[G] TheStaircase - An Alternative Improvement Method - Pag…

JaKaTaKSc2

United States2787 Posts

March 24 2014 00:36 GMT

#1201

Unfortunately GGTracker has been unable to find someone to create a GUI for TheStaircase. This may be something we incorporate into tutorialcentral.com. For now you will have to do it yourself. use GGTracker to get the stats you need.

Holannyeong

Spain39 Posts

March 27 2014 12:45 GMT

#1202

Okay, I'm a Silver Zerg scrub that really wants to get to Masters (or minimum Diamond) in a year, and I will start doing this, even though I doubt I will have to win using only zerglings or zerglings+roaches for example lol

Question: do I have to choose the battle units every step (aka set of 5 games) and stick with them no matter what, or can I choose the units before every individual game?

Sorry if the question isn't clear lol.

JaKaTaKSc2

United States2787 Posts

March 27 2014 20:34 GMT

#1203

You can switch up the battle units as much as you like!

Not sure what you mean by "have to win using only zerglings" but I've personally ranked up my smurf accounts to gold on step 1 and plat on step 2 for every race.

htou

Australia11 Posts

March 29 2014 08:02 GMT

#1204

Any tips with base saturations? My scores are hopeless. I can saturate the main pretty quick but the second and third im like bronze. 15 to 20 min games, 4 bases, avg 65 to 70 scvs, sometimes much higher.

Should i shift half of my scv's from the main to the natural once base is complete? cause at the moment im not, i might move like 3 or 4.

gvb

United States30 Posts

March 29 2014 14:00 GMT

#1205

Should i shift half of my scv's from the main to the natural once base is complete? cause at the moment im not, i might move like 3 or 4.

Take as many as you have to in order to have 16 mining minerals in the main. Leave up to 19 if you still have a gas left to saturate. Take into account whether you have workers out building stuff, and how that may affect the number mining minerals both at that exact moment, and later on when you're building depots or evo chambers or whatever later.

After you maynard (transfer) the workers, set both CC rally points to the natural so all newly made workers go there. Repeat as needed with later bases, which will saturate laughably quickly.

JaKaTaKSc2

United States2787 Posts

March 29 2014 20:53 GMT

#1206

There are 2 main was to go about transferring workers. First the one gvb explained (this is marginally more efficient than the 2nd) Second, half and half, keep rallies the same. Half and half is better whenever you have a wall or bunker so you have repair SCVs nearby. For other races its good if you feel you'll need to pull workers for defense early on.

HOWEVER!

Your goal is saturation speed, and transferring is a very small part of this. Saturation speed detects not how much income at each base, but total mineral income. So, being efficient is important, but more important than that is to constantly crank out workers, that means no supply blocks and always queuing the 2nd SCV before the 1st is finished. Go through your replay and count the supply blocks and gaps in worker production. (or keep track during the game). If you focus on this you will improve your saturation speed quickly.

htou

Australia11 Posts

March 30 2014 03:58 GMT

#1207

Thanks guys - your tips have been absorbed into my gameplay. I played one game before and managed to hit masters across three bases. There doesn't appear to be a high level than masters for saturation speed according to GGtracker.

JaKaTaKSc2

United States2787 Posts

March 30 2014 11:28 GMT

#1208

There isn't much difference between Masters and GM saturation speed, so we decided not to make a different benchmark as we did not have the data to justify it.

Sovietjedi

United States3 Posts

March 31 2014 01:34 GMT

#1209

This was awesome. I saw measured improvement in my play. I was #1 in Gold on Reaver Pi for a few days and fell back to 8 I think because my macro game was missing the stamina. I didn't do the GG tracker but I fallowed the guidelines live on ladder and I couldn't believe it. out of seven games I lost two of them. I thought my mmm play was good before but.... huge results.

I really am playing like six hours a day training myself trying to becoming better. I am focusing right now on macro play because my micro is solid. I would love to start playing at a higher level other than gold... (220 games or so later) and I think this will help me get there.

Castor385

Netherlands20 Posts

April 02 2014 07:34 GMT

#1210

This is an eye opener. I've been playing since the beta in 2010 struggling my way from bronze to platinum and back to gold. I started uploading my replays at ggtracker and noticed that my spending skills fluctuates between bronze and master.

When I started at step 1 (only minerals), my spending skill sky rocketed to grandmaster. After 5 games, I continued to step 2 (minerals and gas, only given units), which was harder, only master spending skill. But after 2 games, I got back to grandmaster spending skill. I'm now trying step 3 (given units + 1).

I totally ignore the opponent, winning or losing doesn't matter. Micro is not needed in the stuff league. I will win later. I think I need to practice this some more games to keep thinking about unit production during battles. But the amount of stuff you can produce consistently is amazing.

@Jakatak: Thank you for your time in writing the document and explaining the purpose in your video's. I really appreciate the time you spend in the SC2 community.

reference:
http://ggtracker.com/players/223433/Jurgen

JaKaTaKSc2

United States2787 Posts

April 02 2014 21:26 GMT

#1211

Glad you're enjoying it. Sounds like you're really getting the meaning of it

JaKaTaKSc2

United States2787 Posts

April 09 2014 18:34 GMT

#1212

Hey everyone. It hasn't happened in a long time, but after some careful thought and your feedback we've made some adjustments to TheStaircase that you can see on the Reference Spreadsheet

We moved the medivac from given units to battle units.
A lot of players felt that the jump from step 1 terran to step 2 terran was too big. A lot more buildings and tech tree knowledge was required and players were spending a lot of time on step 2. Now it's more of a gradual improvement.

We also changed the formatting a bit.
Nydus Worm is a building so there's no need to list it on step 2.
Mothership is now on the same line as mothership core. We don't want players to have to choose mothership as a battle unit (as you only get 3 on the last step) but we also don't want players to think they have to get a mothership on step 2. This is the best solution we could come up with. Please let us know what you think!

Also we're continuing to work on the video series for TheStaircase. If all goes as planned, we will have a new video for TheStaircase every thursday on Tutorial Central Sc2.

Like, Follow, Subscibe to stay up on the latest

McRatyn

Poland901 Posts

April 12 2014 20:00 GMT

#1213

Hi Jak, I've recently started to crawl back into playing and thought about using The Starcase as I'm looking for some alternative improvement as I cannot seem to get myself to grind build orders in custom (which I think is an entirely valid way in its own right!). I was just wandering:
If I someday reach higher steps, does Staircase in any way account for using build orders, or does it completely dicard them?

JaKaTaKSc2

United States2787 Posts

April 13 2014 15:11 GMT

#1214

TheStaircase is designed to get you off on the right foot with Sc2 so you have a strong foundation for w/e else you do. It is not meant to be perpetual, just introductory. We're working on a follow up program that is perpetual, but its taking a lot of time and effort to get it out.

McRatyn

Poland901 Posts

April 13 2014 15:28 GMT

#1215

Thanks for answering

Eluadyl

Turkey364 Posts

April 13 2014 15:30 GMT

#1216

I'm planning on starting SC2 again after 2 years and this seems like an amazing way to do it. I hope all goes well and you are able to upload videos. All the best wishes!

Also, thank you guys for all the effort you put in TheCore, that thing is amazing.