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I am a silver Toss and have been playing for several months. I've gotten better than I used to be but I feel "stuck" these days where I play at the same level without improving. If I try to practice my macro I get destroyed by early game aggression because I can't micro or scout. If I try to micro and scout my macro slips and my money goes up. I feel frustrated because no matter how many threads I read or videos I watch I can't get any better at this game.
Here is a replay on Entombed vs. T. My macro was a little sloppy because I haven't played in a while (briefly pylon blocked at 18, threw down robo and gateway late) but the point the video is supposed to make is that if I want to play well I have to macro while scouting/microing, but I can't do both. In this case I didn't scout at all (was planning on 16-pylon-scout but I forgot since I delayed the 16 pylon) and played completely in the dark. So when the marines came a-knocking I just gg'd because I knew I didn't have the micro to hold it.
Any help is appreciated. If any of you would offer to "tutor" (eg. look at replays, give a bit of advice) me for a bit, that would also be appreciated.
http://drop.sc/194485
EDIT:
While I appreciate your informative answers, I feel like they don't address the main point. As I said, this was my first game in a while and obviously my macro wouldn't be perfect, and nitpicking on the play isn't really going to do me good since I know my errors already (supply blocked, didn't use hotkeys, didn't scout etc.). The real question I am asking is: how can I eliminate this errors and get better? You could say "macro better" or "use hotkeys" or "scout more" but it us as useless as telling me to "play better"; you're going to have to tell me how I can squeeze all of these elements into my play. It's like telling a kid to "learn to read". They can't do it by themselves and a specific approach to learning is required
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there is a custom map called mulltitasker trainer, it really helps improve with micro and macro multitasking
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Hi, I'm a high gold T so take my advice with a grain of salt.
I saw the replay, and to be honest if you want criticism for improvement you're going to have to upload something a bit more substantial. You've already mentioned a couple of the errors, such as late robo and gateway, and props to you for critiquing your play and wanting to improve.
The major thing I have to add is that you did not scout at all. If you had sent a probe even as late as 4 minutes you would have seen no expansion and a wall-off, which should trigger massive alarm bells. Scouting is SO important because it gives you information, and with this information you can modify your play to come out on top.
Also, not sure if the build you put down was a safe one or not, as I'm not really up to date on my Protoss BOs. What I can say though is that was a terrible time to put down an expo. Whether that's a scouting or a build-order issue I don't know, but if it's the latter, definitely go and spend a whole bunch of time on YABOT (search this term in the custom games). I swear it made such a difference to my play, having the opportunity to familiarise myself with builds.
Lastly, there are heaps of guides here for improving play, just do a forum search and you'll get more than you can handle. I recommend Filter's bronze-to-masters guide, even if it is a little terran-biased, it's amazing for macro and mechanics.
Anyways, good luck with your journey!
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I'm just a platinum terran here but there's a number of problems I see with your play that Protosses in higher leagues don't have. I'll list them numerically.
1. You don't use hotkeys for your buildings. This probably contributes to your poor macro/micro problems.
2. You never had an idea of what your opponent was up to. No information leads to surprises which often leads to losses.
3. You had your gateway idle for a long time before core, with extra money banked which could've been a zealot. You wouldn't had lost anything by building a unit. This isn't a macro problem, it's a build problem.
4. Your multitasking needs a lot of work if you cannot micro a stalker and build things at the same time. I recommend practicing with computers until you can comfortably build probes, units, and tech without looking at your base.
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You lost because your gateway was idle. From the moment your gateway completes until the moment warpgate research has finished, that thing should be pumping out units. Zealot, Stalker, Sentry, Sentry. To hold a 4rax all-in as Protoss you need forcefields. Also, if you poke out with your first Zealot/Stalker, you can get a LOT of scouting information. Primarily how many marines you see.
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top 8 master toss here. you need to always try to have the watchtowers and put 3 or 4 obs spread out over the map vs terran. This makes it easier to macro at ease and not worry about agression at every moment. Also at the lower levels its really all about playing playing and playing some more. Simply massing games will help you attain the mechanics that you need to really rise through the ladder. It will also give you experience vs a variety of builds and tax your play in a ton of different ways.\
As for the replay. you need to first of all scout and then you need to send your stalker outside your base so that you can scout the all in and chrono out a sentry etc.
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I would guess that if you are in silver and playing a reasonable amount, any feeling of being stuck is largely an illusion. You are most likely improving though it may be hard to see. An important thing to remember is that if you macro well, you should be able to hold any silver player's allin play just because you will have more units. People always think of macro as a late game thing but really macro is an all game thing. If you can keep up constant worker and unit production you will not die to early aggression nearly so often. For this reason if you have to choose, chose macro.
tldr: You are getting better! just play and if you have to choose, focus on macro.
edit: spelling
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Watch pro gamer streaming
and watch A LOT 
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You don't need to micro or scout at silver level. You can be fine if your macro is just up to par. I have a thread I'd recommend reading as it should give you some goals. I also have a stream where I do replay analysis and give goals to the players if you want to do that (just send me a message and I'll give you details). I warn you that a lot of it will probably be macro focused. Don't worry about losing to early game pressure when you are working on your macro, if you do just play again. Or better yet, play with a friend until your macro is solid and then you will be fine and won't be losing ladder points.
My biggest advice is don't try to imitate the pros. Just watch your replays after every game and look at 3 things
1. Did I ever get supply blocked?
2. Was there ever a time I wasn't making probes?
3. Was there ever a time I wasn't making units from my gateways when I had the money?
If you answer yes to any of those things, that is why you are losing. Fix those and you will be gold in no time.
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Fixing the Hotkey problem:
Just use them. Think about a "Hotkeysetup" you want to loose every Game. The Hotkeys 1-3 are used for Army. 4 is all of your Nexi and 5-0 is your production buildings grouped together for example: 5 Gateways, 6 Robos, 7 Stargates, 8 Forges etc.
When you have your "Hotkeysetup" force yourself to use this Hotkeys during the Game. If you are afraid, that you can loose Games while learning this just mass up custom Games aggainst an easy Ai. Allways add your new Buildings and Units to your Hotkeys. Practise it as long as you need it. Every Player takes a different Time to be used to those kind of Stuff. Really the answer is just force yourself to do it in Games.
Macro better:
Here the Hotkeys comes into play. During the Game you have to cycle through your Hotkeys to make sure, you are constantly producing anything. Just hit 4,5,6,7,4,5,6,7 etc. and check whether you can build Units or Workers etc. It´s the same here as with the Hotkeys: Force yourself to do this and practise it. You may feel unconfident in the first tries, but once you are used to it it improves your Play a lot. In terms of Supply Block. Look ot the top right of the Screen and see if you are getting close to Supplyblock and then build Pylons to the amount of your Production Buildings. As a general rule you can build 1 Pylon for each 3 producion Buildings after you have build your Units.
Macro Cycle:
From all this you can create your own Macro Cycle. In this Cycle you can cover all the necessary Actions to keep up your Macro. For Example: Hitting 4,5,6,7,8 - look whether you are producing something, after you have produced something look at your Supply, if you get closed to Supplyblock, build Pylons, when your Money get´s high build additonal Buildings and Hotkey them, do something with your army, start with hitting 4,5,6,7,8 again and repeat the Cycle. Practise your Production Cycle over and over again, so that you can do this in almost no time and your Play will improve. Getting better at SC2 is allways about practising the Stuff over and over again until you can do it as fast as you wish.
There are also a hell lot Tutorial Videos on Youtube about the Macro Cycle and Hotkeys, where you can have a guy telling you what to do and why you need to do it.
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If I try to practice my macro I get destroyed by early game aggression because I can't micro or scout. If I try to micro and scout my macro slips and my money goes up. I feel frustrated because no matter how many threads I read or videos I watch I can't get any better at this game.
More emphasis on practice less on reading threads watching videos and you'll be fine. And do not try to practice macro or micro, they are meaningless when singled out. Practice both at the same time.
You could say "macro better" or "use hotkeys" or "scout more" but it us as useless as telling me to "play better"; you're going to have to tell me how I can squeeze all of these elements into my play. It's like telling a kid to "learn to read". They can't do it by themselves and a specific approach to learning is required
Fair enough. But the answer is actually simple, try again and again until you succeed. And you cannot really compare it to learning to read, lots and lots of people "graduate" silver pretty fast or never get there in the first place. On their own.
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On June 09 2012 18:31 Sejanus wrote:Show nested quote +
If I try to practice my macro I get destroyed by early game aggression because I can't micro or scout. If I try to micro and scout my macro slips and my money goes up. I feel frustrated because no matter how many threads I read or videos I watch I can't get any better at this game.
More emphasis on practice less on reading threads watching videos and you'll be fine. And do not try to practice macro or micro, they are meaningless when singled out. Practice both at the same time.
If you're learning how to beat a deathball or having trouble learning hotkeys it's OK to practice micro only in a unit tester with a friend.
Macro-only can be very useful when learning new builds or warming up before laddering. Right before starting ladder games for the day I play a game by myself while spamming 345[spacebar][mouse button 4] over and over whenever I have free time while looking at the minimap as much as possible and keeping my money as low as possible. It gets my hands ready and I can set new APM benchmarks for myself to break the next time I do that.
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@ Fencer: sure thing, there are more ways to learn than one; I just said what worked for me and what would not work for me (likely). And I completely agree on macro-only learning new builds in the first stage; getting rushed while learning completely new build order surely doesn't add much learning value. After you can do build easily when left of on your own, you need to start practice doing it while getting interrupted, true. As for your warming up, it sounds legit as well, I might try it when I start playing again.
But mostly you still need to practice micro while macroing / macro while microing. I doubt this needs much explanation...
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On June 09 2012 14:47 Haustka wrote:Watch pro gamer streaming and watch A LOT
Thats gotta be the least helpful way to improve. Simple answer is macro better isn't it? That is all I remember from Destiny's rant.
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On June 09 2012 18:55 Aeceus wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2012 14:47 Haustka wrote:Watch pro gamer streaming and watch A LOT Thats gotta be the least helpful way to improve. Simple answer is macro better isn't it? That is all I remember from Destiny's rant.
Pretty sure he means to _mimick_ them (the pros). Watch pro first-person streams and try to do everything as closely to what they do as possible - I think that helps a fair bit.
Find a practice partner if you don't want to affect your ladder points, but you need to get out of your comfort zone. When you try to mimick higher level players you might find that you're losing a lot more because you don't have the awareness and apm and end up doing everything even worse than your old play, but imo that's the beginning of progress. Keep doing it, when you start becoming somewhat comfortable doing all those new stuff chances are you'll suddenly realize you've become a lot better.
A simple example: in the early days I was playing I used to send my scouting probe in the enemy base and just make massive numbers of rally points and never look at it again - because my apm was low and I couldn't actually afford to micro the scouting probe. At some point I decided that i was going to micro that probe constantly no matter what, and the result is I forget to get gas, place my cybercore far too late, and so on and lose because of that. But eventually as I got more used to it I started hitting my gas/core/pylons on time while microing the probe, and I was a better player as a result.
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Every day you play pick one thing to work on. Day one make not getting supply blocked your number one priority. Day two make sure you are always building workers (unless your zerg =). Day three micro your heart out with your scout. Day four make sure you never get more money than to build an expansion.
One good excercise that you probably should do atleast once a day until you hit platinum. Play with easy AI opponent. Just do your build. Take expos get upgrades make units. While you micro your first attacking unit in the middle of the screen. No rally points and he can NEVER STOP. Run him between two watch towers or something. Watch the replay check supply block, money, buildings making stuff & how often and for how long is your center unit stopping. It's harder than it sounds.
Most important of all. Stop caring about winning or losing. Start caring about improving and having fun! If you get down on yourself get a few wins against the AI, play some custom map or get some achieve.
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From my personal experience as a player and a teacher i feel that thinking about it ALOT is a good start, dont put so much focus on strategy and instead focus on getting faster and more accurate when you play. Day9 have done alot of dailies focused on improving your mechanics and its a good place to start.
He also did a few brood war audio only casts thats really good. ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=89581 ).
The most important thing is a good mindset and that you seem to have.
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On June 09 2012 12:38 lordsurya08 wrote:I am a silver Toss and have been playing for several months. I've gotten better than I used to be but I feel "stuck" these days where I play at the same level without improving. If I try to practice my macro I get destroyed by early game aggression because I can't micro or scout. If I try to micro and scout my macro slips and my money goes up. I feel frustrated because no matter how many threads I read or videos I watch I can't get any better at this game. Here is a replay on Entombed vs. T. My macro was a little sloppy because I haven't played in a while (briefly pylon blocked at 18, threw down robo and gateway late) but the point the video is supposed to make is that if I want to play well I have to macro while scouting/microing, but I can't do both. In this case I didn't scout at all (was planning on 16-pylon-scout but I forgot since I delayed the 16 pylon) and played completely in the dark. So when the marines came a-knocking I just gg'd because I knew I didn't have the micro to hold it. Any help is appreciated. If any of you would offer to "tutor" (eg. look at replays, give a bit of advice) me for a bit, that would also be appreciated. http://drop.sc/194485EDIT: While I appreciate your informative answers, I feel like they don't address the main point. As I said, this was my first game in a while and obviously my macro wouldn't be perfect, and nitpicking on the play isn't really going to do me good since I know my errors already (supply blocked, didn't use hotkeys, didn't scout etc.). The real question I am asking is: how can I eliminate this errors and get better? You could say "macro better" or "use hotkeys" or "scout more" but it us as useless as telling me to "play better"; you're going to have to tell me how I can squeeze all of these elements into my play. It's like telling a kid to "learn to read". They can't do it by themselves and a specific approach to learning is required
Here are a few tips that might help:
1) Watch MLG today: http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/live#sc2
2) Watch stream of pro players on TL: http://www.teamliquid.net/sc2/
3) Watch your own replays! I did this when I first started way back in gold league when I had ladder anxiety and was afraid to play. Be the master of your own mistakes. Learn from them and adapt.
4) Ask fellow players, higher ranked friends: What works if X?
5) Find a clan and compete with like-minded sc2 nerd ballers
6) Go outside and get some fresh air. (never underestimate fresh air)
7) Make it a competition and try to reach your highest level. Don't be happy until you reach the top of your league or promote further.
8) Go to liquipedia: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Main_Page and check out Protoss build orders
9) HAVE FUN
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Masters terran player here. Going to list in my opinion the most important things you need to fix before the game will start to make more sense for you.
1. Your hotkey setup. You really need to macro you nexus, gateway, robos, and units separate. It will be hard at first but once you get used to it you will have a much much easier time over all.
2. You need to scout. If you don't scout with a probe early on, you will have no pieces of info as to what your opponent could be up to. For instance, if you had gotten into his main you would have seen no gas, plus he didn't hide his barracks or anything so you would have known it was basically just going to be a one base marine all in.
In short, work on your hotkeys and scout. Scouting is beyond important in this game, you will never GET starcraft if you don't try to figure out what your opponent is up to.
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-The real question I am asking is: how can I eliminate this errors and get better? You could say "macro better" or "use hotkeys" or "scout more" but it us as useless as telling me to "play better"; you're going to have to tell me how I can squeeze all of these elements into my play. It's like telling a kid to "learn to read". They can't do it by themselves and a specific approach to learning is required-
to answer this, you will have to find out why you aren't macro-ing better, or why not using hotkeys or why not scouting more.
To fix macro, I tend to review my replay and see what I was doing at the time when my macro slipped.
Was it because I was focusing on an engagement?
If so, did my attention at the engagement actually benefit enough to prioritize over macro? Sometimes a lot of low league players always look at the battle and seemingly try to micro but the micro doesn't actually matter.
For example, my friend would use target fire to pick off some sentries but what he doesn't know is that the difference for that engagement wouldn't matter.
Or was it because I was busying looking at what I am scouting for?
Constant spamming hotkeys really help to solve this one for me. just because your obs is moving around doesn't mean you cannot do anything at the same time.
I have always used hotkeys and so can't help you on that one.
Scout more is a more complicated one. This one requires more experience and can come from game sense.
When I was using my smurf as toss in low leagues, i would always make sentries heavy unit and go for hallucination for scouting.
Some keys area you should always focus is:
Try to look at minimap as often as possible.
Spamming hotkeys. It will tell you which buildings are not making anything. And once you are used to spamming, you will have some sort of a beat to the game. That's one of the fun part of sc2 for me. I spam my hotkeys according to the music tempo.
Macro. Macro and Macro. it might sound harsh but many of the silver games can be won by simply making units like stalkers, upgrades and just a move to win.
Just as one of the day9 daily said, you shouldn't pay too much attention onto what's happening in the center of the screen, it should be resource that you have, the supply (supply limit) and minimap, checking the production facilities production.
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On June 11 2012 02:44 ETisME wrote:
-The real question I am asking is: how can I eliminate this errors and get better? You could say "macro better" or "use hotkeys" or "scout more" but it us as useless as telling me to "play better"; you're going to have to tell me how I can squeeze all of these elements into my play. It's like telling a kid to "learn to read". They can't do it by themselves and a specific approach to learning is required-
to answer this, you will have to find out why you aren't macro-ing better, or why not using hotkeys or why not scouting more.
To fix macro, I tend to review my replay and see what I was doing at the time when my macro slipped.
Was it because I was focusing on an engagement?
If so, did my attention at the engagement actually benefit enough to prioritize over macro? Sometimes a lot of low league players always look at the battle and seemingly try to micro but the micro doesn't actually matter.
For example, my friend would use target fire to pick off some sentries but what he doesn't know is that the difference for that engagement wouldn't matter.
Or was it because I was busying looking at what I am scouting for?
Constant spamming hotkeys really help to solve this one for me. just because your obs is moving around doesn't mean you cannot do anything at the same time.
I have always used hotkeys and so can't help you on that one.
Scout more is a more complicated one. This one requires more experience and can come from game sense.
When I was using my smurf as toss in low leagues, i would always make sentries heavy unit and go for hallucination for scouting.
Some keys area you should always focus is:
Try to look at minimap as often as possible.
Spamming hotkeys. It will tell you which buildings are not making anything. And once you are used to spamming, you will have some sort of a beat to the game. That's one of the fun part of sc2 for me. I spam my hotkeys according to the music tempo.
Macro. Macro and Macro. it might sound harsh but many of the silver games can be won by simply making units like stalkers, upgrades and just a move to win.
Just as one of the day9 daily said, you shouldn't pay too much attention onto what's happening in the center of the screen, it should be resource that you have, the supply (supply limit) and minimap, checking the production facilities production.
I agree with ETisMe. Hotkey spam/configuration is critical. I played brood war since 2000 and made the transition to sc2 when it came out. My hotkeys are exactly the same. When I start a game my fingures start moving without thinking about it - almost unconsciously. You will get the hang of it, it just takes time. The biggest part is changing the way you play (even if it makes you lose more in the beginning). I would recommend downloading a couple Pro replays and looking at their hotkeys and see if that configuration works for you. Some Pro's use all the hotkeys but don't necessary use them all during gameplay. I try to stay away from studying those players. Don't watch Vod's (I find those for more entertainment than learning), replays are better.
I have a reasonably low apm and I play mech. So it made sense that I follow a Pro player similar in style so I studied EscGoody. In the case of Toss, I think WhiteRa is the same - He has a reasonably low APM and not too many hotkeys. For Zerg, Stephano only uses 4 hotkeys. I would suggest finding a player style you like and mimic them.
Note: This post strictly addresses hotkey config. There are many other things to focus on to improve play. But I feel this is the most vital and fundamental parts in learning SC.
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im at the top of my bronze ladder so im just as inexperienced as you but from what i saw you went for a tech heavy build getting the robo up with little units while the terran just one based marines. if you want to continue doing that build make sure to scout or you will always lose to what that terran did. either scout or change your build to something safer where you can play blind in the low leagues relying on macro. im personally following fliters guide bronze to masters. also don't worry right now if you lose to cheese they won't go anywhere in the long run with it.
best of luck
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OP, I think you are trying to avoid hearing the answers, especially when you saying "it is useless to hear that I need to 'macro better'". I know it is a big term, but the fastest way to improve is to pick one aspect of macro to improve, say, in your case, keep up probe production. The more constant your probe production is, the more money you will have for the same amount of time, and you need to start to work on spending your money better. But if your worker production is not consistent at all, keep working on that until it is at least 90% solid. When I switched to zerg from terran last year, for 2 months the only thing I was working on was constant injects, and that alone, put me to platinum league. You just need to sit down and work on one thing, rather than trying to find an ultimate solution and waste time.
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No offense but you lost for a number of reasons that have already been stated. You should accept that everyone here has already told you the exact things you need to improve on to get better.
To do this you play a game and focus entirely on the thing you want to improve, almost to the detriment of anything else.
Things you did wrong this game:
You forgot both your 2nd and 4th pylons. Don't do this. Work on staring at your supply.
You didn't scout - Not that a probe scout would have helped an awful lot in this case, but your first stalker should have been sent to his ramp and you would have seen his attack coming a lot lot sooner which would have helped you prepare better.
You built a zealot as your 2nd unit which is then completely useless. If you insist on teching up to robo on 1 gate you need a sentry. Look on liquipedia for build orders and copy them repeatedly until you can nail the first 10 minutes in your sleep.
Hotkey your buildings. Nexus on one hotkey, gateways on another, and leave 3 easy to access keys for your army.
There I have picked 4 things (and there are several others) that caused you to lose the game you posted, and the italic bits are the exact things you need to do to fix them. Do not get angry with people for trying to help you as they have done exactly what you have asked!
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EPT
