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On September 02 2012 14:07 JaKaTaK wrote:
Respectfully, I think you are wrong. Made it from bronze to gold with 3 accounts in the course of 1 season, while basically starting from scratch with a completely new hotkey layout and mousing with my non-dominant hand, on purpose, to understand what it feels like to be uncoordinated and using my tools. The highest tech unit I've made so far is a roach/stalker/tank for each race respectively and I've not spent any time looking at or learning builds, or strategies. the show has been steadily growing in popularity and we've got a pretty sweet community going on. I accept the challenge to prove you wrong, but for now, I can only tell you what I think.
Gold and below is a joke. I don't know why you would post that as some kind of accomplishment. Anyone who has ever played before should be rolling people in gold because they are that bad. That's why your levels is working for you there.
Outside of beating into someone's head to constantly inject/creep/etc and to not stockpile money, I don't see what good any of this will do. It also makes way more sense to practice doing that in a real game setting with a build order than artificially limiting yourself to one unit.
I still don't understand why you'd quit your job to provide free coaching and what you plan to get out of this. Or why anyone would want coaching from a gold player when there's more skilled players around who don't charge either.
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On September 04 2012 08:40 QuanticHawk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 14:07 JaKaTaK wrote:
Respectfully, I think you are wrong. Made it from bronze to gold with 3 accounts in the course of 1 season, while basically starting from scratch with a completely new hotkey layout and mousing with my non-dominant hand, on purpose, to understand what it feels like to be uncoordinated and using my tools. The highest tech unit I've made so far is a roach/stalker/tank for each race respectively and I've not spent any time looking at or learning builds, or strategies. the show has been steadily growing in popularity and we've got a pretty sweet community going on. I accept the challenge to prove you wrong, but for now, I can only tell you what I think. Outside of beating into someone's head to constantly inject/creep/etc and to not stockpile money, I don't see what good any of this will do.
This is the whole point here. I spent a few days coaching some bronze/silver players as a Diamond Toss, and it's really hard to get them to focus on setting up their macro and production. They are always asking metagame questions like "what do I do when I scout 2 gas Terran?"
In bronze, the answer is make a shitload of dudes and go attack them. In silver, it's to make a shitload of dudes, hotkey your production correctly, and go attack them while producing. In gold, it's to expand, make a shitload of dudes, hotkey your production correctly, get some detection, and go attack them while producing.
Start adding bases and late-game strategy for Platinum.
Worry about composition and timings when you hit Diamond -- you can't practice that in lower leagues.
This method provides a scaffolding on which bronze players can build. I'm not sure why people are criticizing it. Thumbs up to this guy for his positive attitude.
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On September 04 2012 09:15 Deezl wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2012 08:40 QuanticHawk wrote:On September 02 2012 14:07 JaKaTaK wrote:
Respectfully, I think you are wrong. Made it from bronze to gold with 3 accounts in the course of 1 season, while basically starting from scratch with a completely new hotkey layout and mousing with my non-dominant hand, on purpose, to understand what it feels like to be uncoordinated and using my tools. The highest tech unit I've made so far is a roach/stalker/tank for each race respectively and I've not spent any time looking at or learning builds, or strategies. the show has been steadily growing in popularity and we've got a pretty sweet community going on. I accept the challenge to prove you wrong, but for now, I can only tell you what I think. Outside of beating into someone's head to constantly inject/creep/etc and to not stockpile money, I don't see what good any of this will do. This is the whole point here. I spent a few days coaching some bronze/silver players as a Diamond Toss, and it's really hard to get them to focus on setting up their macro and production. They are always asking metagame questions like "what do I do when I scout 2 gas Terran?" In bronze, the answer is make a shitload of dudes and go attack them. In silver, it's to make a shitload of dudes, hotkey your production correctly, and go attack them while producing. In gold, it's to expand, make a shitload of dudes, hotkey your production correctly, get some detection, and go attack them while producing. Start adding bases and late-game strategy for Platinum. Worry about composition and timings when you hit Diamond -- you can't practice that in lower leagues. This method provides a scaffolding on which bronze players can build. I'm not sure why people are criticizing it. Thumbs up to this guy for his positive attitude.
His point is that people can practice all of those things just fine doing a normal build, which is the way most everyone learns how to play the game. His whole "system" seems unnecessary and pointless.
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His system is to master making tier 1 units en masse? It's not that serious of a system. The idea is to drive home the idea that if you're making units and probes and spending money, you're doing it right. Bronzies forget to do this correctly 100% of the time because they are busy doing other stuff. The games spent doing this are in no way wasted.
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On September 04 2012 09:36 Deezl wrote:
His system is to master making tier 1 units en masse? It's not that serious of a system. The idea is to drive home the idea that if you're making units and probes and spending money, you're doing it right. Bronzies forget to do this correctly 100% of the time because they are busy doing other stuff. The games spent doing this are in no way wasted.
From what I can tell his system involves arbitrarily limiting yourself to certain units and buildings at varying tiers until you reach certain proficiency benchmarks. It's cool that the point is to spend all your money and macro well, but that's the point of any actual build. How is this any better than, say, simply learning a real, effective 1 base build, perfecting it, and moving on to more macro oriented builds later when you have the mechanics to do so? It seems like a low level player could waste hundreds of games trying to get through these levels, and on the other side not have much of an idea of how to actually win games. There's a lot more to learning the game than just "spend all your money" and "don't get supply blocked."
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Giving a new player a build to do is more constricting than my system. It basically says, "hey, you're only allowed to do this exact single series of things over and over again until you're good at it, and then, you're going to do that again with a new series of things" Most new players will find this incredibly boring. It stifles creativity, understanding, and exploration of the game.
Find yourself 2 people who have never played sc2 before. Better yet, find yourself 2 people who have never played an rts before. Give one of them a build, and give one of them Level 1.1. 99.9999999% of the time, the player on level 1.1 will crush the player you gave a build order to, will have more fun playing the game, and will start buidling confidence and an understanding of why and how things work. The player that you give a build order to will be overloaded with information, lose, become frustrated, and not understand why or how things work in starcraft 2. I know this works, because I've done it, many times. The issue with most higher level players teaching platinum to bronze players, is that they often times fail to recognize the struggles of the lower level player because it has been so long since they have been there. You don't have to be in the master's league to teach a player mechanics, but you do have to have a basic understanding of educational methods and psychology, human motivation, and patience.
But in all seriousness, go test it out for yourself. Grab a couple of friends who haven't played an rts before, and conduct the experiment. Observe the players before, during, and after they play. Talk to them about the experience afterwards. Forcing people to learn builds early on is a mistake. That's why we lose so many newer players, not because the game is too hard, but we're approaching teaching it in the wrong way.
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On September 04 2012 12:08 JaKaTaK wrote:
Secondly, the biggest issue with very skilled people teaching newcomers to that skill, is that they don't understand the difficulties their student is going through. Maybe because they've never had them, maybe its because its been so long that they don't really remember what it feels like, and therefore have a difficult time helping their student through the struggle.
As a (virtually) brand new player, I want to echo Kronen's from the previous page. I say "virtually" brand new because I played 23 ladder games in season 1, didn't play a single game of SCII for two years, then started playing again about 2 weeks ago.
In season 1, I was laddering and copying pro build orders exclusively, failing miserably at excuting them, and floating 1k resources all the time. Sure, I won every once and awhile, I had something like a 11-12 or 10-13 record in gold league for those games, but I wasn't improving at all and wasn't consistant. I would beat a platinum player one day, then get smashed by silvers the next. Executing a real build order and trying to deal with different types of units just wasn't possible for me. It was like picking up a basketball for the first time and trying to dunk it, or start shooting a bunch of three pointers right away, it just wasn't the correct way for me to learn at that time.
I can't emphasize enough how impossible it is to attempt to complete a basic opening as a new player. When I can't even build a building or train a worker without looking at the keyboard, I couldn't hit any of the needed timings and the build completely falls apart. The most basic things in the world for an experienced player like fiddling around terran building addons took 3-5 seconds for me.
So, this time around, I'm trying to be a lot more organized in the way I learn the game. I'm actually using Filter's video series as a base instead of JaK's, mainly because the way he presents the information makes a little more sense to the way my brain works, but both are very similar from what I can tell; they start off with building marines only, and learning macro extensively before strategy or micro. Apollo's new player videos made a lot of sense to me too, and are also very basic at first. To go back to the basketball analogy, these guys are all trying to teach layups under the basket to start out, which is an important fundamental and much easier to practice correctly for a brand new player (how can you start shooting threes right away if you don't have proper shooting form?).
I'm still a horrible noob, but I've improved a ton in the past couple of weeks, which is a lot more than I can say for my brief season 1 practice. I would have eventually improved if I had kept at it in Season 1, but I can tell for sure already that it would have been much slower than the rate I'm improving now. Despite being told over and over again back then that macroing better is the way to improve as a new player, as others have stated in this thread, I just had no idea how to go about doing that. A benchmark that says "always have 50 SCVs by 10 minutes" did make sense to me, though, and was a realistic goal to shoot for as a new player, but executing a pro build really wasn't.
Focusing on extremely specific skills in practice is done in all games and sports that I can think of, and even at the professional level they don't exclusvely play scrimmages outside of real games, they spend tons of time on very basic drills in practice as well, so I think it's unfair to consider any of these learning systems to be a waste of time. They don't cover most aspects of the game, and I don't believe they intend to, but at least for me they've been a very useful foundation for learning one part of the game as a new player (macro).
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I just tried playing a game with mouse and keyboard hands swapped. Didn't even finish it. Surprisingly even the keyboard with my right hand is horrible, I'm just so used to have keys on the left. Really hard to do.
Isn't it better to mouse with the dominant hand though, for the extra precision? Are you going to switch back after your hand injury heals?
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I have never been a big fan of the whole "lol macro and get better" mantra. Game understanding and mechanics are both very important parts of SC2. IMO the problem with low level (below Gold) players is not mechanics but simply lack of a game plan and/or basic economy based RTS understanding.
Giving them macro exercises will get them wins in the short run but eventually they will run into people who can match them in mechanics and destroy them with better game understanding.
In my experience the best way to improve at SC2 is to ask yourself "Do I have a gameplan?" if no then get one, copying pro builds is a great start. Once you have a gameplan then keep asking yourself "Are my mechanics good enough to execute my game plan to win games?" If no then work on mehcanics and if yes then congrats! You should be winning more games and getting matched against better opponents who will expose the next set of weaknesses in your play. Rinse and repeat. Go from Bronze to GM --> Profit!! As you grind more games, you face more and more situations and your game understanding as well as mechanics imrpove.
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On September 04 2012 12:08 JaKaTaK wrote:
Giving a new player a build to do is more constricting than my system. It basically says, "hey, you're only allowed to do this exact single series of things over and over again until you're good at it, and then, you're going to do that again with a new series of things" Most new players will find this incredibly boring. It stifles creativity, understanding, and exploration of the game.
This is exactly what your levels is—Repeat with these same units until you hit a certain benchmark, continue? Except that your method uses less units, and isn't an actual build which will be useful in higher levels of play as well.
I just see a very limited use this that stuff after couple days of doing the same, extremely basic thing. What you're coaching can very easily be learned through just playing, reading the many guides available (which stress the importance of injection, not getting supply blocked and other basic mechanics), and watching replays of players who are actually good.
You will learn way more in 50 games of hammering away with one build order than you will with 50 games of this.
And I didn't see you answer it anywhere else: why would you quit your job for this, and what is your end goal here? I just don't see how this translates into any type of income.
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On September 04 2012 09:18 Chandra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2012 09:15 Deezl wrote:On September 04 2012 08:40 QuanticHawk wrote:On September 02 2012 14:07 JaKaTaK wrote:
Respectfully, I think you are wrong. Made it from bronze to gold with 3 accounts in the course of 1 season, while basically starting from scratch with a completely new hotkey layout and mousing with my non-dominant hand, on purpose, to understand what it feels like to be uncoordinated and using my tools. The highest tech unit I've made so far is a roach/stalker/tank for each race respectively and I've not spent any time looking at or learning builds, or strategies. the show has been steadily growing in popularity and we've got a pretty sweet community going on. I accept the challenge to prove you wrong, but for now, I can only tell you what I think. Outside of beating into someone's head to constantly inject/creep/etc and to not stockpile money, I don't see what good any of this will do. This is the whole point here. I spent a few days coaching some bronze/silver players as a Diamond Toss, and it's really hard to get them to focus on setting up their macro and production. They are always asking metagame questions like "what do I do when I scout 2 gas Terran?" In bronze, the answer is make a shitload of dudes and go attack them. In silver, it's to make a shitload of dudes, hotkey your production correctly, and go attack them while producing. In gold, it's to expand, make a shitload of dudes, hotkey your production correctly, get some detection, and go attack them while producing. Start adding bases and late-game strategy for Platinum. Worry about composition and timings when you hit Diamond -- you can't practice that in lower leagues. This method provides a scaffolding on which bronze players can build. I'm not sure why people are criticizing it. Thumbs up to this guy for his positive attitude. His point is that people can practice all of those things just fine doing a normal build, which is the way most everyone learns how to play the game. His whole "system" seems unnecessary and pointless.
Saying something is good just because most people do it is the worst argument and is the kind of mentality that stifles innovation.
Since people like the music analogies look at it like this: The current way to learn SC2 is the equivalent of being thrown a guitar and being told "Play a bunch of songs and you'll get better." Everyone that says this already knows how to finger notes and use a pick, so yes, learning and perfecting new songs at this stage is beneficial to increase your skill. But, there are people who don't even know what a pick is, yet people still say "Go play a bunch of songs and you will improve."
If you have ever seen a non-gamer try to play SC2, you will have your eyes opened as to how much you take for granted that people know. This method is a much more systematic way to learn the basics.
Another thing I like about the method is that it does NOT use build orders. It encourages you to make your own build out of a set of limitations that increases as you play more. Who is going to win more, the guy that can follow Stephano's roach max build, but falls apart if he sees a 1-gate expand or someone who understands why Stephano's build works and in what situations? I believe it is better to have experinces why you need X gasses at 6:30 rather than "some dude on the TL forums told me to get X gasses at 6:30."
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Your conclusion about worker rushing meaning 19% of the ladder doesn't know how to attack move is wrong. More than one reason to die to worker rush with attack move, and, people in higher leagues may not know how to attack move.
While I think you're a little low level to be doing this, I wish you luck.
edit: i also don't see the advantage of your 'levels' system versus doing a build order. The fact you don't understand why bo's are important - their optimization and production timing - I think is related to you not being good at the game. If I have 6gates on one base, I won't have much money, but basically 300-450 minerals in gates are not being used.
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On September 04 2012 12:08 JaKaTaK wrote:
Giving a new player a build to do is more constricting than my system. It basically says, "hey, you're only allowed to do this exact single series of things over and over again until you're good at it, and then, you're going to do that again with a new series of things" Most new players will find this incredibly boring. It stifles creativity, understanding, and exploration of the game.
Find yourself 2 people who have never played sc2 before. Better yet, find yourself 2 people who have never played an rts before. Give one of them a build, and give one of them Level 1.1. 99.9999999% of the time, the player on level 1.1 will crush the player you gave a build order to, will have more fun playing the game, and will start buidling confidence and an understanding of why and how things work. The player that you give a build order to will be overloaded with information, lose, become frustrated, and not understand why or how things work in starcraft 2. I know this works, because I've done it, many times. The issue with most higher level players teaching platinum to bronze players, is that they often times fail to recognize the struggles of the lower level player because it has been so long since they have been there. You don't have to be in the master's league to teach a player mechanics, but you do have to have a basic understanding of educational methods and psychology, human motivation, and patience.
But in all seriousness, go test it out for yourself. Grab a couple of friends who haven't played an rts before, and conduct the experiment. Observe the players before, during, and after they play. Talk to them about the experience afterwards. Forcing people to learn builds early on is a mistake. That's why we lose so many newer players, not because the game is too hard, but we're approaching teaching it in the wrong way.
Learning isn't about winning, it's about learning.
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I think if bronze - Gold players would actually play the game....instead of watching and listening to everyone or 10 different people try to help them they will be alot better. Sure it's okay to watch replays of people better..But There some stuff that no one can teach a player...a player must have the mentallity and practice themselves...for example trying to teach someone to hotkey, I can tell them you need to hotkey, but until they actually figure out "Hey, i need to sacrifice some of my skills and speed just to get these hotkeys down even if i lose more games..But i know it will help me in long run" then nothing can really help.
Best practice you can get is from yourself. Not from some program or person telling them everything to do. Of course guidance will help..But lets face it, if your stuck and see not improvement. chances are your not really wanting to try and get better. If you was actually trying to get better you would probably be diamond if you've been playing for like 6months or more.
I mean it's simple...watch pros when they stream..they ladder back to back to back...look at replays of other pros if they want to improve on their style or find something they might like..and watch replays of games they've played to see if they could have won earlier or attack at different time..or things they could have done to prevent from lossing..
Lets face it any Masters or higher player knows... Bronze - Plat is like just do build order correctly and 1st timing attack just runs them over it is that big of a gap..they don't even know how to execute a build order and get rape because their build is bad and so is their macro...which macro can suffer also from a terrible Build order execution.
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EDIT:Best practice you can get is from yourself. Not from some program or person telling them everything to do. Of course guidance will help..But lets face it, if your stuck and see not improvement. chances are your not really wanting to try and get better. If you was actually trying to get better you would probably be diamond if you've been playing for like 6months or more.
Basically what you are saying is, if i'm trying to teach a child how to add and subtract, and they aren't getting it, instead of trying to explain the problem in a different way or ask them what they don't understand about it, I should tell them they aren't trying hard enough and that they don't want it bad enough. Wow...
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On September 04 2012 22:48 QuanticHawk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2012 12:08 JaKaTaK wrote:
Giving a new player a build to do is more constricting than my system. It basically says, "hey, you're only allowed to do this exact single series of things over and over again until you're good at it, and then, you're going to do that again with a new series of things" Most new players will find this incredibly boring. It stifles creativity, understanding, and exploration of the game. This is exactly what your levels is—Repeat with these same units until you hit a certain benchmark, continue? Except that your method uses less units, and isn't an actual build which will be useful in higher levels of play as well. I just see a very limited use this that stuff after couple days of doing the same, extremely basic thing. What you're coaching can very easily be learned through just playing, reading the many guides available (which stress the importance of injection, not getting supply blocked and other basic mechanics), and watching replays of players who are actually good. You will learn way more in 50 games of hammering away with one build order than you will with 50 games of this. And I didn't see you answer it anywhere else: why would you quit your job for this, and what is your end goal here? I just don't see how this translates into any type of income.
The difference between TheLevels and copying a pro build is that you can to a shitload of different stuff with each round. Imagine the number of different builds that exist with just gateway units and upgrades. That's round 4. Instead of being told what to do, the player can choose and experiment with different things, find their own style and more importantly have fun while improving.
Lets say instead we show the same player to do the sentry immortal all-in that is popular right now. By the time they learn how to build all of those units and buildings without looking at the keyboard, learn the pylon timings and get everything to line up nicely the build will be obsolete, and they will be stuck with a useless build and some mechanical ability, and have to start again, hoping that they'll be able to learn the next build fast enough so that it doesn't become obsolete. Also during this time, if they try anything else, they will lose because their build has helped them rank up far enough that its the only thing they can execute properly on a mechanical level that is on par with the people they are being placed against.
So, what if we choose a build that will likely never be obsolete, something like the 4 gate. This build is definitely easier to execute so the new player will learn it faster, however, it will also net a lot of wins, and likely get the player to rank up quickly and we run into the same problem as the method above. We're stuck it a league where the only thing we can do that works is a 4 gate. And tanking our rank while learning a build, or only playing against the AI for a month or more while we learn a new one is a really undesirable thing. I did it, I watched my friends do it, get frustrated and stop playing.
My end goal is simple, make starcraft more enjoyable so that people won't get frustrated and quit early on. That way they can get to the best part of starcraft (IMO) the confidence building, mental exercising, rewarding part of the game. I think that that will translate into income, because I think it is a hole in the Sc2 community that is not being filled right now and is needed. If it doesn't, I gave a year to the Sc2 community and I'm perfectly okay with that.
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On September 05 2012 00:48 JaKaTaK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2012 22:48 QuanticHawk wrote:On September 04 2012 12:08 JaKaTaK wrote:
Giving a new player a build to do is more constricting than my system. It basically says, "hey, you're only allowed to do this exact single series of things over and over again until you're good at it, and then, you're going to do that again with a new series of things" Most new players will find this incredibly boring. It stifles creativity, understanding, and exploration of the game. This is exactly what your levels is—Repeat with these same units until you hit a certain benchmark, continue? Except that your method uses less units, and isn't an actual build which will be useful in higher levels of play as well. I just see a very limited use this that stuff after couple days of doing the same, extremely basic thing. What you're coaching can very easily be learned through just playing, reading the many guides available (which stress the importance of injection, not getting supply blocked and other basic mechanics), and watching replays of players who are actually good. You will learn way more in 50 games of hammering away with one build order than you will with 50 games of this. And I didn't see you answer it anywhere else: why would you quit your job for this, and what is your end goal here? I just don't see how this translates into any type of income. The difference between TheLevels and copying a pro build is that you can to a shitload of different stuff with each round. Imagine the number of different builds that exist with just gateway units and upgrades. That's round 4. Instead of being told what to do, the player can choose and experiment with different things, find their own style and more importantly have fun while improving. Lets say instead we show the same player to do the sentry immortal all-in that is popular right now. By the time they learn how to build all of those units and buildings without looking at the keyboard, learn the pylon timings and get everything to line up nicely the build will be obsolete, and they will be stuck with a useless build and some mechanical ability, and have to start again, hoping that they'll be able to learn the next build fast enough so that it doesn't become obsolete. Also during this time, if they try anything else, they will lose because their build has helped them rank up far enough that its the only thing they can execute properly on a mechanical level that is on par with the people they are being placed against. So, what if we choose a build that will likely never be obsolete, something like the 4 gate. This build is definitely easier to execute so the new player will learn it faster, however, it will also net a lot of wins, and likely get the player to rank up quickly and we run into the same problem as the method above. We're stuck it a league where the only thing we can do that works is a 4 gate. And tanking our rank while learning a build, or only playing against the AI for a month or more while we learn a new one is a really undesirable thing. I did it, I watched my friends do it, get frustrated and stop playing. My end goal is simple, make starcraft more enjoyable so that people won't get frustrated and quit early on. That way they can get to the best part of starcraft (IMO) the confidence building, mental exercising, rewarding part of the game. I think that that will translate into income, because I think it is a hole in the Sc2 community that is not being filled right now and is needed. If it doesn't, I gave a year to the Sc2 community and I'm perfectly okay with that.
I'm so very confused. At what point do builds become obsolete? That implies a build ceases to work/win after a certain period of time.
Also why is tanking your rank to improve undesirable? I regularly do so (going from mid-high gm to high masters mmr) to learn new builds/camera hotkeys/unit hotkeys/focusing on chrono boosting upgrades/splitting templar/perfect allins.
And just curious but in your opinion have you reached the "best part of starcraft" yet?
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On September 05 2012 01:02 Eifersuchtig wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2012 00:48 JaKaTaK wrote:On September 04 2012 22:48 QuanticHawk wrote:On September 04 2012 12:08 JaKaTaK wrote:
Giving a new player a build to do is more constricting than my system. It basically says, "hey, you're only allowed to do this exact single series of things over and over again until you're good at it, and then, you're going to do that again with a new series of things" Most new players will find this incredibly boring. It stifles creativity, understanding, and exploration of the game. This is exactly what your levels is—Repeat with these same units until you hit a certain benchmark, continue? Except that your method uses less units, and isn't an actual build which will be useful in higher levels of play as well. I just see a very limited use this that stuff after couple days of doing the same, extremely basic thing. What you're coaching can very easily be learned through just playing, reading the many guides available (which stress the importance of injection, not getting supply blocked and other basic mechanics), and watching replays of players who are actually good. You will learn way more in 50 games of hammering away with one build order than you will with 50 games of this. And I didn't see you answer it anywhere else: why would you quit your job for this, and what is your end goal here? I just don't see how this translates into any type of income. The difference between TheLevels and copying a pro build is that you can to a shitload of different stuff with each round. Imagine the number of different builds that exist with just gateway units and upgrades. That's round 4. Instead of being told what to do, the player can choose and experiment with different things, find their own style and more importantly have fun while improving. Lets say instead we show the same player to do the sentry immortal all-in that is popular right now. By the time they learn how to build all of those units and buildings without looking at the keyboard, learn the pylon timings and get everything to line up nicely the build will be obsolete, and they will be stuck with a useless build and some mechanical ability, and have to start again, hoping that they'll be able to learn the next build fast enough so that it doesn't become obsolete. Also during this time, if they try anything else, they will lose because their build has helped them rank up far enough that its the only thing they can execute properly on a mechanical level that is on par with the people they are being placed against. So, what if we choose a build that will likely never be obsolete, something like the 4 gate. This build is definitely easier to execute so the new player will learn it faster, however, it will also net a lot of wins, and likely get the player to rank up quickly and we run into the same problem as the method above. We're stuck it a league where the only thing we can do that works is a 4 gate. And tanking our rank while learning a build, or only playing against the AI for a month or more while we learn a new one is a really undesirable thing. I did it, I watched my friends do it, get frustrated and stop playing. My end goal is simple, make starcraft more enjoyable so that people won't get frustrated and quit early on. That way they can get to the best part of starcraft (IMO) the confidence building, mental exercising, rewarding part of the game. I think that that will translate into income, because I think it is a hole in the Sc2 community that is not being filled right now and is needed. If it doesn't, I gave a year to the Sc2 community and I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm so very confused. At what point do builds become obsolete? That implies a build ceases to work/win after a certain period of time. Also why is tanking your rank to improve undesirable? I regularly do so (going from mid-high gm to high masters mmr) to learn new builds/camera hotkeys/unit hotkeys/focusing on chrono boosting upgrades/splitting templar/perfect allins. And just curious but in your opinion have you reached the "best part of starcraft" yet?
Tanking your rank is undesirable for most new players because a lot of the confidence goes into ladder rank. It gives the player a description of where they are and helps them track their progress, by tanking their rank, they lose place of how well they are doing and don't have a tangible way to track progress, which is an important aspect of training a skill.
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To each his own, I say.
I really enjoy the system. I am a very casual player and only really get 4-5 games in on a good night before the wife starts nagging too much. I am high silver at the moment with 0/0 lings, 3 bases, 2 macro hatches and 5 queens. I still get supplyblocked all the time, and still only use one control group. but I am using camera keys, rally cam, I check drone saturations, spread creep.. And most importantly, I am actually having fun doing it!
build order vs 'TheLevels' - I don't really know what is a better way to practice, because it is two different aspects. To continue the music analogy: Learning a build order is like getting an electric guitar and learning 'nothing else matters' by metallica, 'stairway to heaven' by Led Zeppelin or some other well known guitar riff-song. It is cool for what it is, but you still dont know how to play the chords for any single song of someone asks you. TheLevels is more like practicing basic chords and understanding basic music theory. Not as flashy, but probably more beneficial in the long run.
playing with 'TheLevels' has actually cured my ladder anxiety. I don't focus on winning, just on trying to get fluid in my mechanics. Screw ladder rank. I am having fun, and my basics are getting better and better.
The positive attitude and analytical approach to optimization by JaKaTaK is not for everyone, but I am enjoying it! Keep it up Jak!
edit: I had to put this in here too. Kronen says it best:
On September 03 2012 10:24 Kronen wrote:
This guy is a prime example of what SC2 needs: infectious optimism and energy and a tireless dedication to the people who use his product. For fellow noobs, check his stuff out and get involved. It's fun and removes unneeded layers of stress from this complex pursuit.
TLDR; This guy is a good personality and has good content. Actually read/watch before you flame please.
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Well, let's try putting your system to the test? I'm curious to if it really is the most efficient way to learn and get better. If does ill send my friends to your system everytime they want to improve.
Let's do a friendly test
I would be willing to take someone (or several) help teach them and and train them, and put them against a player (or several) on your system and that you help train after 2 weeks or whatever amount of time you will need? We can put them against each other several times as time passes. Just so you have some kind of proof that your system works and is the most efficient? of course both would have to be as close as possible to the same level and skill, before they start your system and i start my system on the other. Look at it as you will get more viewers because they will also want to see if this system can test out just as good? You can make it into one of your shows would be interesting.
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On September 05 2012 02:44 -StrifeX- wrote:
Well, let's try putting your system to the test? I'm curious to if it really is the most efficient way to learn and get better. If does ill send my friends to your system everytime they want to improve.
Let's do a friendly test
I would be willing to take someone (or several) help teach them and and train them, and put them against a player (or several) on your system and that you help train after 2 weeks or whatever amount of time you will need? We can put them against each other several times as time passes. Just so you have some kind of proof that your system works and is the most efficient? of course both would have to be as close as possible to the same level and skill, before they start your system and i start my system on the other. Look at it as you will get more viewers because they will also want to see if this system can test out just as good? You can make it into one of your shows would be interesting.
I like the idea, but it's not a very controlled experiment. Something like going to a public place like a Mall, setting up 2 computers and asking people to try out Sc2, showing each method and then games between the players is something I've wanted to do since the start. You will definitely be seeing something like this in the far future, but for now, you'll just have to listen to the people who have used the system and gotten out of whatever rut they were stuck in with the conventional method.
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EPT
