail and APM; understanding the map, the capabilities of your army and your enemy, knowing what your momentary advantage is and how to best take advantage of it. that's kind of like saying "the only skill required is to be good at the game" since you're including everything in "aggression."
Hardly, knowing what to do, how to do it, and actually doing it are very different skills.
making units and a-moving them is the only real skill you need. my mouse broke and i played my diamond friend with touchpad for shits and giggles and won both the games we played.
Hey now I can still get 80 APM with my touchpad 
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On April 11 2012 17:48 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2012 17:06 [F_]aths wrote:
I think one of the issues here is that many players, especially lower league players like me, prefer to win with a clever strategy. If feels good to outsmart the opponent. Having good mechanics feels lame because those no-RL-kiddies which play all day long will beat you with mechanics while they don't apply any clever strategy at all. Or they just play standard, where is the fun in that?
Another issue probably are the countless guides and VODs which leave the impression that the right strategy will give one good chances to win. Those guides also lead to the impression that reading / watching guides improve the play.
Every time I embrace the macro and mechanic improvement advise, I improve my play, but too often I fell back to plan out clever strategies ... which gets crushed because he has more stuff.
But the issue with "macro better" or "work on your mechanics" is: "Okay, dude, you need to actually commit yourself to tiresome practice instead of enjoying the game." Yeah exactly, I mean it depends on how you view the game and what aspirations you have. Some people are perfectly happy to play like you say, and do things that strike them as cool, others want to maximise their ability to play the game.
Playing the game how you want is fine, but this is like a boxer saying he wants to work on his post victory dance and anyone who tries to have good cardio is lame. It's a game, and you should have fun, but the fundamentals are fundamental for a reason. Beating someone because you have better fundamentals isn't lame and doesn't mean you spend all your time practicing. That would imply that time spent is the same as skill for everyone, which just isn't true. Having better fundamentals is being better at the game in most cases.
Outsmarting people in the lower leagues tends to mean doing something very risky that you hope your opponent has never seen before or just plays poorly against. Doing so may be fun, and by all means, do it when you want to play around. Just don't treat it as though this is somehow more legitimate or more important than basic skills.
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On April 08 2012 19:06 Sianos wrote:
Yeah i agree with you that Macro is super important and that you have to be aware of that. But i want to direct this discussion more into that way:
When a low level player ask for help, the common answer is just macro better. It´s not a real goal that you can aim for. Wouldn´t it be a good idea to ask about his strategy and give him tips on that? I mean the way you build you production/upgrades etc has a lot to do with your strategy. When you allow your opponent to get to 3 Bases up, the order in which you Upgrade/ add aditional tech etc. changes because of another goal. Wouldn´t it be more helpfull instead of just saying Macro better?
I remember a post from a several months ago where a mod was encouraging higher level players to also comment on the choice of strategy despite macro faults in lower level players. The strategy advice could be helpful since the player may be trying to, say, build attacking units and tech off too few expansions or workers. Their macro could be ok (relatively speaking), but they chose to attack into, say, a siege line and died when it would have been better to sidestep the advantage and attack elsewhere. Saying this is far more helpful than "macro better", because honestly, who couldn't macro better?
To answer your original question, strategy isn't that important when you're in bronze/silver. My girlfriend is somewhere in "high bronze" and whenever I watch any of her games both players just do whatever they want. However, her poor macro is usually MUCH better than her opponents leading to a victory. I have a friend in low masters who made his way through platinum and diamond by maxing on roach/hydra as fast as possible and all-ining every zvz. His macro won him the games, but that hardly works anymore since his opponents macro a lot better than before.
I can't speak for gold league, but I've been in Platinum for a while and strategy is a lot more important than players in higher leagues think. I played a protoss recently who did an FFE and opted for some early void rays. He never attacked and I knew I had a window, so I ran in with ~160 supply of roach/hydra/ling at 12.5 minutes (slightly behind the benchmark of the Ret replay I've been copying). From the replay I saw that I had 70 supply more than my opponent. However, using terrain and some very well-placed forcefields the battle ended in their favor. I maxed after about 90 more seconds and attacked again. This time their victory was more decisive despite my HUGE supply lead. The toss then made a deathball and won the game, even though I macro'd WAY better than they did. To be fair, I usually win the games where I'm macroing well and have ridiculous supply leads, but close to half my games are against cheese and all-ins where defending properly is an iterative trial and error process in tandem with good scouting and macro.
Here's my point: pure macro won't always win the game for you in platinum. In fact, it's downright frustrating when you know you macro'd WAY better than your opponent and they win with a clever strategy you've never seen before or a blind hard counter. Strategy is a necessary component to success, but it is oftentimes difficult to learn. Therefore, it is wiser, especially for lower league players, to focus on macro mechanics while experience over time and through pro replays/casts will aid with strategy.
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I wouldnt worry about winning, losing, or strategy. Just play the game how you enjoy playing it. Make your own build if you dont like the "pre made" ones.
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i would say the average masters player can beat any lower league player using only one unit (given the lower-league player doesn't just all in)
for me personally, i got the major ideas in terms of strategy by the time i was consistently high in diamond. after that it comes down to macro.
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Nice! Only watched the first game so far, but it was a blast.
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being a low master's I've found that saying just macro or watch your timings is a great way to to help low leaguers that are having trouble with the basics when do I want workers..etc, etc. and just say A move your army and continue build more, but I think the biggest problem for early leaguers, is giving up that micro for just a second to macro up and continue micro'ing after, thats why I tell my gold league friends to true aggressive builds that take my multi-tasking, b/c I think that is really what is the problem at low levels doing more than 1 thing at the same time
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You can improve your game in any way, improving tactics or improving your performance of those tactics. I don't think it's really possible to make useful statements about which to focus on is better in lower leagues. I think in general mechanics are much more important then strategy in this game regardless of the level you're at.
Ofcourse there are ways to somewhat sidestep the tactical part of the game by simply doing an effective aggresive strat in each matchup and focussing on perfecting that. That's a very viable tactic for ladder up till high masters basically and one way you could argue that mechanics are more important then tactics, but in general i think both are worth improving with mechanics being the more important one.
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On April 12 2012 04:22 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Nice! Only watched the first game so far, but it was a blast.
Hah yeah it's pretty funny! I actually just pulled off 2 base mass viking vs a Diamond Terran, and he got super super mad. He asked me if it was the new Terran play, and when I told him no, he said "well fuck it" and logged off. lol.
http://www.filedropper.com/daybreakletvtvikingrage
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On April 11 2012 17:53 rauk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2012 17:06 [F_]aths wrote:
I think one of the issues here is that many players, especially lower league players like me, prefer to win with a clever strategy. If feels good to outsmart the opponent. Having good mechanics feels lame because those no-RL-kiddies which play all day long will beat you with mechanics while they don't apply any clever strategy at all. Or they just play standard, where is the fun in that?
Another issue probably are the countless guides and VODs which leave the impression that the right strategy will give one good chances to win. Those guides also lead to the impression that reading / watching guides improve the play.
Every time I embrace the macro and mechanic improvement advise, I improve my play, but too often I fell back to plan out clever strategies ... which gets crushed because he has more stuff.
But the issue with "macro better" or "work on your mechanics" is: "Okay, dude, you need to actually commit yourself to tiresome practice instead of enjoying the game." people who just want to enjoy the game instead of practicing shouldn't complain about not getting better.
They will get better, but very slowly. I think many folks out their consider themselfves a gamer who plays the game, not someone who needs to show off a high ranking. If you tell them the truth about macro and mechanics, you shy them away since they realize they cannot left the building probe at the last pylon, they need to move it back to mining only to pull another probe five seconds later.
When I play a 2v2 with such guys, I need to carefully suggest small adjustments. If I demand that he devotes himself to practice on his mechanics, he would abandon the game right away.
There is a problem, though. As I know from my own experience, I judge my own understanding way to high while in fact I am very incompetent about the topic. The advise to improve mechanics and macro over planning out a good strategy sounded very strange for me, I just ignored it for a long time. It was only some weeks ago where I experienced myself how much a zerg can produce off three bases.
Tips and hints for beginners should be short and precise in my opinion. Day[9] talks an hour about mechanics – much too much for a real newbie.
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On April 10 2012 21:18 Belial88 wrote:You don't have ZvP where toss goes FFE, has to scout if zerg takes third, then toss does sentry/zealot wg pressure, which zerg must get roaches and creep for, and then zerg gets map control to deny third, then toss gets third, then zerg gets mutas while toss has stronger army, and then zerg must keep toss in his base while he gets broodlords before the push. You will *never* see a game go like that in diamond.
Sorry, but I call bullshit. I've played games very like that in silver and gold*. More players would pay attention to your advice if you didn't make assumptions about what goes on in lower leagues. Even if your advice applies (which it does) it makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about.
What I'd rather you say is "Macro is one of the foundations of good play. Strategy is another, but as it happens you can get most of the benefit of good strategy by just plugging in one of these. You can't plug in good macro, so focus on that as far as learning goes."
If you wanted to go a step further you could say:
"When you're playing games at a low level it'll look like you're losing for a million different reasons. But a lot of the things you screw up, you wouldn't even get the chance to screw up if you had more stuff, sooner, and kept up production at all times instead of getting distracted. Concentrate on that, and you'll find that the laundry-list of things you think need to learn 'right now' shrinks to something much more manageable, because you'll only be losing to equally well-executed strategies that actually counter yours, rather than those and the ones your strategy should beat."
*For clarity: I'm not saying they were immaculate examples of the scenario you're talking about. What I'm trying to explain is that while anyone can look at a game and say "Well sure, if I had half again as much stuff at time X I'd have won" (which is what master-level players dicking around with mass stalkers/vikings looks like) that degree of improvement can seem unrealistic to players like me. It's not as intuitive to look at a game and say "If I'd had just a bit more stuff at time X, he'd have killed zero SCVs instead of five, he wouldn't have been able to drone as hard, and I wouldn't have needed to worry about a broodlord/ultra switch fifteen minutes later - thus I should forget about broodlord/ultra switches and work on getting a bit more stuff at time X."
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On April 13 2012 17:15 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2012 17:53 rauk wrote:On April 11 2012 17:06 [F_]aths wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I think one of the issues here is that many players, especially lower league players like me, prefer to win with a clever strategy. If feels good to outsmart the opponent. Having good mechanics feels lame because those no-RL-kiddies which play all day long will beat you with mechanics while they don't apply any clever strategy at all. Or they just play standard, where is the fun in that?
Another issue probably are the countless guides and VODs which leave the impression that the right strategy will give one good chances to win. Those guides also lead to the impression that reading / watching guides improve the play.
Every time I embrace the macro and mechanic improvement advise, I improve my play, but too often I fell back to plan out clever strategies ... which gets crushed because he has more stuff.
But the issue with "macro better" or "work on your mechanics" is: "Okay, dude, you need to actually commit yourself to tiresome practice instead of enjoying the game." people who just want to enjoy the game instead of practicing shouldn't complain about not getting better. They will get better, but very slowly. I think many folks out their consider themselfves a gamer who plays the game, not someone who needs to show off a high ranking. If you tell them the truth about macro and mechanics, you shy them away since they realize they cannot left the building probe at the last pylon, they need to move it back to mining only to pull another probe five seconds later. When I play a 2v2 with such guys, I need to carefully suggest small adjustments. If I demand that he devotes himself to practice on his mechanics, he would abandon the game right away. There is a problem, though. As I know from my own experience, I judge my own understanding way to high while in fact I am very incompetent about the topic. The advise to improve mechanics and macro over planning out a good strategy sounded very strange for me, I just ignored it for a long time. It was only some weeks ago where I experienced myself how much a zerg can produce off three bases. Tips and hints for beginners should be short and precise in my opinion. Day[9] talks an hour about mechanics – much too much for a real newbie.
Well I don't think Day9 is aimed at beginners, more like intermediate+ There's other people that do intro tutorial videos that are both shorter and easier to follow for a newbie.
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On April 12 2012 11:07 LavaLava wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2012 04:22 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Nice! Only watched the first game so far, but it was a blast. Hah yeah it's pretty funny! I actually just pulled off 2 base mass viking vs a Diamond Terran, and he got super super mad. He asked me if it was the new Terran play, and when I told him no, he said "well fuck it" and logged off. lol. http://www.filedropper.com/daybreakletvtvikingrage
Replay file isn't working. The TvZ was fun though. Poor poor hydras and overlords.
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EPT
