EPT[D] Does coaching actually help? - Page 6
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ImDrizzt
Norway427 Posts
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Chrono000
Korea (South)358 Posts
Many gamers specifically pro gamers actually dont have any of the above so its really hit and miss. Best coach in my opinion are not GM players or pro players, because they suffer from lack of time and a thing called curse of expertise. the curse of expertise occurs when a person gets very good at something they dont even need to think about it anymore. This has negative impact on coaching. often they do not know how to break skills down because they have internalized it. You can still find really good players that happen to be very good at explaining things but imo you can find a lot more players in masters and even diamond that can explain it better or least the same. Going for a coach that actually has a background in teaching, coaching and sports psychology as well as starcraft is the best value for money imo. EDIT. already been said but coaches are really good for when you get stuck or hit a skill platue | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 17 2013 02:30 Chrono000 wrote: Best coach in my opinion are not GM players or pro players, because they suffer from lack of time and a thing called curse of expertise. For some reason people do not believe this. ( i do) On March 17 2013 02:30 Chrono000 wrote: EDIT. already been said but coaches are really good for when you get stuck or hit a skill platue I found that most of my students who got stuck somehow or hit their skill cap had serious flaws somewhere and learned a lot of bad habits to get around those flaws. Those bad habits where the reason they were stuck. For me coaching a low league player, who didnt take the game any serious before the coaching, is faster, than coaching a .. lets say diamond league player, since he usually has a lot of bad habits that take ages to identify and fix. | ||
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Cloudshade
91 Posts
On March 17 2013 06:37 JustAGame wrote: For some reason people do not believe this. ( i do) I found that most of my students who got stuck somehow or hit their skill cap had serious flaws somewhere and learned a lot of bad habits to get around those flaws. Those bad habits where the reason they were stuck. For me coaching a low league player, who didnt take the game any serious before the coaching, is faster, than coaching a .. lets say diamond league player, since he usually has a lot of bad habits that take ages to identify and fix. I have to agree with him. I teach a lot of players and I get the same result. As for GM or pro players...I don't agree...it's really dependent on how the person is and what their teaching style is....Teaching in itself is an art...learning how to teach to allow your student to enjoy the game is also a skill that not many people have. The thing to remember is that sc2 is a game...improvement is important, but having fun is also very important, but most people forget about this while coaching. | ||
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Jasiwel
United States146 Posts
On March 04 2013 19:27 ROOTMinigun wrote: I probably coach more than any player (that I know of at least) . If you play 5 games a week and get coaching from me you will not see significant improvement. Although the players that ACTUALLY want to improve, and play a decent amount of games a day (5+) see significant improvement. Not all, because that would be unrealistic, but most do, and I often get messages days/weeks after saying how much it helped, how much they have improved etc etc. I don't think it's helpful for people who have played a total of 20-30 games of starcraft, at least not really worth the money. Coaching is a shortcut for players, is it necessary? No, but it is without a doubt helpful. Wasn't it Destiny that mentioned to you once on Stream that he coached a Silver that went to Diamond-level skill upon improving on Fundamentals? I think your absolutely right though, it comes down to the player's drive to get better and to improve. And yeah, I've always wondered if it's truly cost-effective to become better at the game by hiring a coach given how coaching can cost quite a bit of money, especially when learning from streams is significantly less expensive. Either way, I'm glad there are pro players that help those who are willing to spend the resources to get better, since Pro-GM level games are simply a legion beyond what many think they are. | ||
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Xaoz
Germany146 Posts
There are so many people offering coaching for free where you can improve a lot. Coaching will always help you and is never a negative thing. It can never hurt you to have someone looking at your micro, macro and to point out where your flaws are. And there is no skill-level where coaching isn t worth it anymore. Even if you are GM there is still so much you can improve. If you REALLY want to improve and want to put some effort into it, try to find a coaching and let him analyse your play. Oh and ask as many questions as you can. I cannot talk for everyone that is coaching, but the guys I did coaching were pretty happy with it and improved( dependant on how much they played after that and listened to advice ofc.  ). | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 17 2013 08:07 Xaoz wrote: I just wouldn t pay for it. There are so many people offering coaching for free where you can improve a lot. Coaching will always help you and is never a negative thing. It can never hurt you to have someone looking at your micro, macro and to point out where your flaws are. And there is no skill-level where coaching isn t worth it anymore. Even if you are GM there is still so much you can improve. If you REALLY want to improve and want to put some effort into it, try to find a coaching and let him analyse your play. Oh and ask as many questions as you can. I cannot talk for everyone that is coaching, but the guys I did coaching were pretty happy with it and improved( dependant on how much they played after that and listened to advice ofc. ).Well.. paying for coaching or not.. thats hard to tell. There are free coaches out there who do a good job.. and there are paid coaches out there who are really bad. There are many bad coaches on both sides.. on the free ones because everyone can coach for free, but not everyone is good at it. And the paid ones obivously because earning money is more important than anything else for many ppl. As long as you can earn money as a bad coach.. why improve or offer it for free? The paid coaching includes a huge risk of wasting money, while the free coaching will lead you to "unknown" coaches most of the time. Depending on your goals coaching can be negative (= waste of time). | ||
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Hider
Denmark9395 Posts
Builds are a huge deal. Or I'll have people argue with me insisting their way is better...equally irritating This comment gives me the impression your not a good coach. When the student is arguing it is actually great, because now you are given an opportunity to discuss the advantages/disadvantages of the various builds. Telling a specific player to follow a specific build without the student understanding why, is BAD coaching as it doesn't improve the students game understanding. I actually think the worst kind of coaching is when coaches say "do xxx, at time 10:22 you do y, then you do........." That is useless coaching, I saw Machine do it once and I hope you don't do it as well. Give the students the tools so that he can improve on the long-term, rather than just give him a simple build order so he can go from gold to platinum. | ||
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Shikyo
Finland33997 Posts
On March 17 2013 06:37 JustAGame wrote: For some reason people do not believe this. ( i do) I found that most of my students who got stuck somehow or hit their skill cap had serious flaws somewhere and learned a lot of bad habits to get around those flaws. Those bad habits where the reason they were stuck. For me coaching a low league player, who didnt take the game any serious before the coaching, is faster, than coaching a .. lets say diamond league player, since he usually has a lot of bad habits that take ages to identify and fix. Hmm yeah I'm under the impression that the main role for coaches is to point out supposedly obvious things that the player should know that he should be doing. The player might think that he's losing due to unit comp or whatever when in reality the reason is that he gets supply blocked too often, or something like that. For pointing out these things, you don't even need to be a good player. However, I believe that all of that is achievable with just a little bit of objective thinking of one's own, so I don't think that coaches like that are necessary at all - It's just the easy way out. The GM players and such do have a lot of knowledge about gameflow and specific timings and other stuff though so their coaching is definitely useful in that sense. Still, all timings you can just experiment with on your own instead of needing someone to tell you (An example, TvZ reaper opening -> retreat when speed is done. First you do the zerg opening perfectly, then record every timing, then make a list of flags[flags point out when Zerg goes up a certain branch of their build order tree so that you can identify it], and then you know at what times to scout what places for the flags, and also know when to retreat just as the Zergling speed is done[if you scout the flag for that]. ) Still, that's a lot of effort, so coaching can help but again, it's just an easy way out. Oh, and if one's able to think and analyze objectively, they shouldn't be plateauing before like masters league so I don't believe in all that silver plateauing - They just are lacking common sense or aren't playing enough, in my opinion. | ||
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Chrono000
Korea (South)358 Posts
On March 17 2013 08:07 Xaoz wrote: I just wouldn t pay for it. There are so many people offering coaching for free where you can improve a lot. Coaching will always help you and is never a negative thing. It can never hurt you to have someone looking at your micro, macro and to point out where your flaws are. And there is no skill-level where coaching isn t worth it anymore. Even if you are GM there is still so much you can improve. If you REALLY want to improve and want to put some effort into it, try to find a coaching and let him analyse your play. Oh and ask as many questions as you can. I cannot talk for everyone that is coaching, but the guys I did coaching were pretty happy with it and improved( dependant on how much they played after that and listened to advice ofc. ).This is a problem because people dont think its worth paying for a coach. If we had people that values learning and the game then I think gaming can grow a further. I actually think its a 'little' (i use little here) hurtful to the community when people give out free coaching because it devalues the sector. You can already see what it has done. People either paying too much or paying nothing. I want a happy affordable medium. Free is good, but I'd like a little money going around and little more professionalism because of it. | ||
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Noobity
United States871 Posts
I think maybe it's less hurtful for the community and simply less beneficial. People usually get coaching when they want to do better, or when they want to interact with a pro, and they tend to get that coaching from people they want to support. In that regard it's really as beneficial as it needs to be. The only problem is that unknown players who may be excellent at coaching aren't really going to get the shot. I think that it's more hurtful that there isn't a central website with reviews and information on certain coaches, testimonials all available in one set place, constantly updated for easy navigation than free coaching could ever be. Threads on Teamliquid are nice, but why there aren't players who are "professional sc2 coaching critics" similar to food critics, who could weed out the shitty coaches, and make things just easier in general for everyone. You'd have people like Minigun who excel at coaching with a great reputation probably seeing his schedule book up a bit more, and allow him to start charging more. Meanwhile you'd have Noobity who is an immensely popular pro charging a ton of money to coach and doing a shitty job at it maybe taking a small hit in numbers because his coaching reputation goes down, but would still end up making money because of their popularity. This would also open up a new career path for players. Say Minigun doesn't want to compete anymore in the future, his ability to teach would be well documented and he could coach even more and around his schedule for schooling or another job or whatever. Coaching is a big deal in a lot of sporting industries, and don't require the coach to be the top of the top in order to do really well. Might overall bring more money into the scene. | ||
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Chrono000
Korea (South)358 Posts
On March 18 2013 00:26 Noobity wrote: I can see where you're coming from, but free coaching is here to stay, because people like helping and shit, and some of those people don't want to be confined to the requirements that pay coaching has (say, doing a thorough job for instance). I think maybe it's less hurtful for the community and simply less beneficial. People usually get coaching when they want to do better, or when they want to interact with a pro, and they tend to get that coaching from people they want to support. In that regard it's really as beneficial as it needs to be. The only problem is that unknown players who may be excellent at coaching aren't really going to get the shot. I think that it's more hurtful that there isn't a central website with reviews and information on certain coaches, testimonials all available in one set place, constantly updated for easy navigation than free coaching could ever be. Threads on Teamliquid are nice, but why there aren't players who are "professional sc2 coaching critics" similar to food critics, who could weed out the shitty coaches, and make things just easier in general for everyone. You'd have people like Minigun who excel at coaching with a great reputation probably seeing his schedule book up a bit more, and allow him to start charging more. Meanwhile you'd have Noobity who is an immensely popular pro charging a ton of money to coach and doing a shitty job at it maybe taking a small hit in numbers because his coaching reputation goes down, but would still end up making money because of their popularity. This would also open up a new career path for players. Say Minigun doesn't want to compete anymore in the future, his ability to teach would be well documented and he could coach even more and around his schedule for schooling or another job or whatever. Coaching is a big deal in a lot of sporting industries, and don't require the coach to be the top of the top in order to do really well. Might overall bring more money into the scene. Yeah I mostly agree. When you see people paying for sc2 teachers like people do for sports, chess, go or even art lessons the community as a whole is going to be better for it. Money need to be involved it makes the industry move forward and changes peoples attitudes. When i lived in taiwan i thought it was a joke that parents payed for professional go training and i even saw dedicated spaces for this, this would require a tone of rent im sure... So i dont see why sc2 should be different its actually a harder game to grasp. | ||
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ch4ppi
Germany802 Posts
I am a teacher and I took some lessons and to be honest many coaches have best intentions but dont have any idea of how to teach someone or adjust their methods to the particular student. For example many coach in a way that they do a play-by-play coaching, telling the player what to do. This is most of the time not efficient learning wise. The coach cant help you getting better with mechanics, he can only reorganize the way you think during the game, for example reading a scouting information, responding to particular tactics and so on. | ||
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Fake)Plants
United States373 Posts
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Vague
170 Posts
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 17 2013 21:54 Hider wrote: This comment gives me the impression your not a good coach. When the student is arguing it is actually great, because now you are given an opportunity to discuss the advantages/disadvantages of the various builds. Telling a specific player to follow a specific build without the student understanding why, is BAD coaching as it doesn't improve the students game understanding. I actually think the worst kind of coaching is when coaches say "do xxx, at time 10:22 you do y, then you do........." That is useless coaching, I saw Machine do it once and I hope you don't do it as well. Give the students the tools so that he can improve on the long-term, rather than just give him a simple build order so he can go from gold to platinum. I'm only told otherwise. You don't get what I'm saying. I said insisting they are right even explaining why they aren't they insist they are. And no it's not a bad way to coach, you don't understand how much there is to cover in an hour. You must first outline a build, then you can get into detail. People aren't buying 20 hours. They are buying one. QUOTE]On March 17 2013 06:37 JustAGame wrote: On March 17 2013 02:30 Chrono000 wrote: Best coach in my opinion are not GM players or pro players, because they suffer from lack of time and a thing called curse of expertise. For some reason people do not believe this. ( i do) On March 17 2013 02:30 Chrono000 wrote: EDIT. already been said but coaches are really good for when you get stuck or hit a skill platue I found that most of my students who got stuck somehow or hit their skill cap had serious flaws somewhere and learned a lot of bad habits to get around those flaws. Those bad habits where the reason they were stuck. For me coaching a low league player, who didnt take the game any serious before the coaching, is faster, than coaching a .. lets say diamond league player, since he usually has a lot of bad habits that take ages to identify and fix.[/QUOTE] Dear god no coaching a noob is extremely difficult because they understand nothing about the game. Habits are easy to fix. Understanding is not that takes hours days weeks | ||
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bakedace
United States672 Posts
On March 18 2013 00:26 Noobity wrote: I think that it's more hurtful that there isn't a central website with reviews and information on certain coaches, testimonials all available in one set place, constantly updated for easy navigation than free coaching could ever be. Threads on Teamliquid are nice, but why there aren't players who are "professional sc2 coaching critics" similar to food critics, who could weed out the shitty coaches, and make things just easier in general for everyone. You'd have people like Minigun who excel at coaching with a great reputation probably seeing his schedule book up a bit more, and allow him to start charging more. Meanwhile you'd have Noobity who is an immensely popular pro charging a ton of money to coach and doing a shitty job at it maybe taking a small hit in numbers because his coaching reputation goes down, but would still end up making money because of their popularity. This would also open up a new career path for players. Say Minigun doesn't want to compete anymore in the future, his ability to teach would be well documented and he could coach even more and around his schedule for schooling or another job or whatever. Coaching is a big deal in a lot of sporting industries, and don't require the coach to be the top of the top in order to do really well. Might overall bring more money into the scene. I have created a website for this exact purpose, so I was happy to see that others share the vision I had when I started building it almost a year ago. So, it's here (went live today actually), it just hasn't been promoted yet. Keep your eyes out for something big guys! | ||
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steakbbq
United States15 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9395 Posts
I'm only told otherwise. You don't get what I'm saying. I said insisting they are right even explaining why they aren't they insist they are. And no it's not a bad way to coach, you don't understand how much there is to cover in an hour. You must first outline a build, then you can get into detail. People aren't buying 20 hours. They are buying one. It's likely that over your career as a coach has had one or two students who were probably "braindead" and had problems understanding basic logic. However, it seems that when it is something that has happened multiple times for you, then maybe you should look to the inside rather than blaming your students. It's like when I was in public school and my terrible teacher blamed us students for not standing english grammar. Obivously the problem was not with us students (because we were willing to learn) but with the teaching methods of our teacher. Maybe you should take the feedback you get from your students as a sign that there are stuff you could improve with your coaching. Maybe you simply didn't do a good enough job of explain stuff. I watched some of your VODS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUO0RvrDwk) And basically the coaching went alot as I expected where you said "Do X, do Y, Do Z" through the whole game. This kind of coaching has no mid/to long term effect on the students skill levels. If I had a subpar understanding of Starcraft and ordered coaching from you, I probably wouldn't understand why you told me to do these things. I would just do them, and eventually I would forget to do them and go back to the old builds I can remember/understand. Maybe your right though, maybe there simply isn't time for a lot more during 1 hour - But I still think the approach can be improved. I would simply focus a lot less on telling the student how to macro, build probes etc, instead I would just have 2-3 very important topics which the student should focus on during the game and I would make sure the student understood the underlying reasons for why he should do X and Y. So to conclude; Coaching can help if you do it right. But telling the student (as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless. | ||
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StaraCroft
Austria292 Posts
I did not go into it expecting a huge revelation, but he found a lot more flaws in my game than I expected. There were a lot of mistakes I knew I was making, but I ended up with a couple of A4 pages worth of notes of things to work on that I wasn't even aware of. Also considering that there are really good players for every race that charge a ridiculously low amount compared to the level they play at, you can't go really wrong. There are coaches in other fields that charge 10x the amount these guys do who have a similar level of understanding of what they're doing. The difference is that usually there is a big expected return on investment, while with starcraft there is next to no monetary ROI. I'm still completely ok with that, and I'll book coaching from players I like to support in the future. If you are buying coaching to actually improve, you should not expect anything unless you're paying for 10 sessions or more. I have taught drums for a living, and I still have the odd pupil - I would not expect someone to improve significantly in under six months, and it takes at least a month for a lesson to really kick in... and those that don't dedicate daily practice time won't improve much at all. All you can do as a teacher/coach is to correct mistakes and give direction, the rest is up to the pupil. | ||
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