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I would appreciate it if you tested this out yourself, or at least read the document on TheLevels or watched some VODs that explain the way they work before criticizing the method. Both are at www.twitch.tv/thejakatak That being said:
All you need to get into gold is your first unit, and macro. That's 40% of all Sc2 players.
The new unit is the focus of each round(edit). The idea is to explore it as much as possible, feel out what it does, understand how it works. And that unit is not arbitrary. Each unit is selected based on a number of factors:
Tech Tree - How much extra buildings will be necessary to make this unit available? Too many things at once will overwhelm the player.
Win Power - What is the potential of this unit to generate wins and build confidence for the player? This is why the colossus is on an earlier round that the immortal.
Combination - How well will this unit work with the units that have already been unlocked?
Upgrades are not constricted. That means you can get any upgrade that your building constraints will allow, for instance, a zerg player with an extractor, evo chamber and a spawning pool can get 2/2 upgrades because the buildings allow it. They can also get the roach upgrades, but cannot get 3/3 because they have yet to unlock the infestation pit.
Also you are using the definitions of level and round backwards. The round is the set of units and buildings you are allowed to build. The level is the difficulty level, or set of benchmarks necessary to move on to the next round. When all rounds of a certain level are reached, you move on to the next level.
The plan is that Level 1 will take you from Bronze to Plat, Level 2 from Plat to Diamond, and Level 3 from diamond to Masters. In my tests I am mid level 1 and at the edge of Platinum already. Again, this project is early in its development, we don't have years of data to back us up. Give it some time, and you will see the power of this method.
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I would appreciate it if you tested this out yourself, or at least read the document on TheLevels or watched some VODs that explain the way they work before criticizing the method. Both are at www.twitch.tv/thejakatak That being said:
I obviously read TheLevels, how could I criticize the unlock order of the units without taking a look?
Don't you agree that it's possible to question the design/give helpfull advices without having tested the stuff yourself? After all you give advice how to become a better player without having finished TheLevels yourself. It's basically untested theory after all.
All you need to get into gold is your first unit, and macro. That's 40% of all Sc2 players.
Sounds like a baseless claim.
Ex) After beating Level 1 Round 12 (1.12) (1.14 for Protoss, 1.11 for Zerg), the next challenge is Level 2, Round 1. (2.1)
So after you played atleast 35+ games you start with Zealot-Monobattle again, just to start Microing them? Sounds like a huge waste. (Atleast 50+ games till you may build Observer by the way.)
The new unit is the focus of each level. The idea is to explore it as much as possible, feel out what it does, understand how it works. And that unit is not arbitrary. Each unit is selected based on a number of factors:
...
The new unit is the focus of each round *cough*.
I doubt that player will "feel out what a unit does" or "understand how it works" when they aren't allowed to micro it (Mutas, Hellions, Reaper, Banshee, Siege Tank...). Guess Level1 should be shorter and player who know what the units are doing are only forced to play more games (with a handicap) without learning anything new but to keep Macroing. I know that's the focus of your project but I doubt that handicap is necesary for the most player (after they made some progress) and will only let them lose more games than they should.
Upgrades are not constricted. That means you can get any upgrade that your building constraints will allow, for instance, a zerg player with an extractor, evo chamber and a spawning pool can get 2/2 upgrades because the buildings allow it. They can also get the roach upgrades, but cannot get 3/3 because they have yet to unlock the infestation pit.
There is only a short notice about upgrades in that file. You want to teach the weakest player, but you don't show them how important upgrades are and didn't include them as part of the practice.
... Again, this project is early in its development, we don't have years of data to back us up. Give it some time, and you will see the power of this method.
We won't find out unless we test it statistically with atleast 3 groups (Playing a lot but however they want; Build Order focused; handicapped Macro style). However we might be able to point out flaws.
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... Again, this project is early in its development, we don't have years of data to back us up. Give it some time, and you will see the power of this method.
We won't find out unless we test it statistically with atleast 3 groups (Playing a lot but however they want; Build Order focused; handicapped Macro style). However we might be able to point out flaws.
I'd say the majority of us aren't all that interested if his method is "better" or "worse" than the way you and I learned Starcraft. In the end improving at Starcraft is all about the player and not the system. Jak has a number of players who see value in the levels or rounds or whatever you call them. Be happy for them and wish them the best. You main criticism hinges on that this method is not "as good" as copying a build and perfecting it. I largely agree with that sentiment, but only a minority of people who play Starcraft will find that appealing. Don't forget the majority of people who play sc2 will probably never queue up a 1v1 ladder game. In 2010 I taught my brother no stranger to gaming the uber simple Terran 3 Rax. I helped him get from bronze to silver. When he got the promotion to silver he quit telling me that this 1v1 stuff is too complicated and to let him know when hots comes out so he can play the campaign.
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Dude, i seriously admire your dedication to continue producing episodes while getting mostly below 50 views on average on your YT Channel.
I won't question your teaching abilities, because i honestly havent seen much of your videos yet, they may be very good for all i know.
But what i think really lacks is your marketing. In fact, its quite terrible.
First of all, in the very beginning of your introduction you state that you quit your job, which translates to: "i want to make this my main source of income." Which means you approach this project as a buisness.
So, your businessmodel is: teaching the absolute newcomers how to improve. That is the service you are offering, right?
For every professional service the customers want credibilty. Be it a hairdresser, car mechanic or a teacher. To get customers to buy your service, you need to have credentials. I think thats the first point you are lacking, because beeing in gold with three accounts is really no good credentials in the starcraft world.
The next point is transparency of your business. People get suspicious if they wonder "where is the catch?". You market yourself as the guy who is super patient and has this awesome vision and developed this special method and is basically the "Mother Theresa" of starcraft (exaggeration!). That is the second point that i think is severely lacking. The first concern every customer will have is, how do you sustain yourself with that? At which point of the business process will i be charged for the service i am getting?
The third point is market analysis. So your market niche is addressing the absolut newcomers. I myself think that is a very suboptimal customer group to approach. This is because of multiple reasons:
1) most of your possible clients are very casual gamers, who do not even strive for improvement that much.
2) There is a ton of free material for everybody to check out.
3) The best thing to do to get out of bronze is just play a bunch of games and follow very simple guidelines (make workers, keep money low, don't get supplyblocked, use hotkeys). No need of external coaching, really.
4) The market is overly saturated with free coaches, help forums and so on (kinda similar to point 2).
5) There is also this omnipresent figure in this area, which is called day9.
Summing this all up is why you get so much headwind for your dedication and so "little" success. Because it just doesn't seem to be a legit businessmodel to an external observer like me. It all grounds on the fact, that you stated you quit your job and go full dedication mode on this. It would be very different if you wouldn't to this full time.
I really hope you can establish yourself, because i really think eSports needs more guys like you who are so passionate. But i also really think that passion alone isn't enough. You need to be aware of the business side of things to make something like this work.
So long 
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MstrJinbo United States. September 14 2012 22:05
You main criticism hinges on that this method is not "as good" as copying a build and perfecting it. I largely agree with that sentiment, but only a minority of people who play Starcraft will find that appealing.
I didn't try to promote Build Order focussed learning. My main criticism is that TheLevels might cause a lot frustration:
- in the early rounds you will lose many games cause you won't have detection, anti air, can be hard countered and outteched
- it forces you to play worse than you could (decision making, micro, multitasking)
- you don't have access to units you like or need
- you lose all your tech once you reach level 2 or level 3...
Others:
- "macro macro macro" is atleast for me not the most fun part of the game (understanding what's happening and reacting to it)
- TheLevels contains stuff which look arbitrary and not intuitive (like getting a Cyber Core but not beeing able to use all new units; separating Micro and Mutlitasking - Unit control)
Guess I might have promoted other styles of training indirectly cause my criticism shows off that there might be a lot of points which make this method time inefficient and less rewarding while training it (less victories)...
Starcraft 2 is a game and games should be fun. When you train it, it should remain to be fun and not cause frustration because of the choosen learning method.
JaKaTaK United States. September 14 2012 11:59
Again, this project is early in its development
Because it is still in development I thought feedback and ideas might be welcome to improve the system. My main focus wasn't to make people stop using it yet. (<- still not/so far; my English is bad obviously)
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Add: It occured to me, that my post lacked constructivity so here is what i would do if i were in your shoes:
First of all i would emphasize much more on the fact, that you saved up money to do this, and you do not rely on payment or ad revenue and that your service is genuienly free (at this point of time).
Then i I would write down the JakaTak-Method(tm) step by step and compose a nice PDF file out of it.
Next i would invest all my time into applying your method on yourself. And stream your own progress while using it. Make yourself the living proof that this method works and how far it can get you (optimally to Master League). Leave all newbie coaching aside during this and focus fully on improving yourself.
As soon as you have succeeded in that, you have a much much better standing. You made a decent player out of yourself, you proved your method works and now you can really start coaching. You could make videos about your method for free and maybe sell the .pdf file for a small prize like 5$ or so. You can also charge a small fee for private coaching lessons or something depeding on the demand. You can also try to advertise your service on different layers, like buying a sponsored thread on TL or sth.
At least that is how i would do it
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On September 14 2012 23:54 reapsen wrote:Add: It occured to me, that my post lacked constructivity so here is what i would do if i were in your shoes: First of all i would emphasize much more on the fact, that you saved up money to do this, and you do not rely on payment or ad revenue and that your service is genuienly free (at this point of time). Then i I would write down the JakaTak-Method(tm) step by step and compose a nice PDF file out of it. Next i would invest all my time into applying your method on yourself. And stream your own progress while using it. Make yourself the living proof that this method works and how far it can get you (optimally to Master League). Leave all newbie coaching aside during this and focus fully on improving yourself. As soon as you have succeeded in that, you have a much much better standing. You made a decent player out of yourself, you proved your method works and now you can really start coaching. You could make videos about your method for free and maybe sell the .pdf file for a small prize like 5$ or so. You can also charge a small fee for private coaching lessons or something depeding on the demand. You can also try to advertise your service on different layers, like buying a sponsored thread on TL or sth. At least that is how i would do it
Thank you so much for this second post. Thanks for the first one as well, but when I was done reading and thinking about it, I came to the same conclusion. What would he have me do?
I definitely want to emphasize that I saved up money to do this and do not rely on income from outside, but I also want to stress that my methods and help will always be free. If I am going to keep doing this when may comes around, I will do it with the support of people who choose to support me, either by watching ads or by voluntarily donating/subscribing. Ideally, if I am getting enough donations/subscriptions I won't have to run any ads, but I understand that it may be necessary.
I am definitely considering suspending all coaching and completely focusing on making myself the living proof that the method works. I'll definitely have to talk about it with everyone and see what they think. May as well start here 
Poll: Which programs do you think I should suspend to play more?All of them, Focus completely on proving that the tools work. (13) 57% Mechanics vs Strategy (5) 22% Quest of a Noob (3) 13% Viewer Replay Analysis (1) 4% QoaN & MvS (1) 4% QoaN & VRA (0) 0% Mvs & VRA (0) 0% 23 total votes Your vote: Which programs do you think I should suspend to play more? (Vote): Quest of a Noob
(Vote): Mechanics vs Strategy
(Vote): Viewer Replay Analysis
(Vote): QoaN & MvS
(Vote): QoaN & VRA
(Vote): Mvs & VRA
(Vote): All of them, Focus completely on proving that the tools work.
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Please explain what you are doing in the different programs (all of them) cause I don't know these shortcuts and I am hopefully not the only one :p
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"Quest of a Noob" is a 5 day per week program where we follow the path of 5 players as they work their way through both the ladder and TheLevels. the first half is replay analysis from the week, and the 2nd half is games against volunteer viewers live as they try to apply what they have learned in the replay analysis.
"Mechanics vs Strategy" is a training method in which the Mechanics player must use whatever Level and Round he/she is on to play in a 1v1 game against an opponent who knows exactly what they are doing. This Mechanics focused player's only goal is to pass the Level/Round they are on. The strategy player takes advantage of knowing exactly what his/her opponent is doing and focuses on making good decisions in order to win the game. Each player is focused on a particular part of the game to improve upon and both players can win. This is a 6 day per week program that starts 1 hour into the show.
"Viewer Replay Analysis" is the first hour of streaming and is a 7 day per week program. Anyone may submit replays for analysis and ask my advice on anything in starcraft that does not change. (Basic tactics and strategy as well as all mechanics).
:D
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improving isn't rocket science. rip one build from a kr player and practice it vs cpu until you can do the first ~8 mins it as fast as they can. poof masters
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On September 15 2012 02:43 Alejandrisha wrote:
improving isn't rocket science. rip one build from a kr player and practice it vs cpu until you can do the first ~8 mins it as fast as they can. poof masters
I think you are missing my point. The "only play one build order" method is very boring and "unfun" for many players. The point of TheLevels is to make improving at Sc2 more fun, measurable, and rewarding. Understanding the "Why?" and "How?" questions instead of the "What?" question.
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First time poster, been reading TL for awhile. I'm a bronze noobie who just started playing again. I've never been past bronze, and I've only done my placement matches + a couple games in this season. I've been practicing my basic macro for a couple of weeks, unsuccessfully, because I was just trying to work on a build that I felt comfortable with, but I found that after about six-eight minutes, my macro just went down the toilet. So, unless I had won by then, I was on the way to losing.
I stumbled across this thread and Jak's ideas a couple of days ago, and I've been doing 25+ games since then and I can honestly say, that I understand the basic mechanics (keeping money low, how important it is to avoid supply blocking, not spamming pylons), and after getting to level 3 (I think, added sentries? I'm at work, so I don't have a link to the levels link), I understand what a huge difference implementing those basic macro mechanics makes in just normal gameplay.
I have yet to ladder, because, as people have already stated, I feel that without observer control for vision, I would be at a severe disadvantage to someone who does some banshee/dt shenanigans, or does mass Air or whatever.
Just felt like, with all the higher tiered players bringing the heat to this method, it needs a voice from someone who's tried the "copy a build order and get it down and bam diamond" or whatever. Without getting the basic laws of the game down, you'll be a one-trick-pony and unable to react in the mid to late game phases, and still be unable to keep your money used, supply blocks, etc.
So, Jak, from someone that's used it, it's a lot better than all the "do this build order, grats plat" methods out there.
Good job, and I'll keep you updated on my progress as I go into ladder next week.
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May I ask who the NZ GM player is you were talking about?
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On September 13 2012 08:03 7mk wrote:
So far i only read about one guy who actually got demoted after using your method.
I just got back to this thread after not following it for awhile. I am surprised to see the level animosity towards Jakatak and his approach to learning the game. I don't want to add fuel to that, but since I mentioned getting demoted in one of my earlier posts, I thought I should respond to at least this item. It is not correct to say I got demoted "after using" the method. I got very briefly demoted while using the most basic level of the method. Shortly after making that post, while still working that level, I ranked back up to gold where I had started. I don't believe it is fair to extract this out of my experience and use it against Jakatak's approach. I was not at all concerned with the demotion and I gained a lot from the experience. As I mentioned in that earlier post, right away I was starting to see why a build order is what it is from my own experiments rather than just being told. This to me is far more valuable.
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On September 15 2012 02:56 JaKaTaK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2012 02:43 Alejandrisha wrote:
improving isn't rocket science. rip one build from a kr player and practice it vs cpu until you can do the first ~8 mins it as fast as they can. poof masters I think you are missing my point. The "only play one build order" method is very boring and "unfun" for many players. The point of TheLevels is to make improving at Sc2 more fun, measurable, and rewarding. Understanding the "Why?" and "How?" questions instead of the "What?" question.
Those are excellent goals. The only problem I see is that you seem to be rushing into teaching before knowing in depth. In a game like SC2 where after the very very basics winning depends greatly on decision making, evaluating threat, positioning, knowing your units strengths and limitations on the field, I'd say it's _very_ improbable to gather such deep understanding from a 3rd person theoretical vantage point. It's a whole different ballgame from designing a killer hotkey setup.
On the bright side, since you made the sacrifice of pre-financing 1 year of your life, I'd say you have a golden opportunity to improve rapidly and probably even time to spare to revise your method.
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On September 14 2012 02:20 JaKaTaK wrote:
@sanddbox
What are those quotes from. "The Art of Learning" and "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do"? Or another Bruce Lee book? I'd like to read them if I haven't already :D
From "The Art of Learning" and additional material from the educational program built around it.
On September 15 2012 02:43 Alejandrisha wrote:
improving isn't rocket science. rip one build from a kr player and practice it vs cpu until you can do the first ~8 mins it as fast as they can. poof masters
Yeah, no. This approach is flawed in many, many ways.
Gravve
I have yet to ladder, because, as people have already stated, I feel that without observer control for vision, I would be at a severe disadvantage to someone who does some banshee/dt shenanigans, or does mass Air or whatever.
Do it. That's actually the point of constricting units - you'll be able to develop a much more nuanced understanding of the role of each unit. If your opponent goes dark templar, banshee, etc, you're just going to have to macro like crazy and kill them before they kill you. That's really the hidden beauty of it: in addition to improving your mechanics, the constraints will force you have to (somewhat) think about strategy. One of the fundamental rules of Starcraft, and especially Zerg, is that if you can't hold an enemy push you have to counterattack. That's one of the concepts that you'll start to develop mentally if you play actual games.
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Repsen's thoughts pretty much sum the current issue, which is how to actually monetize your skillset/tools. He's definitely got some solid advice. I'd definitely say the simplest first step is to focus hard on both improving as a player and improving as a coach.
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On September 15 2012 07:49 sanddbox_sc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2012 02:20 JaKaTaK wrote:
@sanddbox
What are those quotes from. "The Art of Learning" and "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do"? Or another Bruce Lee book? I'd like to read them if I haven't already :D From "The Art of Learning" and additional material from the educational program built around it.
Advanced Learning
- Master the Fundamentals
- Learning the Macro From the Micro
- Making Smaller Circles
- Numbers to Leave Numbers
- Bringing it All Together
This is so hilariously fitting.
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On September 15 2012 07:53 Antylamon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2012 07:49 sanddbox_sc2 wrote:On September 14 2012 02:20 JaKaTaK wrote:
@sanddbox
What are those quotes from. "The Art of Learning" and "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do"? Or another Bruce Lee book? I'd like to read them if I haven't already :D From "The Art of Learning" and additional material from the educational program built around it. Show nested quote +Advanced Learning
- Master the Fundamentals
- Learning the Macro From the Micro
- Making Smaller Circles
- Numbers to Leave Numbers
- Bringing it All Together This is so hilariously fitting.
I lolled too as I actually read the section immediately above the one you posted... excerpted from the "Learning the fundamentals" section: (obviously regarding learning to play chess)
"We took on positions of reduced complexity and clear principles. Our first focus was king and pawn against king—just three pieces on the table. Layer by layer we built up my knowledge and my understanding of how to transform axioms into fuel for creative insight….This method of study gave me a feeling for the beautiful subtleties of each chess piece, because in relatively clear-cut positions I could focus on what was essential."
Checkmate methinks?
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EPT
