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FireMonkey
Australia105 Posts
I saw a post on sc2 forums about it and someone said that he pictures a babysitter figure reading a newspaper and just saying every 17 seconds 'build probe' have you improved after this? how so? how is it any differant from having a friend teaching you how to play? how does it differ your play from looking up a build/playstyle? what progress thus far have you made because of it? discuss | ||
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EyesOnMe
57 Posts
I was gonna buy a coaching session...but no. i started in silver and the highest i got was high diamond, and if i focused just a little more I could've reached low masters. Basically, for some people it may help, but....personally i dont think so. if you have the desire and willingness to improve, you will improve whether or not you get coached. you get advice from communities like TL | ||
Teoita
Italy12246 Posts
For example, i've seen many (low league) players overmaking stalkers in pvp, which to them is fine (hey i'm keeping my money low!), but is quite a big mistake. Additionally, having an efficient, well thought build that you know inside and out, having it's pros and cons etc explained by a coach can help a player in how he "feels" ingame, since now he will have more goals than simply "build units", he will have benchmarks to compare to, etc. Figuring out a build isn't as easy as just copying stuff from one or a few replays because you will rarely have enough games to study all the various strategies an opponent might do against your new build, and a lower league player's game understanding is likely not as good so he won't spot some pros and cons of certain builds. Finally, tons of people just need help with their mindset. I had a few students with the worst cases of ladder anxiety, due to been obsessed with the "YOU MUST IMPROVE ONLY DO MACRO BUILDS ALLINS TAKE NO SKILL" crap that's being going around for ages. I talked to them a bunch during and after the coaching sessions, and eventually they were able to overcome that too. On the other hand you can't fix outright bad macro by sitting for a few hours with minigun or whatever. You just need to put in the time and play a lot of games (for the most part), because at the end of the day people improve simply by sitting down and playing a ton of games. | ||
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ETisME
12310 Posts
I helped two friends getting into Gold league, just a month after they were placed in bronze. Both are inexperience in RTS and has pretty poor mechanics. I taught them a simple build, 3 gate robo. Tell them what to do (when to move out, when to get an expansion, where to position his army) Explain why these actions are good. Reminds him of upgrades, worker production etc. I also helped them to review some replays and explain what he could have done better and what was the biggest issue of that game. Sometimes if I sit next to them telling them what to do for almost every action, they can even beat Plat players, while they practising on their own, they can match up against mid gold players and making significantly better decisions than before as well as starting to get a better tempo of the game. So it's pretty helpful imo. But there are things you can learn by just watching and playing consistently, as I have taught myself everything about starcraft. | ||
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FireMonkey
Australia105 Posts
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Salivanth
Australia1071 Posts
Getting advice from a stronger player on your specific game and where it's going wrong cannot POSSIBLY fail to help you. The question is not "Does it help?". The question is "Does it help enough to be worth it?" In my opinion, it doesn't. | ||
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Orek
1665 Posts
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Surili
United Kingdom1141 Posts
I don't know about masters-GM level, i have been tempted in the past, because i wonder if i have the same problem :/ | ||
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Meldrath
United States620 Posts
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rauk
United States2228 Posts
On March 04 2013 17:11 FireMonkey wrote: Okay so to new players it helps, we've established that. What about experienced players so say platinum players plat is not experienced lol coaching is useful up to high masters and past that even pros have team coaches and stuff you can't fix mechanics just by one or two coaching sessions, but a coach can point out to you what sort of mechanical problems you may not even know you had and where you need to focus your efforts on improving; same goes for strategy and game knowledge. it's really hard to take a step back and view your own play dispassionately and a coach is useful for that. | ||
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Salivanth
Australia1071 Posts
On March 04 2013 17:23 Orek wrote: It is hard to find a field in life where a decent coach cannot help a student. If it is free, and no deep commitment is needed, I'd say why not try it. However, when it comes to "paying for coaching," then cost-benefit becomes an issue. Personally, I think today's pro coaching is generally overpriced and not worth the money, but ultimately it's up to students how much they think is worth it. I'd say until you get to master league, paying for coaching is waste of money. Free coaching can provide enough tips. I absolutely agree that free coaching is worth it. I'm not sure how much coaching helps, but an hour of coaching > an hour on the ladder. | ||
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romelako
United States373 Posts
Just like how, say, a piano tutor will teach a student through the material they provide. They'll tell them what they need to learn and what songs to play/practice. Then in between their meeting times, the student has things he/she needs to learn and practice. The coach/tutor will not do the learning for you, but he/she is simply there to guide you through the improvement process, making it much more effective than studying things on your own. Everyone has the capability to get to Master league if they practice a lot, watch professional players and read guides. However, the flaws in their gameplay are for them to find. These flaws aren't always obvious and takes a lot of games to really figure out what's wrong and fix it. Sometimes people are ignorant of their mistakes, so it's the job of the coach/tutor to point out these flaws so the student can progress the right way. From a Starcraft 2 standpoint, coaching is the same as any other sport/hobby that one would get coached in. A coach can instantly point out wrong decisions made by the player and provide an explanation for said decision. He/she can also guide the student with what to focus on in practice (macro over micro) and even provide builds that can help get the student on the right track. All in all, if you're interested in coaching, don't be afraid to ask. There are plenty of people that will be willing to coach you for free and provide you the same amount of feedback a professional player would. Chances are the differences between the Master league coaches and the GM coaches are their greater mechanical skill and nuances in decision-making. If you're Diamond and below, most of your losses will be attributed to macro, and one does not need to pay someone to tell them to macro better. | ||
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rEalGuapo
Germany832 Posts
On March 04 2013 17:11 FireMonkey wrote: Okay so to new players it helps, we've established that. What about experienced players so say platinum players I think coaching gets more helpful the better you play. I don't think to get into plat you need any more than watch 5 day9 dailys. But from there it gets increasingly harder. Someone who is a lot better will spot your mistakes until you are close to his level and maybe even after you are better than him so I think it is always helpful. Also if you want to safe time and not spend 8-10hours researching you can just take 2 lessons and probably have the same or better effect. | ||
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Minigun
619 Posts
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. | ||
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Dogsi
Indonesia298 Posts
That said, I don't think it's worth it. Unless you are really shooting for GM, I don't think it's necessary. Making masters is just a matter of putting in a few hundred games and learning from your mistakes. | ||
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vijeze
Netherlands719 Posts
On March 04 2013 19:48 Dogsi wrote: Like all competitions, coaching does matter quite a bit. However, you won't improve much at all from a single session. It's about a significant amount of practice and coaching. That said, I don't think it's worth it. Unless you are really shooting for GM, I don't think it's necessary. Making masters is just a matter of putting in a few hundred games and learning from your mistakes. I disagree, personally. I find it terribly hard to break to masters from Diamond. I have about 1500 wins as toss, and watch most of my replies. I find it really hard to improve further from here. | ||
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KirA_TheGreaT
France204 Posts
Paying pro player for some coaching... why not, but their prices are too high. There are top masters coaching for better prices and they can help you as much as a pro player. I think coaching is worth it for people who play a lot but doesn't improve. A coach can teach you the way to play, and to win. Right now i have 900 points in master but i'm pretty sure one hour of coaching by a grandmaster would help me break into top master. Thing is, i have my pride and i want to do it by myself  | ||
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Targe
United Kingdom14103 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. From the man himself. Coaching won't make you macro and micro well, you have to put the effort in yourself to learn that, coaching aids in how you think about the game so will have more significant results from players of a higher level. Of course however there is variance per person. | ||
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syriuszonito
Poland332 Posts
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Sated
England4983 Posts
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renoB
United States170 Posts
I took the lesson to learn a build order against terran and was able to extrapolate what I learned into all 3 matchups. For $40 I'd say it was completely worth it, and in fact I've been contemplating doing a lesson with minigun when hots pops to get an edge. If your play is stagnant, I would definitely suggest it, but if you're still learning new things every day watching your replays and such, it's probably not necessary (although it will help). | ||
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thezanursic
5478 Posts
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Emporium
England162 Posts
I think the reason is that they are confusing 'coaching' with ' a specific way to coach'. By definition in everything we have ever done to improve ourselves as humans, there has been someone who has thought of something( not necesarily exclusively) and has coached others to this idea/point of view/explanantion, regardless of how morally correct it is or even if it is correct intrinsically with its subject. Alot of people may have been coached badly or in the wrong way to themselves, or they themselves are not accepting of coaches, but, neither of these points quantify that coaching is bad or not beneficial, just that they need to look at how they went about improving and whether this was correct, or if in truth( which i believe) the way that it was done was wrong and thus they need to take another approach. As with anything, if you want to improve in starcraft the best way to go about it is to use the best abilities you have and apply these to it. So for some it is rote memorisation and constant and rigourous training of a specific build, for others it may be the fact that they are very fluid in terms of their play style, reactive and responsive. I guess the only condition I would add to that final point is that these are specific examples to show extremes and as such not wholly one correct way. | ||
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Obamanation666
United States70 Posts
I was stuck in high diamond for about a year struggling to break into masters (mostly because I'm awful against terran). I did a one hour lesson with axslav and learned a solid build order, learned more about the game in general, and he pointed out mistakes that I didn't realize were hurting me so much (getting supply blocked). Once I learned to control getting supply blocked (it takes practice) and had the build down solid, I was winning about 75% of my matches and I was promoted into masters. I took the lesson to learn a build order against terran and was able to extrapolate what I learned into all 3 matchups. For $40 I'd say it was completely worth it, and in fact I've been contemplating doing a lesson with minigun when hots pops to get an edge. If your play is stagnant, I would definitely suggest it, but if you're still learning new things every day watching your replays and such, it's probably not necessary (although it will help). I agree with renoB's logic. If you stagnate, coaching could be beneficial. It's likely a coach will be able to point out mistakes that were hiding in plane sight, and it may be an area you didn't feel should be your primary focus; although, once you reach top 10 diamond, even small mistakes can result in a loss. | ||
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mau5mat
Northern Ireland461 Posts
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Defenestrator
400 Posts
On March 04 2013 16:43 Teoita wrote: Finally, tons of people just need help with their mindset. I had a few students with the worst cases of ladder anxiety, due to been obsessed with the "YOU MUST IMPROVE ONLY DO MACRO BUILDS ALLINS TAKE NO SKILL" crap that's being going around for ages. I talked to them a bunch during and after the coaching sessions, and eventually they were able to overcome that too. This, a thousand times this. Allins require a different type of skill than macro games, but people who can only play macro and don't know their allins have an incomplete knowledge of the game. Especially for new players I think allins are a great way to learn the game without overcomplicating things. | ||
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Noobity
United States871 Posts
There are extremely few people who go far in life completely on their own. It is extremely likely that you are not one of those people. If you really want to go to the top of something, or even just push your limits, you need to seek assistance in one way or another. I'm a diamond level player and I like to coach lower level players in the game because it's fun. I've helped players improve from silver to platinum on a few occasions, and gold to diamond... twice I believe. I can only look at their play, see them doing physical things that I suggested (hotkeying eggs, backspace larva inject, etc) and demolishing attacks that before I made suggestions they would have been demolished by to understand that coaching is helpful. I think a better question would be "Is pay coaching worth it?" and that's something that you'd have to determine on your own (I actually think there were a few threads on that already). That's something you have to determine on your own. I don't think that hiring a pro to coach you is necessary until you get to the semi-pro level (though I do not want to discourage this at all, pro coaching is a great way to support them and learn the same stuff you can learn from other players), and I think you can likely learn a lot of the same things by simply asking a clanmate or friend to look at a couple replays. Using an outside of starcraft example: I'm a shit golfer. I don't golf often, and hell I've only golfed maybe 63 holes in my life, but I like to go out there, drive the cart, drink the drinks, and shoot the shit with golfers. My father has been golfing for 10 years, for 9 of those years he'd been stagnant, not improving at the course he goes to often, despite putting in plenty of time at the driving range and golfing every weekend for months at a time. About a year ago we went to the driving range as a bonding kinda thing, we don't see each other often and thought it would be fun. I did my shitty swings, and then started watching him. I don't know a ton about golf, but I know a bit about the sciences of athletics, I was a track thrower and soccer player for most of my life, so I saw in what he was doing things that were counter productive because they were either easier or he didn't understand what exactly he needed to do. He'd had coaching from friends in the past, one of his friends is pretty good, on the cusp of winning tournaments and such at the semi-pro ish level, but they weren't able to see the little flaws in his play that make the huge difference, maybe they took what they were able to do for granted. Needless to say I've improved his play quite a bit, but for the life of me I couldn't tell you all the rules of golf or who the top pros are or anything. The statement "Those who can't, teach" is often used derogatorily, but it's a statement that is reflective of those with a passion for the craft and an eye for analyzing. Do you need a pro to tell you what you're doing wrong? Not in the least. Do you need someone to show you what you could be doing better? Absolutely. | ||
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llIH
Norway2142 Posts
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SnuggleZhenya
596 Posts
But I'm certainly not interested in that kind of monetary commitment, and I doubt most people are either. | ||
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Avril_Lavigne
United States446 Posts
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U_G_L_Y
United States516 Posts
If I didn't realize those things, a coach would help. But a coach can't help me be more coordinated, a better multitasker, or remember to do things that I KNOW that I should have done 2 minutes ago. Maybe my builds could be more efficient, but does that matter in light of all that other stuff? No. | ||
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MannerMan
371 Posts
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agahamsorr0w
Netherlands359 Posts
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Noobity
United States871 Posts
On March 09 2013 04:43 U_G_L_Y wrote: But a coach can't help me be more coordinated, a better multitasker, or remember to do things that I KNOW that I should have done 2 minutes ago. That's actually incorrect. If you don't know how to fix these things, then no amount of your own work would fix the problems. A good coach would be able to be more exact in noticing your flaws and go even farther, providing specific and proven exercises to do (that you didn't know about) in order to train your multitasking. Provide options on how to improve coordination. Hell there are plenty of training exercises that the proper coach can provide that will help you to remember things (see day9's newbie dailies, most of them revolve around one of the many forms of teaching memory and prioritizing). | ||
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romelako
United States373 Posts
On March 09 2013 04:43 U_G_L_Y wrote: I know I am losing because I am shit and forget combat shield or siege mode, get stormed in a choke, took gas late and can't afford upgrades, got hard supply blocked, let all my vikings get fungaled, etc. If I didn't realize those things, a coach would help. But a coach can't help me be more coordinated, a better multitasker, or remember to do things that I KNOW that I should have done 2 minutes ago. Maybe my builds could be more efficient, but does that matter in light of all that other stuff? No. But how do you know if those are the only mistakes that you're making? Example: Not spending your larva as soon as you get them could lead to a variety of other problems macro-related. | ||
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Cloudshade
91 Posts
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Pokebunny
United States10654 Posts
If you're a bronze player who has just picked up the game and is just learning basic hotkeys/mechanics, a coach is not likely worth your money. Unless you have significant background in other pro games/RTS games, you'll be mostly struggling to execute basic tasks, which a coach can't entirely help you with. Coaching is best for those who can mechanically keep up but just don't know what to do, or have trouble figuring out why they lost. You need to be smart and able to easily implement advice you get in coaching sessions. I've had silver level students who can do this competently and platinum-diamond ones who couldn't, it's not entirely about the level of the player. I wrote a little piece on getting coaching a year ago or so which has a few more of my thoughts, for those who are interested. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=297285 | ||
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romelako
United States373 Posts
On March 09 2013 05:26 Cloudshade wrote: tbh....EVEN high masters and gms AND PROS have more to learn...it just depends on the skill difference between the coach and the student....the bigger the gap the more there is to learn...if lets say MVP was coaching MKP maybe there isn't that much to learn....but if MVP was coaching someone like Painuser or just some random person..provided that MVP has good analysis and can put that into words...he would be able to greatly increase the person's skill provided that the student tries to improve themselves too I don't think MKP could beat MVP even if MVP coached him. MKP cannot beat MVP no matter how hard he tries.  On another note, I agree in that the bigger gap = more to learn. However, a lot of the reasons why Koreans are better than Foreigner players is due to the sheer amount of hours they put in in comparison to the foreigner players. Imagine how much better our foreigners would be if they played and practiced nearly as much as the Korean players? They'd be amazing (especially Stephano, I feel). | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
Coaching is a tool that supplements practice and it definitely helps. Whether the coach is pointing out flaws in your play or motivating you to keep going, it's helpful. It's not a replacement for practice. | ||
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Aveng3r
United States2411 Posts
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FatNikE
United Kingdom52 Posts
On March 04 2013 16:15 FireMonkey wrote: i dont know if this should go in strat or general. but does 'coaching' actually help a player? as far as i know the pro player will just tell you to build probes and give build orders you should do which you can just look up on youtube and liquidpedia for free anyways. ive never had it nor do i intend on having it so maybe someone who has can confirm. I saw a post on sc2 forums about it and someone said that he pictures a babysitter figure reading a newspaper and just saying every 17 seconds 'build probe' have you improved after this? how so? how is it any differant from having a friend teaching you how to play? how does it differ your play from looking up a build/playstyle? what progress thus far have you made because of it? discuss A good coach won't just tell you to build probes and give buildorders... Although, I don't see that having a coach is useful below diamond, although I already have access to good information and mentalities. They should be analyising your biggest problems, mentally, mechanically and in game sense and helping you to improve. A good coach will respond to what you tell them you want. | ||
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U_G_L_Y
United States516 Posts
On March 09 2013 05:15 Noobity wrote: That's actually incorrect. If you don't know how to fix these things, then no amount of your own work would fix the problems. A good coach would be able to be more exact in noticing your flaws and go even farther, providing specific and proven exercises to do (that you didn't know about) in order to train your multitasking. Provide options on how to improve coordination. Hell there are plenty of training exercises that the proper coach can provide that will help you to remember things (see day9's newbie dailies, most of them revolve around one of the many forms of teaching memory and prioritizing). My wife has tried coaching me to lock the doors at night, take out the garbage on Thursday night, but I still can't remember to do those things consistently, either. And she is really good at it  If you think a coach can help me to pay attention and do the things I have been trying to do for 15 years, by all means I will pay for it; I just don't see evidence that they can. Only a LOT of CONSISTENT repetition can help that. Or perhaps a brain transplant. | ||
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Oboeman
Canada3980 Posts
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FireMonkey
Australia105 Posts
also practice partners dont count | ||
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imEnex
Canada500 Posts
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 09 2013 13:33 FireMonkey wrote: Well is there anyone who was just an average scrub (master or below) who took coaching and then become pro? also practice partners dont count That's pretty irrelevant for the arguement | ||
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FireMonkey
Australia105 Posts
On March 09 2013 14:47 ROOTMinigun wrote: That's pretty irrelevant for the arguement yeah i know, the main point has seemingly been proven so im just wondering | ||
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tuestresfat
2555 Posts
But tbh unless you're in GM it's pretty damn easy to find someone better than you to look at your games and tell you why you're not improving. Basically free coaching. I don't see why you'd pay a pro player to help you improve, unless you're trying to get to that level of play. For most of us, a decent masters level player will suffice, and there are plenty of those around. Basically if you didn't make this thread, but instead made a thread seeking for a masters level player to spare an hour or two to help you, as long as you sound genuine you'll probably find someone. | ||
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FatNikE
United Kingdom52 Posts
On March 09 2013 12:06 U_G_L_Y wrote: My wife has tried coaching me to lock the doors at night, take out the garbage on Thursday night, but I still can't remember to do those things consistently, either. And she is really good at it If you think a coach can help me to pay attention and do the things I have been trying to do for 15 years, by all means I will pay for it; I just don't see evidence that they can. Only a LOT of CONSISTENT repetition can help that. Or perhaps a brain transplant. I thought we were talking about coaching..... you realize coahes aren't supposed to make you have better mechanics very quickly right? they're sort of for every OTHER aspect of the game... like telling you what the best way to think about making decisions with your garbage can is so that the dump truck doesn't catch you off guard with rubbishvac drops. | ||
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 09 2013 16:43 FireMonkey wrote: yeah i know, the main point has seemingly been proven so im just wondering oh, then no I don't think so to answer your question On March 09 2013 12:06 U_G_L_Y wrote: My wife has tried coaching me to lock the doors at night, take out the garbage on Thursday night, but I still can't remember to do those things consistently, either. And she is really good at it If you think a coach can help me to pay attention and do the things I have been trying to do for 15 years, by all means I will pay for it; I just don't see evidence that they can. Only a LOT of CONSISTENT repetition can help that. Or perhaps a brain transplant. wat, that has nothing to do with anything and not to derail the thread too much, if you cared more about it, I guarantee you would remember to do it | ||
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NonameAI
127 Posts
So yeah. The best way to learn the game is to play the game. Play against someone who will easily defeat you, but not so bad that you don't get a chance to realize what hes doing and what you're doing wrong. Ask your coach if you can 1v1 him, and do it a lot. He will crush you every time, until one day, when you will have an even game with him and realize how much you've improved | ||
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Noobity
United States871 Posts
On March 10 2013 00:10 ROOTMinigun wrote: oh, then no I don't think so to answer your question wat, that has nothing to do with anything and not to derail the thread too much, if you cared more about it, I guarantee you would remember to do it I don't think that derails the thread at all Minigun. I think that's a very important thing to be aware of. In fact, I'd say it is a better answer to the argument than anything else: "If you care about it, it does actually help." I think a lot of people don't seem to understand exactly how a truly effective coaching session for any activity works. The most effective way to teach anyone (I have no facts about this, you're welcome to say it's an opinion) is to lead student towards a conclusion that will help them, or one that will show them that what they're so adamant about doing will hurt them. This means, primarily, that to tell a student "when they do this you need to do this" is less effective than saying "when they do this, what are their strengths? what are their weaknesses? you don't know their weaknesses, then what do you think they could be? there's a bunch of tanks, how are they most effective? so if they need to siege to be effective, what does that mean? so if they're immobile, what's a good option for taking them out?" Now some players just want builds and to make sure they're doing things right, which is cool, it works for most players, keeps them happy and gives them some information, but the player being asked to come to these conclusions themselves learns more about how to make decisions than simply what the decisions are. This means most importantly that the coaching is harder for the student to utilize, but more effective once understood. | ||
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Qwyn
United States2779 Posts
Just focus on your mechanics and you will rocket forward much faster than if you were focusing on minutiae. You focus on being faster, more efficient, and incorporating actions in a logical way, and everything will fall into place. You play like this and you'll start to realize the formality of builds. And you'll definitely appreciate the game more. To answer your question another way - no, coaching is not worth it if you are looking to improve. For zero dollars you can open a progamer's stream, and learn enough about gameflow to get you started. But if you are not the highest tier of player, and you'd like to support your favorite progamers and learn a bit at the same time (gain a bit of a pro-level perspective), then by all means, consider coaching. | ||
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 10 2013 01:07 Qwyn wrote: I'm going to give my own experience. I used to contemplate coaching a lot, but now I realize I was focusing on the wrong things. Just focus on your mechanics and you will rocket forward much faster than if you were focusing on minutiae. You focus on being faster, more efficient, and incorporating actions in a logical way, and everything will fall into place. You play like this and you'll start to realize the formality of builds. And you'll definitely appreciate the game more. To answer your question another way - no, coaching is not worth it if you are looking to improve. For zero dollars you can open a progamer's stream, and learn enough about gameflow to get you started. But if you are not the highest tier of player, and you'd like to support your favorite progamers and learn a bit at the same time (gain a bit of a pro-level perspective), then by all means, consider coaching. I disagree 100%. I have way too many testimonials from people messaging me after telling how much it helped and how much they have improved. Watching a stream and getting someone to 1 on 1 coach you isn't even comparable. On March 10 2013 00:58 Noobity wrote: I don't think that derails the thread at all Minigun. I think that's a very important thing to be aware of. In fact, I'd say it is a better answer to the argument than anything else: "If you care about it, it does actually help." I think a lot of people don't seem to understand exactly how a truly effective coaching session for any activity works. The most effective way to teach anyone (I have no facts about this, you're welcome to say it's an opinion) is to lead student towards a conclusion that will help them, or one that will show them that what they're so adamant about doing will hurt them. This means, primarily, that to tell a student "when they do this you need to do this" is less effective than saying "when they do this, what are their strengths? what are their weaknesses? you don't know their weaknesses, then what do you think they could be? there's a bunch of tanks, how are they most effective? so if they need to siege to be effective, what does that mean? so if they're immobile, what's a good option for taking them out?" Now some players just want builds and to make sure they're doing things right, which is cool, it works for most players, keeps them happy and gives them some information, but the player being asked to come to these conclusions themselves learns more about how to make decisions than simply what the decisions are. This means most importantly that the coaching is harder for the student to utilize, but more effective once understood. That's true. The biggest problem I run into in the lessons, is just there's not enough time. 1 hour is a very limited amount of time to work with. Starcraft 2 is not a simple game whatsoever, and explaining how to defend a certain build can alone take quite a bit of time. But yeah, coaching in the way you explained is definitely the most helpful way. | ||
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dabosaur
Sweden95 Posts
From different people i've got some one hour coaching, and it's pretty nice. It depends alot on the coach tho, some people just confused me and I didnt follow what they told me to anyway. Right now I'm in a really good spot tho, I've befriended a high master dude who helps me daily and I'm pretty sure I got into masters because of him :p The point is that having someone helping you out is always good. | ||
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EndOfLineTv
United States741 Posts
Sc2 is such a complicated game. that basic macro mechanics, and basic build order strategies take a long time to absorb. Once you have the basics down. like, lets say top 8 master. can you really get into the nitty gritty details of sc2. This is when I think coaching becomes gold. | ||
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ManiacTheZealot
United States490 Posts
A teacher on the other hand would give you instruction on how to do things. From the basics to the most advanced concepts. This involves long hours of instruction. A Tutor would help you understand concepts you've already learned. They would give you new ways of looking at them and reinforce important ideas. And if you just can't get it they would help by trying to simplify the concept for you making it easier to understand. I think most players are looking for Tutoring. Especially if they are willing to pay by the hour for only a short time. You'll get the most benefit out of this if you already done the most you could do on your own or with a teacher. | ||
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
What's very helpful for low league players is some direction in match-ups, and this can be given by almost any master player. And then with some intervals between games (e.g. a few days or weeks) review how the student has interpreted these guidelines and how they are solving the problems they are facing, and then give them slightly narrower guidelines and pointers on how to make their play even better. I think it is very important to give players opportunity to 'think for themselves'. Of course, this has to be preceeded by 'Probes & Pylons'. In my opinion, it's not worth paying a professional player to get these advices, as any active master player should be able to have good enough understanding to provide them. However, their technique of coaching can definately vary a lot. Getting coaching lessons is however a great gesture to support your favourite player, but if you're young and in difficult economic position, I would recommend not to buy coaching, especially not expecting a phenomenal increase in skill automatically. Most things you spend money on gives you something definite, but coaching really depends on how much you put into it. and does not really guarantee you anything but an hour session of conversation (I don't mean anything bad about pro-gamers, but eventually it's up to the student to get the most value out of the session.). | ||
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Kaitokid
Germany1327 Posts
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SirPinky
United States525 Posts
On March 04 2013 16:15 FireMonkey wrote: i dont know if this should go in strat or general. but does 'coaching' actually help a player? as far as i know the pro player will just tell you to build probes and give build orders you should do which you can just look up on youtube and liquidpedia for free anyways. ive never had it nor do i intend on having it so maybe someone who has can confirm. I saw a post on sc2 forums about it and someone said that he pictures a babysitter figure reading a newspaper and just saying every 17 seconds 'build probe' have you improved after this? how so? how is it any differant from having a friend teaching you how to play? how does it differ your play from looking up a build/playstyle? what progress thus far have you made because of it? discuss I think it plateaus at a certain level. Perhaps platinum or below can benefit by learning the basic tips/tricks/mechanics but after that I think it is pretty difficult (for the average joe shmo) to get to the next level. It's like training someone people to be a concert pianist - either you have it or you don't. For instance, in my situation, I've played the game since 98' and I'm just stubborn with hotkeys and strategies (even if there are better more more efficient ones out there). I'm always a mech player, similar to GoOdy, and even if I knew going bio was better, I usually go mech out of principle. I feel so much more vindicated winning an hour long PvT game going mech than winning 10 straight games going bio! | ||
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Qwyn
United States2779 Posts
On March 10 2013 01:31 ROOTMinigun wrote: I disagree 100%. I have way too many testimonials from people messaging me after telling how much it helped and how much they have improved. Watching a stream and getting someone to 1 on 1 coach you isn't even comparable. That's true. The biggest problem I run into in the lessons, is just there's not enough time. 1 hour is a very limited amount of time to work with. Starcraft 2 is not a simple game whatsoever, and explaining how to defend a certain build can alone take quite a bit of time. But yeah, coaching in the way you explained is definitely the most helpful way. I'm sorry, I should have elaborated. Rereading my post, you must have interpreted that I meant coaching was worthless. That is NOT the case. I am looking at the issue from the perspective of cost. Most coaching is not cheap. Most coaching sessions last for only an hour. Watching a high level player stream is free (subtracting bandwidth).Over the course of a hundred games with a competent player you will discover an established gameflow that you can emulate. But the most important component of SC, mechanical expertise, is achieved through practice. A coach cannot improve your mechanics (beyond certain optimizations). Only you can. And if you approach the game from a mechanical mindset, you will improve leaps and bounds. If you approach the game from a mechanical perspective, it is my belief that you will develop much more organically than if you worry about minutiae (which is what most lower level players who are interested in coaching desire). Minutiae and the deeper workings of builds simply aren't worth conveying to a lower level player.. And, like you said, "there is just not enough time." Lessons are expensive, and in the timespan of one hour the coach will mainly give "mechanical corrections," and the basic flow of a build, The deeper reasoning behind a build cannot be conveyed in such a short time. What the student is left with is information that, while certainly useful, could have been almost as easily attained with an understanding of each MU's gameflow (perhaps, through a free stream...), and dedication to improving fundamentals. Which leads to my last statement. I think getting coaching from a player you want to support is great. It CAN help you learn, if you know what you want to get out of it. But I think most players go into coaching without knowing exactly what they want, and end up being coached on basic gameflow and mechanical corrections which they are only going to be able to attain/maintain themselves through practice. But hey, thinking about it, if you are a higher level player and want to better understand minutiae, getting an hour coaching session and hammering out specific questions/answers rapidly sounds pretty darn cool. | ||
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StatixEx
United Kingdom779 Posts
coaching in starcraft for me is a wierd one. You dont need it! What exactly do you want to get better at it for? Whats the rush? My argument is that computer games have a 24hr 365 day a year accessibility so even through mass gaming you can get the experience you need with the game. Its not like golf for example, how can someone possibly help you actually swing, well they can be pointing out the issues you have but this is the thing, golf is a 4hr a day (at best) experience before you either get too tired or the elements and light runi the day. coaching in this case is useful as you can maximise ur play time. This goes for ANYTHING that has physical limit into how much you can practice it (unless you own all of the equipment in ur house). noe of course a load of people are going to bash my opinion but i paid for sc coaching 3 times, and then realised straight after it not one of the coaches were the same and had different ideas. this then makes coaching pointless, ur paying for someones opinion and although the fundamentals were discussed they weres told me HOW to hit the bench marks. The pro i got coached with couldnt understand why i couldnt hit 50 supply by 6.30??? so coach me. what am i doing wrong. With sc2 i feel getting coaching is pointless as it ruins the true rts notion of the game and in the end you start playing mechanical rather than ad hok, come on. we watch gsl and all the tournies. it really is the same game over and over again. When the casters go mad saying hes so creative and all the guy did was throw a starport down earlier than normal . . it makes me laugh but i guess this was what we were talkin about earlier . . . . . | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
But, whenever there is a coach.. there needs to be a student. I have coached a lot and didnt take long to realize that 99% of the "students" do not actually want to improve, they just want to be better. This means, they wont practice, they just play for fun and think listening to someone will get them skill out of thin air. Most people who are trying to become pro gamers or just trying to reach master league do not want to work for their goals. This is one of the main reason "playing a lot" is the usual answer when you ask how to improve. Most of the SC2 coaching is not aiming at players who actually want to work hard and improve and is therefore low quality. How can you teach someone who doesnt want to learn ? --> You offer fast short therm success. This kind of coaching and practicing will lead to a fast (small) improvement, getting players slightly higher in the leagues and thats it. There is no way to become a pro if some guy tells you a buildorder. How would that even work? In general improving includes the following steps: 1.) attitude ( figuring out that you actually need to improve, a typical problem in team games where people usually think all others are bad, not a huge problem in sc2) 2.) analyzing your flaws 3.) attitude ( being ready to work hard ) 4.) practicing 5.) improving If one step is going wrong all following steps are going wrong as well. (If you cannot find your flaws, you cannot figure out what to practice.. so you cant practice and therefore cant improve.) As i said above, the main problem in sc2 is the attitude, people do not want to work hard.. or work at all. They want to play, have fun and magically become really good. But this is nothing a coach can help you with. However, a coach can help you with 2.) and 4.) . If you are bad at analyzing yourself, you will never improve on your own. A coach can assist you and figure out your flaws on the short run, while teaching you how to find your flaws yourself for later on. After you found your flaws, a good coach will help you to set up practice plans and exercises that allow you to get rid of your flaws by practicing. Doing that on your own works sometimes.. but most of the time it doesnt, simply because people cant find their flaws. (Best proof is: at least 90% of all help threads on TL include a replay where people lost to basic macro flaws, still they all ask for decision making advice and lots of the advice actually aims at the buildorder/decision making instead of the macro) So basically the coaching problem is like this: people are lazy but want to be pro -> they do not practice -> real coaching doesnt work -> people offer low quality coaching -> coaches advertise -> people think they can be pro without hard work -> back to the start | ||
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U_G_L_Y
United States516 Posts
On March 10 2013 00:10 ROOTMinigun wrote: oh, then no I don't think so to answer your question wat, that has nothing to do with anything and not to derail the thread too much, if you cared more about it, I guarantee you would remember to do it WTF? It has everything to do with what we are talking about. In life, I struggle to remember to do things I know are important, even when focusing on them, just like in Starcraft. At work, if I don't document certain transactions with clients, I get written up. Despite this, when I am dealing with multiple clients, I forget. This is my fucking job, it is definitely important, it is how I live. But I can't remember do certin things anyway. I have post it notes, I have developed specific habits to try to remind me, but I still really struggle with it and am always in trouble for it. Sending my SCV back to Protoss base at 5 minutes is also SUPER important to me, but I still get distracted and forget and lose to a 4 gate now and then. It is the exact same thing. I used to drive a taxi from the airport to and from the ski resports/hotels, and I consistently missed the turn-off to the airport, even after a full season driving the route dozens of times a day. Even though I would sometimes have 10 passengers in my van. I am glad you never forget things that are important to you, that you are focused on doing, but it is the (biggest) reason why I suck at Starcraft. I don't think coaching can fix that. Perhaps a good night's sleep, caffeine, lots of practice, and maybe a brain transplant... | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 10 2013 01:31 ROOTMinigun wrote: That's true. The biggest problem I run into in the lessons, is just there's not enough time. 1 hour is a very limited amount of time to work with. Starcraft 2 is not a simple game whatsoever, and explaining how to defend a certain build can alone take quite a bit of time. But yeah, coaching in the way you explained is definitely the most helpful way. If the one lesson isnt enough time and you know that.. why do you offer a single lesson to your students? Wouldnt it be more honest to tell the students that they need at least X lessons and then only offer at least that amount of lessons? I take guitar lessons and if anyone asks my teacher about a single lesson he just laughs and sends them home. | ||
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ztranger
Sweden57 Posts
The "gut feeling" for people who don't read strategies seems to be 1 base + harass. JustAGame: A good reason to take 1 lesson is to try it, and see if the teacher + format is something you like, and then if it was good, book some more hours. Also for my friends I mentioned above, any coach should be able to spot the weakness in their play and explain a couple of basic strats in a fairly short amount of time and be of help for them. For myself, I went from silver to diamond by reading strats here, watching casts by husky and day9, but not everyone have the patience to spend that many hours on learning instead of playing. It's not only how you want to learn, but also a bit what your talents are: I'm also a self learned programmer, but I needed lessons to learn piano. I have met a few people who did not need a teacher to learn piano but clearly had a lot more talent than me. Most people do need lessons to learn programming, but a few people like me can do it on their own. Also note that most poeple play for fun and don't have motivation/talent to become pro, Also for people who play for fun and have a stable income, coaching is not that expensive unless you take $150 / hour lessons from Idra | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 12 2013 12:55 ztranger wrote: JustAGame: A good reason to take 1 lesson is to try it, and see if the teacher + format is something you like, and then if it was good, book some more hours. Also for my friends I mentioned above, any coach should be able to spot the weakness in their play and explain a couple of basic strats in a fairly short amount of time and be of help for them. My guitar teacher gives a free lesson for that reason, if you dont like it you dont pay at all. I do the same with sc2 coaching, if the guys are nice i even coach for free, but no matter what.. i tell every student that that taking only a few lessons is pointless. I prefer having less students than to make them believe 3 lessons would get them into GM league (and you wouldnt believe how many people think that, i had a bronze league student with 2000 games played, who really thought listening to me for 2 lessons would allow him to win the mlg......) On March 12 2013 12:55 ztranger wrote: For myself, I went from silver to diamond by reading strats here, watching casts by husky and day9, but not everyone have the patience to spend that many hours on learning instead of playing. It's not only how you want to learn, but also a bit what your talents are: I'm also a self learned programmer, but I needed lessons to learn piano. I have met a few people who did not need a teacher to learn piano but clearly had a lot more talent than me. Most people do need lessons to learn programming, but a few people like me can do it on their own. One of my students went from silver to master league within 5 lessons (=5 weeks) and about ~75 hours of total sc2 playtime during that time. Learning on your own is always much slower. Reading the stuff on your own isnt the problem, the real problem is evaluating what you read. Most of the guides are written by people who have flaws themselves and (as a lower tier player) its really hard to figure out which guide is good and which isnt. | ||
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Fen1kz
Russian Federation216 Posts
On March 04 2013 16:43 Teoita wrote: i've seen many (low league) players overmaking stalkers in pvp, which to them is fine (hey i'm keeping my money low!), but is quite a big mistake. when i switched from nerfed terran to protoss and went down to low-masters i also built mainly stalkers, so it's possible to go to ML with this mistakes, thats why u may use coaching. to ppl who wants buy lessons - take them only from GML/famous players, and only if u're stuck in high leagues (like if u're stuck in low/mid masters). if u're stuck in low league - quit forums, take a notebook and a pen and start mass laddering | ||
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 12 2013 09:57 U_G_L_Y wrote: WTF? It has everything to do with what we are talking about. In life, I struggle to remember to do things I know are important, even when focusing on them, just like in Starcraft. At work, if I don't document certain transactions with clients, I get written up. Despite this, when I am dealing with multiple clients, I forget. This is my fucking job, it is definitely important, it is how I live. But I can't remember do certin things anyway. I have post it notes, I have developed specific habits to try to remind me, but I still really struggle with it and am always in trouble for it. Sending my SCV back to Protoss base at 5 minutes is also SUPER important to me, but I still get distracted and forget and lose to a 4 gate now and then. It is the exact same thing. I used to drive a taxi from the airport to and from the ski resports/hotels, and I consistently missed the turn-off to the airport, even after a full season driving the route dozens of times a day. Even though I would sometimes have 10 passengers in my van. I am glad you never forget things that are important to you, that you are focused on doing, but it is the (biggest) reason why I suck at Starcraft. I don't think coaching can fix that. Perhaps a good night's sleep, caffeine, lots of practice, and maybe a brain transplant... Then you don't play enough. Sure you may forget the first 5-10 times to take out the garbage or whatever. But if she has to remind you EVERY single day at the same time, then I would put the blame on you. Unless you have a medical condition that causes you to forget easy, or are super overworked or whatever. Otherwise.... Same applies for starcraft...sure you have to be told/reminded to the first few times...but if you are still forgetting... On March 12 2013 10:13 JustAGame wrote: If the one lesson isnt enough time and you know that.. why do you offer a single lesson to your students? Wouldnt it be more honest to tell the students that they need at least X lessons and then only offer at least that amount of lessons? I take guitar lessons and if anyone asks my teacher about a single lesson he just laughs and sends them home. By using the word honest you are implying that I'm scamming them or something... I'm very upfront with it if they ask about it. Guitar lessons = / starcraft lessons. 1 hour is still very helpful none the less One hour is plenty to teach a plat player a matchup. It is not however plenty to teach someone how to actually play starcraft. | ||
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U_G_L_Y
United States516 Posts
I am not saying coaching isn't worth it for everyone, just for me. I have really really shitty mechanics, I am aware of it and am working to change that. I am honestly shocked when I win games because I am aware of the gajillions of mistakes I made. I don't think you really comprehend how talented you are | ||
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Noobity
United States871 Posts
On March 12 2013 09:57 U_G_L_Y wrote: WTF? It has everything to do with what we are talking about. In life, I struggle to remember to do things I know are important, even when focusing on them, just like in Starcraft. At work, if I don't document certain transactions with clients, I get written up. Despite this, when I am dealing with multiple clients, I forget. This is my fucking job, it is definitely important, it is how I live. But I can't remember do certin things anyway. I have post it notes, I have developed specific habits to try to remind me, but I still really struggle with it and am always in trouble for it. Sending my SCV back to Protoss base at 5 minutes is also SUPER important to me, but I still get distracted and forget and lose to a 4 gate now and then. It is the exact same thing. I used to drive a taxi from the airport to and from the ski resports/hotels, and I consistently missed the turn-off to the airport, even after a full season driving the route dozens of times a day. Even though I would sometimes have 10 passengers in my van. I am glad you never forget things that are important to you, that you are focused on doing, but it is the (biggest) reason why I suck at Starcraft. I don't think coaching can fix that. Perhaps a good night's sleep, caffeine, lots of practice, and maybe a brain transplant... Sounds more like you have an attention deficit disorder (like myself) more than you wouldn't benefit from coaching though. Your coaching would need to be specific to include the knowledge of the pre-existing disorder in order to be successful though. And even then the coach would need to know how to teach those with that disorder. It doesn't mean the coaching wouldn't help, simply that you would need a coaching that specifically addresses your needs. Similarly, if you know and understand where your attention begins to get derailed, you can usually coach yourself into specific ways to remember things. Mnemonics are useful and successful for a reason, and I think the ADD brains must have had some part in coming up with them. They're just different ways to go about remembering things, and these can be taught (or in this case coached) | ||
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smogg
Bulgaria167 Posts
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
Coaching will improve players of lower skill much faster than players of higher skill. Players of higher skill (masters+) have the basics of the game down and, for the most part, know what they need to do in order to improve. From there, it's all about continually practicing and remembering to macro more smoothly, smooth out your build orders, study timings, etc. Of course, there are always things that need improvement or bad habits that need to be broken that you can't always see, and it's helpful to have your gameplay reviewed by someone else, either a peer or mentor. Obviously, the more accomplished the person reviewing your gameplay is, the better feedback you'll get; therefore, a pro gamer coach can point out problematic issues in your gameplay quite well. All of that being said, of course coaching helps. But at the higher levels of play, most of the work is still individual work; a coach can't make you consistently macro better or smooth out your builds perfectly, that's your own work. | ||
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Jintoss
Hong Kong117 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On March 12 2013 20:28 ROOTMinigun wrote: By using the word honest you are implying that I'm scamming them or something... I'm very upfront with it if they ask about it. Guitar lessons = / starcraft lessons. 1 hour is still very helpful none the less One hour is plenty to teach a plat player a matchup. It is not however plenty to teach someone how to actually play starcraft. Minigun nailed this one pretty much on the head. People should think of Starcraft 2 as a guitar and playing it as learning songs. Hell, I would liken songs to builds, that each of them takes tons of pratice. My girlfriend is in a band and they take several 3-5 hour pratices just to master one song to the point where they want to preform it in a set. And its really shows if one of them didn't pratice for a week. Starcraft 2 is the same way. If you don't put the time in, you won't get better. And you can waste your time doing dumb stuff. | ||
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danl9rm
United States3111 Posts
You find a good coach and you will find someone that is worth learning from. | ||
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Emporium
England162 Posts
The guitar analogy is good in some ways, but still misses the point, completely. 1 lesson won't make you a god at the game, or even good, it might make you improve 1 specific outlook on it, but realistically it may not even do that.( as people have said is similar with guitar lessons) But, and this is where the point is missed completely between the 2 comparisons, you can't and don't have to 'beat' the guitar. The guitar won't react to what you are doing, and try and throw you off. But even aside from all that the other reason the guitar comparison isn't good, is that say you get to a really high level with the guitar, does that suddenly mean you can win compeitions ? No of course it doesn't because it is only 1 part of being good at it, there are other things then that will need to be improved, mental and phsycial improvements, that will enhance your skill level that you have gained from practicing the guitar. This is the same for sc2, and most games, you will improve in a bubble and get to GM, does this mean you can now start to win tournaments, no ofcourse it doesn't, you MAY be able to if inherently you can keep calm under pressure, but alot of people need to coach themselves at this, or phsically can't last the full X amount of days a tournament is under the stress. Both of these things can be improved by coaching. | ||
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On March 13 2013 03:23 Emporium wrote: I still think people are looking at this incorrectly. The guitar analogy is good in some ways, but still misses the point, completely. 1 lesson won't make you a god at the game, or even good, it might make you improve 1 specific outlook on it, but realistically it may not even do that.( as people have said is similar with guitar lessons) But, and this is where the point is missed completely between the 2 comparisons, you can't and don't have to 'beat' the guitar. The guitar won't react to what you are doing, and try and throw you off. But even aside from all that the other reason the guitar comparison isn't good, is that say you get to a really high level with the guitar, does that suddenly mean you can win compeitions ? No of course it doesn't because it is only 1 part of being good at it, there are other things then that will need to be improved, mental and phsycial improvements, that will enhance your skill level that you have gained from practicing the guitar. This is the same for sc2, and most games, you will improve in a bubble and get to GM, does this mean you can now start to win tournaments, no ofcourse it doesn't, you MAY be able to if inherently you can keep calm under pressure, but alot of people need to coach themselves at this, or phsically can't last the full X amount of days a tournament is under the stress. Both of these things can be improved by coaching. ....do you play an instrument? | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
i thought the EXACT same thing... music instruments are pretty much the same as sc2 .. you have mechanical skills, you have knowledge and experience.. you have buildorders ( called songs) that require you to hit the right button/string at the right timing and you got improvising with the rest of your band, which requires you to react and listen to the song. It requires a pretty euqal skill set. The only difference i can see, here is that music goes to your ear and playing sc2 goes to your eyes. | ||
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imp42
398 Posts
of course it depends a lot on the coach. me personally I tried it once out of curiosity and paid 2 hours. It was in the early stage of sc2 and the coach helped me to quickly identify different protoss builds depending on the gas mined and other scouting information. the result was a little build order tree no a piece of paper I could use to identify the protoss build and counter correctly. Very useful stuff. I could have found the same information on the net after hours of digging and lots of trial and error. So in a way a coach also speeds up the learning process. | ||
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Donger
United States147 Posts
On March 04 2013 17:11 FireMonkey wrote: Okay so to new players it helps, we've established that. What about experienced players so say platinum players I have coached my friends from gold/plat to diamond/masters in ~6 month time. They put in a lot of work on their own, but we would do lessons almost every day. The real question you have to ask, would they have reached that level of play without coaching? If you asked them they would say probably not. Or at least not in that short of a time frame. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 13 2013 07:29 Donger wrote: I have coached my friends from gold/plat to diamond/masters in ~6 month time. They put in a lot of work on their own, but we would do lessons almost every day. The real question you have to ask, would they have reached that level of play without coaching? If you asked them they would say probably not. Or at least not in that short of a time frame. 6 month isnt short at all, especially with daily lessons. 3 month to master league (doesnt matter where to start, even bronze) with one lesson per week is easily doable. I posted an example earlier. | ||
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Emporium
England162 Posts
On March 13 2013 05:27 JustAGame wrote: i thought the EXACT same thing... music instruments are pretty much the same as sc2 .. you have mechanical skills, you have knowledge and experience.. you have buildorders ( called songs) that require you to hit the right button/string at the right timing and you got improvising with the rest of your band, which requires you to react and listen to the song. It requires a pretty euqal skill set. The only difference i can see, here is that music goes to your ear and playing sc2 goes to your eyes. I haven't played the guitar for ages, but yeah i used to play. All the above you state, is just fundamentals if you were to enter a competition the above skills would be a given, but what they would be marking you on is your expression of the music, your ability to handle the pressure and your execution under such pressure. Which is why the sc2 and this differ, becuase up until now then yeah they are similar, you may do as you have said, (the above) to get better, but to be truly great at a game, is the ability to ingame, get in your opponents head and win there, it will have nothing to do with with your execution of a build or how well you macro, or learn a BO, but how well you can undermine your opponent, befroe the game has even started, as the rest of the skills in your arsenal, should be a given at this level. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 13 2013 17:01 Emporium wrote: I haven't played the guitar for ages, but yeah i used to play. All the above you state, is just fundamentals if you were to enter a competition the above skills would be a given, but what they would be marking you on is your expression of the music, your ability to handle the pressure and your execution under such pressure. Which is why the sc2 and this differ, becuase up until now then yeah they are similar, you may do as you have said, (the above) to get better, but to be truly great at a game, is the ability to ingame, get in your opponents head and win there, it will have nothing to do with with your execution of a build or how well you macro, or learn a BO, but how well you can undermine your opponent, befroe the game has even started, as the rest of the skills in your arsenal, should be a given at this level. So you basically say: (correct me if i am wrong) sc2: basic skills that can be learned/coached at first pressure / talent after music: basic skills that can be learned/coached at first pressure (concert) / talent after For me this sounds quite similiar. You cannot coach a musician to become really good, but thats the same everywhere. You can only coach the skill set and guide the people to get solid understanding / mechanical skills. | ||
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Emporium
England162 Posts
But I am assuming you can look deeper than that, and see that, as a musician, the guitar isn't suddenly going to gain an extra string, or change it's shape or do any numerous other things that can throw you off, when you are under alot of pressure on a stage, with people watching. But and this is why the analogy breaks down, in games it does, and you can coach people to better handle situations of pressure where unusal things happen, because you are playing against somebody else. So and this is BASICALLY what I am saying, no matter how hard you train at SC2 there IS going to be unexpected things happening all the time ingame, whereas when you go on stage, you know that all the important constants will be the same, you the guitar and your practice, suddenly don't disappear, SC2 has another level, in as much that on top of all that, you also have to mentally battle with your opponent. So BASICALLY your right, inasmuch you can see the woods for the trees. | ||
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Xaerkar
United States230 Posts
On March 13 2013 18:33 Emporium wrote: Yeah BASICALLY i say that. But I am assuming you can look deeper than that, and see that, as a musician, the guitar isn't suddenly going to gain an extra string, or change it's shape or do any numerous other things that can throw you off, when you are under alot of pressure on a stage, with people watching. But and this is why the analogy breaks down, in games it does, and you can coach people to better handle situations of pressure where unusal things happen, because you are playing against somebody else. So and this is BASICALLY what I am saying, no matter how hard you train at SC2 there IS going to be unexpected things happening all the time ingame, whereas when you go on stage, you know that all the important constants will be the same, you the guitar and your practice, suddenly don't disappear, SC2 has another level, in as much that on top of all that, you also have to mentally battle with your opponent. So BASICALLY your right, inasmuch you can see the woods for the trees. I don't necessarily believe that each concert will be the same without hardships. Oftentimes instruments might become damaged (strings breaking, tuning problems) and even interaction with audiences are radically different who sometimes may actually have members that "throw you off." On the note of coaching, it is good to receive advice from someone who acts as a third eye because that is the only way for a person to understand what they are overlooking in their own game analyses. Furthermore gaps in knowledge and reasoning can also be filled through a coach. People also vary greatly in their learning techniques, some may be better learners through independent study (replays) or by watching streamers while others may learn better through discussion and coaching. As others have noted, however, coaching is bad if one is simply dictating a build because this limits the creativity and personal thinking of the actual player. | ||
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FlattLine
80 Posts
Now I realize playing alone a 1v1 against AI and repeating a build many times over is 1,000 times more effective in improving mechanics, macro and overall game play. The only downside is the realization that after hours of build repetition, it's still imperfect and requiring a lot of work. Still, that guy owes me my 20 bucks back cause he totally took advantage of a silver leaguer. | ||
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Thalandros
Netherlands1151 Posts
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Donger
United States147 Posts
On March 13 2013 09:23 JustAGame wrote: 6 month isnt short at all, especially with daily lessons. 3 month to master league (doesnt matter where to start, even bronze) with one lesson per week is easily doable. I posted an example earlier. I would be interested to see how 12 lessons could get someone to Master's league from Bronze. | ||
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ThomasjServo
15244 Posts
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Penguinator
United States837 Posts
On March 04 2013 16:15 FireMonkey wrote: i dont know if this should go in strat or general. but does 'coaching' actually help a player? as far as i know the pro player will just tell you to build probes and give build orders you should do which you can just look up on youtube and liquidpedia for free anyways. ive never had it nor do i intend on having it so maybe someone who has can confirm. I saw a post on sc2 forums about it and someone said that he pictures a babysitter figure reading a newspaper and just saying every 17 seconds 'build probe' have you improved after this? how so? how is it any differant from having a friend teaching you how to play? how does it differ your play from looking up a build/playstyle? what progress thus far have you made because of it? discuss So do you think professional athletes don't need coaches? They're already experienced, right? So what more could they possibly gain from having a MORE EXPERIENCED person talk to them about their game? | ||
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dUTtrOACh
Canada2339 Posts
Coaching only works when you're truly dedicated to what you're doing and very receptive to what you're being told. You also need to have a certain amount of "talent" to improve past a certain level. I don't know how many times I've seen streamed lessons where the student is just an idiot who won't shut up and listen to what they're being told, or when the student is just so utterly terrible that they can't even perform the simple tasks they're being told to perform in a timely enough manner. I've personally spent about 3 hours altogether coaching a friend of mine from bronze up to gold league. I've also experienced coaching someone with brain damage (not a joke - car accident victim who had to relearn how to walk) and while his improvement was noticeable it was so frustrating that I had to stop. I spent 2 hours coaching another friend who was in gold and by the next day he was in plat after putting in 20 games. I don't consider any of the success or failure I have experienced to be proof that coaching "works" per se, but I consider the confidence that coaching gives to inspire people with the right mindset to be better. | ||
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dUTtrOACh
Canada2339 Posts
On March 14 2013 02:26 Donger wrote: I would be interested to see how 12 lessons could get someone to Master's league from Bronze. Once upon a time there was a build called the "4-gate". | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 14 2013 02:26 Donger wrote: I would be interested to see how 12 lessons could get someone to Master's league from Bronze. The starting league doesnt actually matter. The trick is to not teach someone 1000 different game situations which needs hundreds of lessons, but to teach the concept behind it, to allow them to understand the game, which needs only a few lessons. After that the player can easily understand the game on his own. This is what you see in many places in real life as well. Once again i want to point out my experience with music lessons: My first teacher just gave me one song to play, it took me a few lessons to play it. After that we did the second song etc... A year after i was able to play a few songs... but thats it. My new guitar teacher gave me the scales and the theory behind it. Now i can play those songs right from the paper.. and i am not limited to a few, but i can actually play everything i want, or even write my own songs (even though those are kinda crappy:D) Feel free to pm me for testing it out on your own. *Edit* On March 14 2013 02:57 dUTtrOACh wrote: Coaching only works when you're truly dedicated to what you're doing and very receptive to what you're being told. You also need to have a certain amount of "talent" to improve past a certain level. I needed to quote this because its the most important thing ever. So many people think coaching makes you better.. this is wrong.. it just helps you to practice more effiently.. if you do not practice.. no coaching on earth will make you a better player. | ||
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Averse
United States40 Posts
Ultimately it comes down to the user's willingness to put time and effort into practicing those techniques that will produce results. Even the highest level players would benefit from sharing ideas with another, obviously not for basics or mechanics but for expanding your style, just the same as musicians do. | ||
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1v1Alpha
33 Posts
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Dwayn
Germany949 Posts
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danl9rm
United States3111 Posts
On March 14 2013 12:33 1v1Alpha wrote: If you are diamond and lower don't get coaching from pros. A high master player will help you just as much for free or almost free. Idk why bronze players pay ridiculous prices for things anyone can teach them. If ur masters getting coaching from pros can be worth it but you have to have specific things you want to improve not just general macro which you can practice on your own This just isn't true. I don't know what you think 'general macro' is, but macro never happens in a vacuum. There is always an opponent in the game, changing variables all the time. A coach can help greatly with macro just like anything else. Also, like my previous post suggested, coaching is a separate skill. You don't just say, "Hey, Dennis Rodman is a great basketball player, let's make him coach our youth team." It doesn't work that way. | ||
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 14 2013 13:52 Dwayn wrote: I didn't feel like coaching helped me a lot. A little, yes, but not much. I can spot most of my crucial mistakes alone, it's often more a matter of just forgetting or bad mechanics. I wouldn't recommend paying for it (neither did I). However, what I do feel was incredibly helpful is playing many games in a row against the same race. It's much better than playing ladder, you can really concentrate on a one matchup. Have you considered you got a bad coach? The main points from my experience Everyone improves. Plat-diamond improve significantly. The best amount of time to buy is 3 hours (one for each mu) YOU MUST PRACTICE WHAT IS TAUGHT OR IT WAS POINTLESS ( probably the most irritating. I'll have people message me a few days later with a replay only to see they aren't following the build I gave them at all. Builds are a huge deal. Or I'll have people argue with me insisting their way is better...equally irritating) No you wont go from silver to gm after one lesson No coaching is not required to improve, it however is a shortcut to improving faster. Yes you can figure it out on your own. Coaching will help your Macro/micro/mechanics To people who say it doesn't help, well you are wrong. I have wayyyy to many testimonials from people messaging me days after a lesson telling me how much it helped. If you didn't learn a lot from coaching you either had a bad coach or you weren't listening | ||
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terrancake
Sweden30 Posts
I was very specific with what I wanted help with, which was PvP and proper responses when opening with an Eco blink build. In 2hrs it went from a helpless matchup to being one of my favorites. He did help me understand the finer nuances of the game so for me it was money well spent. I think it comes down to what your expectations are. To just improve your over all game there is only one way, play the game.. A lot. For help with specific issues I really do think it helps. | ||
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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
Denmark9349 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
Denmark9349 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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nanaoei
3358 Posts
On March 20 2013 20:42 Hider wrote: 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. It's pretty obvious that you take issue with minigun's coaching, but do you fully realize how you're literally saying you would be a better coach/teacher? It's very easy to make assumptions over and RTS such as it is while playing the game. Players rest on these these assumptions and create habits (good or bad), but that's not as deep as it goes. My opinion is that there is any number of factors that go into whether a player will succeed over time, including how stubborn or nervous they are. At the end of the day they still need to make probes, and they still need to make units properly in order to perform a build well. The normal occurrence is, the player does not truly understand why they should do X or Y; they may have an idea, but are oblivious to why those things are being covered. The amount of people who would rather "do" than to "think" would surprise anyone. Somebody said in another thread that if you don't "get" something, it doesn't automatically mean that you don't understand it. I would compare that to having a feeling or love for the game. This is also not something you can have someone feel by talking them into it, or explaining it as best you can. You could have a build order all laid out to the dot where a player is going to follow it mentally and physically until things start to feel practical.. You could have a basic outline of how a game could pan out if injects are nailed and larvae are used--a game where bad habits are addressed in other words.. You could sit down and address the skill level that a player retains and talk about what other goals are there when it comes to the game, and your steps to how practice can benefit them.. Or you could combine all that you can think of into one unique package, hoping you can articulate yourself perfectly to whom you're dealing with. you have to understand that these students and teachers are strangers and remain strangers after the hour is up. The only thing they apparently share is a game that is meant to be played (either through the eyes of another player, or personally). Honestly though, there is a lot of black and white in starcraft. Either you make those probes every ~17 seconds, or you lack the options that are normally available to more competitive players. Pretty simple if you ask me, but many people don't think about that even if they're given all the chances. Remember when Kerrigan told Zagara that she lacked vision? Yeah, i used that reference.. SERIOUSLY! | ||
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Shikyo
Finland33997 Posts
Many of the progamer coaching videos(including that minigun video) seem like they wouldn't really stick for long at all because they don't seek to fundamentally change the way the player thinks. | ||
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 20 2013 20:42 Hider wrote: 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. "Telling the student ( as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless." I don't even know how you can say that. I've coached hundreds and this is the style I've used every time. What experience are you basing this off of? It works, whether you like it or believe it, it does. You can say it doesn't all you want. I was only talking about a select few. The attitude "I am always right" is how I would describe them. If they think they are right and refuse to change their mind. I'm trying to get the student the best value for their money. That IMO is running through a couple games, showing them what it feels like to macro properly (yes telling them to build probes and what not) just so they see what it looks like, and giving them macro/micro tips as I see fit. A bad build order can be a huge hinderence in improving. More than people realize. 1 hour is just not enough time. I have had 0 complaints about my coaching. Maybe they say it's bad behind my back, but I assume it's at least worthwhile since I haven't had any complaints. Like I said many many many people message me days/weeks after telling me how much it helped. Based on this feedback I assumed I'm doing an appropriate job. On March 20 2013 21:36 Shikyo wrote: I do have to partially agree with Hider, though. Many pro players seem to hurry too much with the coaching and don't bother starting from the basics. In my opinion, it's far more important to teach a player why he's scouting and what he's looking to see by doing it and what its effects are and how he should adjust his play by his scouting information instead of just jumping into a game and going "scout now!" "look, he made a factory!" (now the player plays a ladder game, scouts something different and is clueless). Tips for remembering to make workers or some mental tricks and such would also be more helpful than "make workers" and so on. Telling them to do something -now- isn't in my opinion useful at all, they should instead be taught to think for themselves and be able to make those judgement calls correctly themselves. Many of the progamer coaching videos(including that minigun video) seem like they wouldn't really stick for long at all because they don't seek to fundamentally change the way the player thinks. I've literally done hundreds and hundreds of hours of coaching. I was only talking about a select few. The attitude "I am always right" is how I would describe them. If they think they are right and refuse to change their mind. 99% of the students I have no problem with. "Many pro players seem to hurry too much with the coaching and don't bother starting from the basics. In my opinion, it's far more important to teach a player why he's scouting and what he's looking to see by doing it and what its effects are and how he should adjust his play by his scouting information instead of just jumping into a game and going "scout now!" "look, he made a factory!" (now the player plays a ladder game, scouts something different and is clueless). " I'm pretty sure I emphaize this in any lessons. One game we will run through the build with his opponent going factory. We go through the proper response. The next game he scouts a fast 3rd, we do the appropriate response, and so on. I've emphaized this point before but I'll do it again.... I only have ONE hour to work with in most cases. That's just soooo little time. It takes 1000+ games to get a proper grasp on a matchup. How can anyone teach it in an hour?? You can't. I can only give them the best value for their money. That imo is the way I'm doing it. I could be wrong, but the results seem to prove otherwise. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 21 2013 03:34 ROOTMinigun wrote: "Telling the student ( as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless." I don't even know how you can say that. I've coached hundreds and this is the style I've used every time. What experience are you basing this off of? It works, whether you like it or believe it, it does. You can say it doesn't all you want. I was only talking about a select few. The attitude "I am always right" is how I would describe them. If they think they are right and refuse to change their mind. I'm trying to get the student the best value for their money. That IMO is running through a couple games, showing them what it feels like to macro properly (yes telling them to build probes and what not) just so they see what it looks like, and giving them macro/micro tips as I see fit. A bad build order can be a huge hinderence in improving. More than people realize. 1 hour is just not enough time. I have had 0 complaints about my coaching. Maybe they say it's bad behind my back, but I assume it's at least worthwhile since I haven't had any complaints. Like I said many many many people message me days/weeks after telling me how much it helped. Based on this feedback I assumed I'm doing an appropriate job. I am not sure why you are that harsh at each other. Its a more than valid to criticize a coach who is doing the kind of coaching you do, since it is very inefficient compared to other ways of coaching. Just telling people what to do is the reason you need that many lessons and most likely the reason you think coaching beginners is hard. Of course it takes a long time for someone to understand the game if you do not actually explain the theory behind it. If i tell a kid that 3*4=12 he is not able to mutiply, since i didnt tell him how to do so. OR the more easy way to explain why this kind of caoching isnt really good: Basically its only telling the students to get better instead of really telling them how to do that. But since people know your way of coaching.. and pay you.. they are obivously fine doing it that way. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
 didnt mean to double post | ||
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 21 2013 05:40 JustAGame wrote: I am not sure why you are that harsh at each other. Its a more than valid to criticize a coach who is doing the kind of coaching you do, since it is very inefficient compared to other ways of coaching. Just telling people what to do is the reason you need that many lessons and most likely the reason you think coaching beginners is hard. Of course it takes a long time for someone to understand the game if you do not actually explain the theory behind it. If i tell a kid that 3*4=12 he is not able to mutiply, since i didnt tell him how to do so. OR the more easy way to explain why this kind of caoching isnt really good: Basically its only telling the students to get better instead of really telling them how to do that. But since people know your way of coaching.. and pay you.. they are obivously fine doing it that way. Where are you getting this information? I don't think coaching beginners is hard. They just learn at a much slower pace when makes coaching even less worthwhile for them. I explain why they are doing things. I don't just tell them to blindly build a robo bay at this point. Or why they are cutting probes. I'm not just going through a build with them, I'm going through it while telling them why. I dunno why you don't think I do. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 21 2013 06:10 ROOTMinigun wrote: Where are you getting this information? What kind of exercises do you give your students ? | ||
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 21 2013 07:34 JustAGame wrote: What kind of exercises do you give your students ? There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 21 2013 07:47 ROOTMinigun wrote: There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games. I will just post the short version here. Mechanics: The first minutes of a game the player has too little to do to improve the mechsnics, in late game, the player has too much to do and start learning bad habits instead of solid mechanics. The overall efficiency when practicing mechanics is very low in ladder games, isolated exercises have 5 to 10 times the efficiency. Decision making: Only 1 out of 3 games is against the right race and way less are against the right build to actually practice what you want to practice. Additionally, how do you learn decision making while playing? If you win.. was your decision good ? you dont know.. maybe your opponent was just bad, maybe you made the right decision for the wrong reasons ? If you lose.. was your decision bad ? Which decision was bad? Maybe your opponent just got lucky with random transitions? Maybe he was better at macro ? Maybe your decision was good but your micro was bad? Actually.. there is no way to tell by just playing. No idea why you think that massing ladder games is the best exercise. There is a reason that EVERYWHERE outside of esports, poeple use isolated exercises and theoretical exercises to practice, while "playing" is only a small part of the training. But back to your initial question: Asuming you teach your students deep game understanding and tell them how to practice mechanics. Why is there no real exercise behind it ? If you tell your student how to actually improve.. why is he just doing the same exercise he did before ? Somehow it doesnt really make sense to me.. since either you tell them how to improve.. and they actually do this after.. or you dont tell them and they just to the same thing they did before. So i think, you just tell them some stuff they didnt know before and dont give them any real exercises to actually improve. But THATS the point of coaching: You give people exercises and explain them how to improve instead of only teaching them during the lesson. 99% of the progress i made at playing a music instrument was done at home in my practice sessions. The lessons are there to identify what i need to practice and telling me how to practice it. | ||
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iSTime
1579 Posts
On March 21 2013 03:34 ROOTMinigun wrote: "Telling the student ( as you do) to do a 100 different things at once during one game is close to useless." I don't even know how you can say that. I've coached hundreds and this is the style I've used every time. What experience are you basing this off of? It works, whether you like it or believe it, it does. You can say it doesn't all you want. I was only talking about a select few. The attitude "I am always right" is how I would describe them. If they think they are right and refuse to change their mind. I'm trying to get the student the best value for their money. That IMO is running through a couple games, showing them what it feels like to macro properly (yes telling them to build probes and what not) just so they see what it looks like, and giving them macro/micro tips as I see fit. A bad build order can be a huge hinderence in improving. More than people realize. This is incredibly true, especially if you're coaching someone who has played a decent number of games and therefore has a decent amount of APM (say, >60 or something). Most people who are in lower leagues just don't understand how much their play will improve if they just get in the habit of making probes, pylons and warping in units every 20-30 seconds. I have very little experience coaching, but of people I have coached I often hear back about how much their play has improve because I told them to use camera hotkeys to warp in units, or some other basic macro skill. It's much more difficult to teach deep understanding or nuances of timings. I would say that those things are more or less completely useless until you can macro and micro adequately. What good is it for a gold player to know what time they need to have some crucial unit or upgrade out if they can't ever get it out that fast and their opponents can't hit the proper timings to punish them for not doing so? No idea why you think that massing ladder games is the best exercise. There is a reason that EVERYWHERE outside of esports, poeple use isolated exercises and theoretical exercises to practice, while "playing" is only a small part of the training. This isn't even true for most things until you get to a decent level to begin with. In most things, people do them casually for a decent amount of time before they start running drills and other targeted practice. Not only are drills a good way to get really bored and not want to do it anymore, I don't even know that it's optimal. In rock climbing, many of the best in the world say that the best practice for climbing is climbing, and it seems like this is true except for very strong climbers. I think the same applies to starcraft. | ||
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Shikyo
Finland33997 Posts
On March 21 2013 07:47 ROOTMinigun wrote: There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games. I'll totally disagree with this. Of course my example will be from Brood War, but in it I was a 60 APM player who knew some things and the general idea of how to play but still was really really bad. After like 300 games of iccup I still didn't improve much at all, so I decided to just practice APM and multitasking. After about a week of just wanting to become faster and faster and learn to control units and macro at the same time, my APM went up to around 250 and after a while I went up to C-rank with like a 21-3 w/l(Had never even been near C before that) and so on. Mass laddering wouldn't have helped with that at all(or maybe it would have by spending like 20 times the amount of time), it was very specific training to improve a very specific point. Mass laddering is in my opinion ONLY useful if you do them to practice a specific point. After you reach it and it becomes natural (<- important), you are to stop laddering, gain a new specific focus, practice it 1v0, and then focus on improving it while laddering . The above is entirely my opinion. Everyone is allowed to disagree. I am not saying that I am objectively correct at all. I do heavily disagree with mass ladder being even close to a good way to improve, though. The tricks I'm talking about are mental tricks to -remember- making probes and pylons, not useless things like saving 5 minerals by building pylon x with a specific probe | ||
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Minigun
619 Posts
On March 21 2013 08:31 JustAGame wrote: I will just post the short version here. Mechanics: The first minutes of a game the player has too little to do to improve the mechsnics, in late game, the player has too much to do and start learning bad habits instead of solid mechanics. The overall efficiency when practicing mechanics is very low in ladder games, isolated exercises have 5 to 10 times the efficiency. Decision making: Only 1 out of 3 games is against the right race and way less are against the right build to actually practice what you want to practice. Additionally, how do you learn decision making while playing? If you win.. was your decision good ? you dont know.. maybe your opponent was just bad, maybe you made the right decision for the wrong reasons ? If you lose.. was your decision bad ? Which decision was bad? Maybe your opponent just got lucky with random transitions? Maybe he was better at macro ? Maybe your decision was good but your micro was bad? Actually.. there is no way to tell by just playing. No idea why you think that massing ladder games is the best exercise. There is a reason that EVERYWHERE outside of esports, poeple use isolated exercises and theoretical exercises to practice, while "playing" is only a small part of the training. But back to your initial question: Asuming you teach your students deep game understanding and tell them how to practice mechanics. Why is there no real exercise behind it ? If you tell your student how to actually improve.. why is he just doing the same exercise he did before ? Somehow it doesnt really make sense to me.. since either you tell them how to improve.. and they actually do this after.. or you dont tell them and they just to the same thing they did before. So i think, you just tell them some stuff they didnt know before and dont give them any real exercises to actually improve. But THATS the point of coaching: You give people exercises and explain them how to improve instead of only teaching them during the lesson. 99% of the progress i made at playing a music instrument was done at home in my practice sessions. The lessons are there to identify what i need to practice and telling me how to practice it. You are giving them "exercises" I suppose. Only they are practicing many exercises at once. Although they COULD if they wanted to only practice one at a time. Such as trying to use observer more, trying to get supply blocked less, or just trying to follow the build properly. I don't understand what you are confused about. During the coaching lesson you teach them good habits/micro/macro techniques, and then they practice it in real time during ladder. What exercises are you going to teach? You want me to tell them to go play dodgeball custom to practice accuracy? Go play the micro arena to practice vs random unit compositions? There is no better practice than ladder/custom games. Nothing comes close. No idea why you think massing ladder games isn't the best exercise. Because well, it is. On March 21 2013 08:43 Shikyo wrote: I'll totally disagree with this. Of course my example will be from Brood War, but in it I was a 60 APM player who knew some things and the general idea of how to play but still was really really bad. After like 300 games of iccup I still didn't improve much at all, so I decided to just practice APM and multitasking. After about a week of just wanting to become faster and faster and learn to control units and macro at the same time, my APM went up to around 250 and after a while I went up to C-rank with like a 21-3 w/l(Had never even been near C before that) and so on. Mass laddering wouldn't have helped with that at all(or maybe it would have by spending like 20 times the amount of time), it was very specific training to improve a very specific point. Mass laddering is in my opinion ONLY useful if you do them to practice a specific point. After you reach it and it becomes natural (<- important), you are to stop laddering, gain a new specific focus, practice it 1v0, and then focus on improving it while laddering . The above is entirely my opinion. Everyone is allowed to disagree. I am not saying that I am objectively correct at all. I do heavily disagree with mass ladder being even close to a good way to improve, though. The tricks I'm talking about are mental tricks to -remember- making probes and pylons, not useless things like saving 5 minerals by building pylon x with a specific probe I had 60 apm when I first started this game. How did I improve this? I laddered and now I have around 250-300. If you are wanting to improve one thing specifically than ofc just going to a custom game or whatever is going to improve that. But most people I am talking about don't have the time to specifically set aside for "increasing apm". Overall laddering is going to be the best use of their time. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 21 2013 08:46 ROOTMinigun wrote: You are giving them "exercises" I suppose. Only they are practicing many exercises at once. Although they COULD if they wanted to only practice one at a time. Such as trying to use observer more, trying to get supply blocked less, or just trying to follow the build properly. They COULD also just play better. yes.. they could micro better.. use their scouts better.. not get supply blocked. THATS what i am talking about.. you dont tell them how to actually do this.. just telling them that they need to do so and giving them some tipps at best. There are real exercises for that. But after i posted WHY mass ladder games are not good for practice and you ignored all of this to just say "they are the best exercise" even though i showed that they are useless for decision making and far away from optimal for mechanics, i dont feel like the discussion is going anywhere. To the other guy: (sorry for not quoting.. its late over here) People who climp do not start climbing some rocks. That would lead to half or even more of them hurting themselves or dying right away. They start with general sports to get the needed fitness (unless they got this already ofc). After that they usually train their strength for the hands and fingers and practice in special walls with colored spots to grab ( i dont know the word.. sry). After they actually practice the endurance, strength and some basic climbing skills, they do the real thing. After all that is done.. yes the real wall is very good practice, while additional isolated exercises are usually done to warm up or practice when they feel the need. The reason the real wall is the "best" training is not because its such an efficient way to practice. Its simply the fact, that each isolated exercise is "isolated" and at some point its needed to bring them all together. There is no other way to do so. In sc2 its the same, you got basic skills like mechanical skills, that are best practiced in isolated exercises. Once again: playing the game has very little efficiency at practicing mechanics, simply due to the fact that the early game is so easy to handle that you have a low practice effect, while the late game is too much too handle for most players. The best training is isolated mechanics exercises. After those are done (remember the basics for climbing) you need to get to the real thing. Even though the efficiency is very low, there is no other way, simply because isolated exercises are only useful for the basics but wont help you to combine it all. -> The best way to practice mechanics is by doing isolated exercises and after (takes some weeks) you slowly combine it all until you can play a full game. Meaning: You dont practice your finger/hand strength and your endurance in mid air in a real wall (that might hurt or kill you), same as you should not practice the speed and precision of several keycombinations while playing sc2. For decision making, playing a lot is useless for the reasons i told before. There is NO way to evaluate your decision making while playing and adding the fact that you will make 100 different decisions during your ladder games, there is not even a way to play the same situation twice per day on purpose. The only real way to evaluate the decision making is by watching the replay and analyzing it. Without analyzing the replay its impossible to tell how good your decisions were. The replay is the only way to access all information needed. Watching the replay for 1 minute only, will not help much, since most of the questions (see my previous post) will still not be answered. A very experienced player might be able to get the needed info within a few minutes, but a "student" usually needs quite a long time until he figures out a) which decision was good/bad b)for what reason it was good/bad and c ) which decision would have been better. Just to give you an idea what kind of exercises i give my students: Beginning: 100% isolated exercises The stuff practiced in the isolated exercises is added up one by one to a "real game" (there are different ways of doing it) so it slowly changes to ~70% isolated exercises and ~30% playing When it comes to decision making, it changes to about: 1/3 isolated exercises, 1/3 playing 1/3 analyzing replays I am fine to compare the methods if you want. Every silver/gold/platinum student i had (who did the exercises i gave them) got to master league in less than 3 months, everyone who finished the coaching (~12 lessons) got to top 8 master league. BUT you are right.. its really boring to practice at the highest efficiency and most people do not like that way, no matter how good it is. It is sick boring, lots of work and a there is no fun at all. | ||
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iSTime
1579 Posts
On March 21 2013 09:45 JustAGame wrote: People who climp do not start climbing some rocks. That would lead to half or even more of them hurting themselves or dying right away. They start with general sports to get the needed fitness (unless they got this already ofc). After that they usually train their strength for the hands and fingers and practice in special walls with colored spots to grab ( i dont know the word.. sry). After they actually practice the endurance, strength and some basic climbing skills, they do the real thing. After all that is done.. yes the real wall is very good practice, while additional isolated exercises are usually done to warm up or practice when they feel the need. The reason the real wall is the "best" training is not because its such an efficient way to practice. Its simply the fact, that each isolated exercise is "isolated" and at some point its needed to bring them all together. There is no other way to do so. In sc2 its the same, you got basic skills like mechanical skills, that are best practiced in isolated exercises. Once again: playing the game has very little efficiency at practicing mechanics, simply due to the fact that the early game is so easy to handle that you have a low practice effect, while the late game is too much too handle for most players. The best training is isolated mechanics exercises. After those are done (remember the basics for climbing) you need to get to the real thing. Even though the efficiency is very low, there is no other way, simply because isolated exercises are only useful for the basics but wont help you to combine it all. -> The best way to practice mechanics is by doing isolated exercises and after (takes some weeks) you slowly combine it all until you can play a full game. Meaning: You dont practice your finger/hand strength and your endurance in mid air in a real wall (that might hurt or kill you), same as you should not practice the speed and precision of several keycombinations while playing sc2. I probably shouldn't have used climbing as an analogy since people aren't going to be familiar with it, but: First of all a lot of people (probably the majority of them nowadays) wouldn't differentiate by saying that climbing outdoors is rock climbing while climbing indoors is training. Also, "more than half" of people dying or being seriously injured if they started by climbing outdoors is blatantly absurd. That's how the sport began, since climbing gyms didn't exist, and far fewer than half of them died or got injured. Secondly, if someone is bad at climbing, they'll be climbing 5.5 or 5.6 (equivalent to bronze league). Nobody would suggest to these people that they do targeted training, they would just say "climb more." (maybe if they're fat someone might suggest diet+running to lose some weight) Even people who are climbing in the 5.10 range are probably best off just climbing more, and a lot of elite climbers got into 5.12 territory or higher before they ever trained, which is basically GM-level of difficulty. People generally don't suggest practicing finger strength (campus board/hangboard/etc.) until they're at least climbing ~5.11, since it's just not as effective and it's more likely to lead to injury. In both climbing and SC2, it is probably true that there are more efficient ways to improve than just climbing and playing SC2. However, both "sports" are in their relative infancy compared to things like basketball/football/olympic lifting/etc. People haven't developed really effective training methodologies other than "just play more" yet, and they probably won't for a long time. I think the same holds for SC2. Unless someone is at least masters, they'll probably be best off just playing more games and getting some basic guidance from a coach about how to macro. Once you're already really good, maybe there are some basic multitask maps that are useful (I know that vVvTitan had a map that he played on to do injects+creep spread while macroing which he claimed helped him a lot), but I just doubt that these things are that effective for players who aren't already pretty good. As for the rest of your post, I'll just say that a) I don't think it's that hard for someone to analyze their own replay and b) if you do have a coach, he'll probably look at the replay and tell you you had 3k/2k and only used 1 hotkey the whole game. And he'll be right that this is why you lost. Every now and then the loss will be to something like not knowing how to beat a 6 pool, but in my experience those are less common. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 21 2013 11:33 iSTime wrote: I probably shouldn't have used climbing as an analogy since people aren't going to be familiar with it, but: First of all a lot of people (probably the majority of them nowadays) wouldn't differentiate by saying that climbing outdoors is rock climbing while climbing indoors is training. Also, "more than half" of people dying or being seriously injured if they started by climbing outdoors is blatantly absurd. That's how the sport began, since climbing gyms didn't exist, and far fewer than half of them died or got injured. Secondly, if someone is bad at climbing, they'll be climbing 5.5 or 5.6 (equivalent to bronze league). Nobody would suggest to these people that they do targeted training, they would just say "climb more." (maybe if they're fat someone might suggest diet+running to lose some weight) Even people who are climbing in the 5.10 range are probably best off just climbing more, and a lot of elite climbers got into 5.12 territory or higher before they ever trained, which is basically GM-level of difficulty. People generally don't suggest practicing finger strength (campus board/hangboard/etc.) until they're at least climbing ~5.11, since it's just not as effective and it's more likely to lead to injury. In both climbing and SC2, it is probably true that there are more efficient ways to improve than just climbing and playing SC2. However, both "sports" are in their relative infancy compared to things like basketball/football/olympic lifting/etc. People haven't developed really effective training methodologies other than "just play more" yet, and they probably won't for a long time. I think the same holds for SC2. Unless someone is at least masters, they'll probably be best off just playing more games and getting some basic guidance from a coach about how to macro. Once you're already really good, maybe there are some basic multitask maps that are useful (I know that vVvTitan had a map that he played on to do injects+creep spread while macroing which he claimed helped him a lot), but I just doubt that these things are that effective for players who aren't already pretty good. As for the rest of your post, I'll just say that a) I don't think it's that hard for someone to analyze their own replay and b) if you do have a coach, he'll probably look at the replay and tell you you had 3k/2k and only used 1 hotkey the whole game. And he'll be right that this is why you lost. Every now and then the loss will be to something like not knowing how to beat a 6 pool, but in my experience those are less common. Btw, just to say this again: you are totally right about how boring isolated training is. Its really no fun at all and can ruin the game for you. But its still the most efficient way of practicing. Casuals who just want to improve but do not actually care about how fast or how far they get, shouldnt do it. What i said about the injuries was meant at the highest level of climbing. If an untrained person starts at the highest difficulty right away, he will hurt himself most likely. Climbing an indoor beginner wall is sick easy compared to climbing at the highest difficulty. Playing at bronze without making mistakes is the same as playing in masters. The game is the same. You have the same units, the same stuff, Yes your opponent is weaker, but that only means that you can do some mistakes and still win. Climbing a low level wall is a different thing than climbing a high level wall. Its "not the same game". You may not make mistakes at both, because if you do so.. you will fall. Climbing at lower difficulty is like isolated exercise, since you artificialy lower your total workload. Playing at bronze is the same "do it all at once" as master league, with the difference that the bronze league player cannot do it and messes up left and right. To get a real comparism to climbing: make it 1v1. If i start climbing at the highest possible difficulty against another beginner, i will not practice, but mostlikely go straight to the hospital (same as he does). As i said.. the difficulty levels are actually some form of isolated training. The sports i did for more than just a few weeks: table tennis, swimming, judo, karate, badminton and chess ( ) i even got a few medals there from small local events. Table tennis: the first 30 minutes of every single training session was pure isolated endurance training. After that we practiced topspins, etc etc Only a very minimal amount was actually playing. Especially the new guys who needed to practice the technique didnt play at all. If at all , the only "games" we played, were predesigned frequenzes like player A hits this way, player b hits this way and start again. The same goes for Badminton, but since this was the only pure caasual sport i did, it included more playing than the others. In both judo and karate we did isolated exercises for endurance, flexibility, speed, technique only. Way later we started doing some minor sequences like hit + block or grab + throw, but thats it. Those who already were in there for much longer did some fights, but even for them it was less than 20% of the total training. (So for beginners 100% isolated, for advanced students at least 80% isolated exercises) And now chess.. the same thing. Isolated exercises.. Openings, special situations etc etc. very little actual playing. The reason people do isolated exercises is simple: When you do the real game/soprt what ever, you need to combine many individual skills. For sports its usually endurance, strength, speed, technique. If you start by just doing the full thing right away, each of your idividual skills is weak. To actually focus on the game you must know the technique. You do not learn the technique by just doing it all together, its way too much to handle. So you start with isolated exercises for the technique and endurance etc.. you do each thing in isolated exercises. Once you have done this and brought all your skills to a good level, you can start adding them up one by one, e.g. by playing a fixed sequence in badmintoon (e.g. long ball, short ball, short ball, long ball and repeat) This will help you to learn putting all the skills together. If you go to a random badminton club you will see, that those players who did NOT do the isolated training in the first place will mess up their technique, their movement and their positioning all the time. They improve very slowly. Those who did the isolated exercises before, do everything right, position well, have a good movement and only need to practice putting it all together. They are much better and improve much faster. And the same thing is true for SC2. If you practice by just playing, you basically do everything wrong. You just try to do it all at once while constantly messing up keycombinations and other stuff. Why does a low player use his mouse instead of his keyboard? Because using the keyboard is new to him and he just cant do it while playing. He uses his mouse instead and practices something that is simply WRONG / BAD. Instead he could as well just write down the keycombination for each action (one by one) and hammer it into his keyboard until he knows it inside out. Thats isolated training. After he did this for like 1 week (yeah it doesnt need much longer) he can actually do those actions with a high speed and accuracy. Then he starts putting them together one by one. E.g. play a game with only building units and workers, then you add supply buildings.. then you add production buildings. A player practicing this way will never mess up or practice anything wrong, since he has the basic skills needed. There is a reason why players using that method learn up to 10 times as fast and macro VERY good after only a few weeks of practice, while players who just play a lot, need a long time and still have major flaws in their mechanics. As i said.. at some point, when the player is really confident in macroing, he starts playing against real opponents, but at that point he is already so good, that the only "new thing" is the opponent. Once again the player learned the basics skills before, allowing him to not mess up and therefore not learn something wrong. -- For decision making.. some of you might feel offended by this, but its not meant that way! Really! There is a huge difference between knowledge/experience and deep understanding. Most players, i bet even many of the pros/semi pros and coaches as well, do not have deep game understanding, but knowledge. This means, instead of analyzing a situation based on its variables, they have a list in their mind that includes a lot of "if then else" lines. "If my opponents does ___ then i do ____" this is not deep understanding, but only experience/knowledge. Deep understanding means, to know the formular behind it: Can you answer the question: Given a situation S, how to figure out the best decision, D ? If your first thought is: "Well if this istuation is ___ then i need to do ___ " you obivously do not know how to figure out the best decision in a random situation. Deep understanding means you have a formular like D = D(S), meaning you have an algorithm that uses all the variables to find out the best decision in that situation. Further, its the SAME algorithm for every possible game situation. The variables just produce a different result but do not change the used algorithm. Do not get me wrong here, using the algorithm (and there is one btw) takes too long to use it while playing. Therefore the thing you really need is the knowledge/experience. (E.g. as an engineer i do not understand all the math i am using.. but trying to understand it only wastes time.. using it only is much faster and i know how to use it, same as most people do not know how their pc works but are fine using it and can even help you if something is going wrong) For teaching however, it is important to actually have this understanding. The reason is quite simple: A new player, who doesnt have the knowledge, needs a looooong time to read all the stuff, try it in games, fail or succeed, evaluate everything one by one etc.. Learning this knowledge takes a lot of time if you simply play a lot and read some guides. You basically got to set up a list with "If A then B", with endless lines, since there are so many possible situations and reactions. If however... a new player knows the theory behind this and has a formular to calculate the best decision instead of running 100 games in trial and error, he can actually increase the speed of gathering the knowledge A LOT. Its usually enough to just watch a special build and use the "formular" on it, to figure out how to beat it. So 1 or 2 games against a build can be enough to fully understand its stregths and weaknesses. Even with this formular it takes some time to actually gather the knowledge, but its WAY faster than by playing a lot. | ||
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Shikyo
Finland33997 Posts
On March 21 2013 08:46 ROOTMinigun wrote: I had 60 apm when I first started this game. How did I improve this? I laddered and now I have around 250-300. If you are wanting to improve one thing specifically than ofc just going to a custom game or whatever is going to improve that. But most people I am talking about don't have the time to specifically set aside for "increasing apm". Overall laddering is going to be the best use of their time. Hmm, I've seen some of your games played-figures. I imagine it's in the tens of thousands by now? let's just assume it's 10000. That's hmm... 1000 hours. I am going to argue that if a player does specialized training exercises for 900 hours and plays ladder for 100 hours after that, they're going to improve at a faster rate than if they had only played ladder for 1000 hours. Practicing a specific thing with a teammate for example does count as specialized training. It also doesn't stop there. If you lose to something, you see what you lost to. You see why you lost. Can your build not deal with it? If it cannot, look for his build order flags(or if he sucks, recreate it and figure them out). After identifying them, see how you can scout them and prepare for the build, optimally the second the attack would hit. An easy old example for ZvP, I died to a 1gas 4gate back in like 2011. So I went and tried to perfect the build, figured that it can hit at 5:55 or whatever it was if you do the build perfectly, and then had my build have barely enough to defend at 5:55 after scouting the build order flags that show what he's doing(unit x or building x or lack of them at time y). After that I never lost to that build again mostly because no one actually did do it perfectly. I also believe that this is far more efficient than just grinding ladder after you lose. A second example although I haven't actually done this: Let's say you lose in ZvT against a double medivac Marine drop, one at the main and one at the natural. Instead of going "FUCK NOOB CHEESER BG" -> ragequit into the next game and losing to this again, you can do the exact same thing. Look for the build order flags, figure out how to scout it, figure out when it hits when it's done perfectly, and have enough to stop it when it's done perfectly. Something like having seperate control groups of Zerglings that still are enough to take them on if the marines are dropped in the same place or something, I don't know in specific. After that You just practice yourself to mentally prepare for it when you scout the flags(if you cannot pinpoint it you want to have another flag branch or just need to prepare for multiple options), and after this you will hopefully never lose to that thing again, and never need to type "FUCK NOOB CHEESER BG" for example. JAG's post above mine is really nice by the way. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9349 Posts
What experience are you basing this off of? It works, whether you like it or believe it, it does. You can say it doesn't all you want. Well I base it off my understanding of human behavior. I guess most people who watch that video will be able to identify them selves with the "confused" student. You say it works? Have you any proof of that? Do you have any teaching credentials (decent education level?), or are you just basing this off analogies? Like you may say that many of students speaks positively off your lessons and you may think its a proof that the students improve after your coaching lessons, but the question still remains: How do you know that they wouldn't have improved anyway? And please remember that I have never argued that they couldn't improve in the short-term due to your lessons (because following a BO blindly can take a player from bronze to silver faster, but in the proces of going from bronze to to diamond, your coaching won't have any effect). So using analogies or empiral data to support your theory that you coaching helps students over a longer period is almost useless as there simply are too many factors that isn't being taking into account. Therefore the optimal way to asses whether your coaching helps is to get "coaching/teaching experts" to evaluate your coaching method. Im no expert, but I would guess that they would dismiss your technique as efficient. Regarding you receiving 0 complaints: That isn't unexpected. But first of all we need to make a distinction between indirect complaints and direct complaints; Whenever you see a student not having fully understood why he should follow your adviced BO, then you have to count that as a failure of your own because chances are you didn't do a good enough job as a coach. Secondly - Why would they complain directly? You sounds like a nice guy and thus people can/will symphasize with you. Also, often times they do not know they are receiving suboptimal coaching - Instead, they go into the coaching very humble and typically they have you as one of their favourite players which means they are biased in their evaluations. During the coaching they get put under a lot of stress and they will never have time to consider whether this coaching actually helps them. Now after the coaching it is my guess that they initially think they have improved. Maybe they will watch the VOD of the coaching again and try to understand what you actually said - But over time they will forget it, because they never actually understood why they had to do x and y. At least that is my theory, but obivously I am no expert. If anyone has an expertise in teaching I would appreciate if you would confirm/disconfirm my theory. This is incredibly true, especially if you're coaching someone who has played a decent number of games and therefore has a decent amount of APM (say, >60 or something). Most people who are in lower leagues just don't understand how much their play will improve if they just get in the habit of making probes, pylons and warping in units every 20-30 seconds. I have very little experience coaching, but of people I have coached I often hear back about how much their play has improve because I told them to use camera hotkeys to warp in units, or some other basic macro skill. I think that, today, most gold+ players know the importance of making probes, but the challenge is from a mechanical perspective, not a "decision-making" perspective. So telling a gold+ playes to make probes every 15th second won't have any long-time effect of his play. The only way to make him improve his macro is to tell him to play a shitton of ladder games (and focus on it). But I don't think coaching should be used to improve mechanics (maybe bronze players are the exception here). But generally gold/plat players know that they are supposed to spend their money, but they just don't have the apm yet. On the other hand there are many decisions they make during the game which they don't realize are suboptimal, and therefore you as a coach needs to make sure that these bad decisions get removed from his gameplay. I think Miniguns approach to solve that problem is this; "Go there with your army." But the student won't really understand why he is supposed to go there. Instead, I think it is important to just focus on as few subjects as possible during a lessons - For instance I believe one could use an hour just discussing army positioning. You could start the lesson off by analyzing and discussing the various factors which determine how you position your army during the game. Then you could show a few replays of pro's to demonstrate your points, and then maybe the student could try to play a game him selv where he only focuss's on army position. That would imply that you wouldn't tell him to scout/build probes/build supply depots etc as this takes his attention away from the army positioning part. Obivously mastering army positioning takes a shitton of hours, but at least now the student will understand the neccesary factors and will be able to improve faster. | ||
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iSTime
1579 Posts
On March 21 2013 20:10 JustAGame wrote: Btw, just to say this again: you are totally right about how boring isolated training is. Its really no fun at all and can ruin the game for you. But its still the most efficient way of practicing. Casuals who just want to improve but do not actually care about how fast or how far they get, shouldnt do it. What i said about the injuries was meant at the highest level of climbing. If an untrained person starts at the highest difficulty right away, he will hurt himself most likely. Climbing an indoor beginner wall is sick easy compared to climbing at the highest difficulty. Playing at bronze without making mistakes is the same as playing in masters. The game is the same. You have the same units, the same stuff, Yes your opponent is weaker, but that only means that you can do some mistakes and still win. Climbing a low level wall is a different thing than climbing a high level wall. Its "not the same game". You may not make mistakes at both, because if you do so.. you will fall. Climbing at lower difficulty is like isolated exercise, since you artificialy lower your total workload. Playing at bronze is the same "do it all at once" as master league, with the difference that the bronze league player cannot do it and messes up left and right. To get a real comparism to climbing: make it 1v1. If i start climbing at the highest possible difficulty against another beginner, i will not practice, but mostlikely go straight to the hospital (same as he does). As i said.. the difficulty levels are actually some form of isolated training. You asked rhetorically why SC2 was different than everything else in that people get better at everything else by doing specific training. I put forth the example of rock climbing, where a lot of the world's top climbers literally don't train except by climbing, and you just keep throwing out random things that aren't true about a sport you clearly know little about. (for example, if a beginner tried to climb at the hardest level, they wouldn't get injured - they would just fail to get off the ground) I don't know how I can possibly convince you, except here are some interviews from some of the world's best climbers: http://www.bohusbergen.se/pages/Archive/Profiles/sharmatrain.html "Interviewer: So when you walk into the gym you never say, "Today, I'm going to boulder or today, I'm going to campus." Chris Sharma: No, I just do what I feel like." Not to mention the fact that the way he trained for this, at 0:41 was by trying it 50+ times until he stuck it. http://www.rockclimbing.com/Articles/General/Daniel_Woods_Professional_Climber_with_no_limits__858.html "The most challenging thing about training is motivation. All I want to do is climb but I recognize that some things cannot be done unless I get stronger or have more experience. I used to do the typical training such as pull ups, push ups, ab workouts, 1 arm hangs and pull ups etc. but it got too boring. Now I feel the best method is to climb as much as possible and travel to new areas with new stone. Your psyche is maintained and you gain more experience." There is at least one activity other than SC2 where top performers think that the best training is the activity itself. I've offered my best explanation as to why this is true (namely, that each of these activities is in a relative infancy and effective training methods don't exist). | ||
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BronzeKnee
United States5214 Posts
On March 21 2013 07:47 ROOTMinigun wrote: There isn't better exercises for starcraft 2 than queing up ladder games. Obviously Minigun is a much better and more accomplished player than me, but he has also spent a lot more time on the game than me. Anyway, I find laddering to be important, but less important than developing and refining builds, watching pro games and streams, and watching replays of lost games to find out how I could do do better. So I spent (I haven't really been into competitive SC2 for a while, but plan to pick it up again soon) roughly 25% laddering, 40% drilling build orders in a build order tester, 20% watching pro-games/streams and 15% watching replays. I also spent a lot of time doing mental training, which I didn't account for. That got to me into high Masters (playing GM's) after ~100 games, and I started in Platinum. And I was an absolute abomination of a player when I began, with basically no RTS experience (not that I'm really good now or anything). Had I continued laddering without watching Day[9] tournaments, and pro-streams, without drilling build orders or watching replays, then I'm pretty sure I'd be a high Platinum or low-Diamond player right now at very best. I'd actually probably be worse (Gold), because my builds were awful. Knowing what to do is what allows you to win games. You figure that out by watching the pros. Trying to figure things out on the fly (ie just laddering alone) will lead you down the wrong path, and you'll start doing things that aren't viable, even though your improvisation might work at whatever level you're at, you'll just have to relearn the "correct" way when you reach the level where your improvisations aren't viable. Now as for what a coach can do for you, they can show you the correct way to do things in a much more timely fashion than you can figure out by watching pros. Of course the trade off is cash and also, no pro is going to let you know their best secrets. Once you've reached the top, and you know and understand the game, and have many build orders drilled into you well, then, sure laddering is the best thing you can do, and it should be a much larger percentage of your time than 25%. The analogy above, regarding rock climbing is incorrect. Mental training is just as important, if not more important than physical training. Thus if you spend all your time rock climbing, and no time training yourself mentally, you'll do far worse than someone who spends 50% of their time doing each (assuming you both have the same amount of time to spend on rock climbing and the same potential). This has been proven time and again in the highest levels of competition, including the Olympics. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 22 2013 06:48 iSTime wrote: There is at least one activity other than SC2 where top performers think that the best training is the activity itself. I've offered my best explanation as to why this is true (namely, that each of these activities is in a relative infancy and effective training methods don't exist). I pointed out the more effective training methods for sc2 in more than one post, no idea why you still say they do not exist. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9349 Posts
On March 21 2013 20:26 Shikyo wrote: Hmm, I've seen some of your games played-figures. I imagine it's in the tens of thousands by now? let's just assume it's 10000. That's hmm... 1000 hours. I am going to argue that if a player does specialized training exercises for 900 hours and plays ladder for 100 hours after that, they're going to improve at a faster rate than if they had only played ladder for 1000 hours. Practicing a specific thing with a teammate for example does count as specialized training. It also doesn't stop there. If you lose to something, you see what you lost to. You see why you lost. Can your build not deal with it? If it cannot, look for his build order flags(or if he sucks, recreate it and figure them out). After identifying them, see how you can scout them and prepare for the build, optimally the second the attack would hit. An easy old example for ZvP, I died to a 1gas 4gate back in like 2011. So I went and tried to perfect the build, figured that it can hit at 5:55 or whatever it was if you do the build perfectly, and then had my build have barely enough to defend at 5:55 after scouting the build order flags that show what he's doing(unit x or building x or lack of them at time y). After that I never lost to that build again mostly because no one actually did do it perfectly. I also believe that this is far more efficient than just grinding ladder after you lose. A second example although I haven't actually done this: Let's say you lose in ZvT against a double medivac Marine drop, one at the main and one at the natural. Instead of going "FUCK NOOB CHEESER BG" -> ragequit into the next game and losing to this again, you can do the exact same thing. Look for the build order flags, figure out how to scout it, figure out when it hits when it's done perfectly, and have enough to stop it when it's done perfectly. Something like having seperate control groups of Zerglings that still are enough to take them on if the marines are dropped in the same place or something, I don't know in specific. After that You just practice yourself to mentally prepare for it when you scout the flags(if you cannot pinpoint it you want to have another flag branch or just need to prepare for multiple options), and after this you will hopefully never lose to that thing again, and never need to type "FUCK NOOB CHEESER BG" for example. JAG's post above mine is really nice by the way. If its the case that spezialised mechanical-training is so much better that ladder-training, why isn't there a single example of a player who is just really really good today, that barely plays 1on1's? I agree with Minigun that the best way to practice mechanics is to mass ladder games as it is very time efficient. Secondly there is no saying that you can't focus on improving a certain part of your play by playing ladder games. For instance I think I went from 50 SQ to 95+ SQ in 4-5 months by just playing a bit of ladder games (wasn't massing them, just a couple on a daily basis), and I would have games where I never missed scv's. That got me very close to GM in spring 2011, however then I hit a wall as my unit control wasn't good enough. This took me quite a bit of time, but I slowly began changing my build orders (less defensive more aggresive) in a way to put me into more microbased situations. At that time my SQ probably declined to 85 or something like that, but I could clearly notice that my unit control improved. I never got to GM though as terrans being nerfed set me back unfortunately, but looking back, I doubt that custom game exercises would have had any noticeable effect on my gameplay. Even though I barely played in 2012, I am still a much stronger allround player than I ever was without any glaring holes in my play. For some people custom games might be a decent idea, but I still believe that gold+ players should primarily que que up ladder games. Playing like 5-10 minutes of "custom game exercise" followed by 5 minute break, "then 5-10 minutes of custom game" exercise is simply a too time inefficient method. Often times custom games are a lot more boring than ladder and since there is no one who forces you to play these exercises during the whole time you sit on the chair, you will simply not spend your time very inefficient since most people are too undisciplined. Some people may think that I could have used some custom games to improve my unit control, however these people are likely ladderchair pro's, as unit control is alot about positioning your units in relation to the map and how your opponent moves. Again not saying you can't spend 10 minutes once a day splitting marines against banelings, but it should be 90% ladder games, 10% custom games and as you get better and better the amount of custom games you play should decrease. Using badminton/other sports as an argument This isn't valid as you will play against other human beings and often times you will be put into somewhat realistic game situations. In Sc2 on the other hand the situations you face in custom games aren't as similar as thus you face in a real game. Secondly, a big part of the reason why you train specialised exercises in physical sports is to train your weak area's, which you would otherwise try to find ways to circumvent using them in a real match. For instance when I played tabletennis my backhand tehnique wasn't optimal, so if I only matches, I would simply overuse my forehand to optimize my short-term winning chances. However, Sc2 isn't like that way, as most people (including me) are willing to give up short-term wins in order to improve over the longer haul by 1) Not allining, 2) Not playing overly defensively/turtling. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 22 2013 16:36 Hider wrote: If its the case that spezialised mechanical-training is so much better that ladder-training, why isn't there a single example of a player who is just really really good today, that barely plays 1on1's? I agree with Minigun that the best way to practice mechanics is to mass ladder games as it is so damn time efficient. Secondly there is no saying that you can't focus on improving a certain part of your play by playing ladder games. For instance I think I went from 50 SQ to 95+ SQ in 4-5 months by just playing a bit of ladder games (wasn't massing them, just a couple on a daily basis), and I would have games where I never missed scv's. That got me very close to GM in spring 2011, however then I hit a wall as my unit control wasn't good enough. This took me quite a bit of time, but I slowly began changing my build orders (less defensive more aggresive) in a way to put me into more microbased situations. At that time my SQ probably declined to 85 or something like that, but I could clearly notice that my unit control improved. I never got to GM though as terrans being nerfed set me back unfortunately, but looking back I hardly doubt that various exercises to train mechanics is a good idea. Even though I barely played in 2012, I am still a much stronger allround player than I ever was without any glaring holes in my play. For some people it might be pretty good, but I still believe that gold+ players should just que up ladder games. Playing like 5-10 minutes of "custom game exercise" followed by 5 minute break, "then 5-10 minutes of custom game" exercise is simply a too time inefficient method. Often times custom games are a lot more boring than ladder and since there is no one who forces you to play these exercises during the whole time you sit on the chair, you will simply not spend your time very inefficient since most people are too undisciplined. Some people may think that I could have used some custom games to improve my unit control, however these people are likely ladderchair pro's, as unit control is alot about positioning your units in relation to the map and how your opponent moves. Again not saying you can't spend 10 minutes once a day splitting marines against banelings, but it should be 90% ladder games, 10% custom games and as you get better and better the amount of custom games you play should decrease. Using badminton/other sports as an argument This isn't valid as you will play against other human beings and often times you will be put into somewhat realistic game situations. In Sc2 on the other hand the situations you face in custom games aren't as similar as thus you face in a real game. Secondly, a big part of the reason why you train specialised exercises in physical sports is to train your weak area's, which you would otherwise try to find ways to circumvent using them in a real match. For instance when I played tabletennis my backhand tehnique wasn't optimal, so if I only matches, I would simply overuse my forehand to optimize my short-term winning chances. However, Sc2 isn't like that way, as most people (including me) are willing to give up short-term wins in order to improve over the longer haul by 1) Not allining, 2) Not playing overly defensively/turtling. A few facts: 1.) Mechanics are mostly about muscle memory. 2.) Muscle memory works like this: you practice what you are doing, meaning: if you do something wrong, you practice something wrong. 3.) Lower league players (and this is not bronze and silver but even up to diamond league) make many mistakes while playing. Compine 1 2 and 3 and you get fact number 4 => 4.) LAdder games are VERY inefficient for practicing mechanics, especially when your mechanics are weak in the first place. The most efficient way to practice mechanics, is by doing isolated exercises to bring them to a level, that you make no mistakes while playing and THEN (after!!!) you play and use those mechanics. While playing it is important to "slow down" enough, to make sure that you do not make any mistakes. The more you play that way, the faster you can play without making mistakes. Another huge advantage of isolated exercises is, that you can actually practice those keycombinations you are weak at. You can decide what to practice, while a game will not allow you to adjust your training in any way. I have played in many badminton tournaments and guarantee you, that practicing sequences and technique is not even near a real game situation. the main reason for this is, that you know what your opponent is doing before he is even hitting the ball. This makes the sequence totally unrealistic. OFC, after this kind of training, you need to play real games against real opponents to learn other skills, such as predicting what your opponent is doing, which can only be learned in games, but as i said before, without the isolated practice, you wouldnt even get to this point as you wont be able to hit the ball hard/far enough on long balls, or short enough for short ones. You will also not know the right movement and therefore lose no matter what your opponent is doing. You must practice the different techniques, and you must practice the movement out of the game, or you got no chance at all. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9349 Posts
On March 22 2013 21:15 JustAGame wrote: A few facts: 1.) Mechanics are mostly about muscle memory. 2.) Muscle memory works like this: you practice what you are doing, meaning: if you do something wrong, you practice something wrong. 3.) Lower league players (and this is not bronze and silver but even up to diamond league) make many mistakes while playing. Compine 1 2 and 3 and you get fact number 4 => 4.) LAdder games are VERY inefficient for practicing mechanics, especially when your mechanics are weak in the first place. The most efficient way to practice mechanics, is by doing isolated exercises to bring them to a level, that you make no mistakes while playing and THEN (after!!!) you play and use those mechanics. While playing it is important to "slow down" enough, to make sure that you do not make any mistakes. The more you play that way, the faster you can play without making mistakes. Another huge advantage of isolated exercises is, that you can actually practice those keycombinations you are weak at. You can decide what to practice, while a game will not allow you to adjust your training in any way. I have played in many badminton tournaments and guarantee you, that practicing sequences and technique is not even near a real game situation. the main reason for this is, that you know what your opponent is doing before he is even hitting the ball. This makes the sequence totally unrealistic. OFC, after this kind of training, you need to play real games against real opponents to learn other skills, such as predicting what your opponent is doing, which can only be learned in games, but as i said before, without the isolated practice, you wouldnt even get to this point as you wont be able to hit the ball hard/far enough on long balls, or short enough for short ones. You will also not know the right movement and therefore lose no matter what your opponent is doing. You must practice the different techniques, and you must practice the movement out of the game, or you got no chance at all. I guess badminton and tabletennis are very comparable in that regard and I also played at at tournmanet level if that is relevant. But badminton/tabletennis in that regard are completely different to Starcraft for two reasons; 1) You can improve your weak areas in Starcraft by playing ladder games (as I did). You can really only improve this in badminton/tabletennis by doing exercises. 2) Many of the custom game exercises aren't very relevant to how you actually play the game. Only a small part of tvz unit control is about splitting marines - It's actually a lot more relevant to control your units properly correctly while not in a battle. In tabletennis/badminton the exercises you perform are a lot more relevant. Basically you will find a much higher correlation between people who are good at exercises in badminton/tabletennis andwho are good in real matches. In sc2 it is much less as specific micro exercises only counts for a minority of the total amount of skills required to win a game. Furthermore, custom games (due to being controlled by AI) will micro their units differently from how real players will do. I personally haven't seen any custom game exercises which I found particularly usefull for anyone playing the game at a decent level (by that I mean you shouldn't be spending more than 10% of your total playing time on them). Remember as well that unlike coaching where the coaches efficiency can never be measured according to their skills, we can actually measure the efficiency of players practice method (thus who are good, like Minigun has probably practiced pretty efficiently). And as it seems that every single pro sc2 player barely uses any time doing custom game exercises (less than 10% at least), I believe that it is quite arrogant to claim they are wrong. Another huge advantage of isolated exercises is, that you can actually practice those keycombinations you are weak at. You can decide what to practice, while a game will not allow you to adjust your training in any way This is in my opinion the only real exercise which makes a difference. If you need to get used to learning new control groups, it is often times a good idea to use time on it in custom games. But this won't get us anywhere close to the +10% threshold of total time invested in this game. Typically it will take 5-20 minutes in a custom game to get used to new control groups. Then you will never have to spend time on that again. So the discussion isn't about whether there aren't a few niche uses for custom game exercises, but whether it is worth spending the majority of the time on out. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 22 2013 21:29 Hider wrote: 1) You can improve your weak areas in Starcraft by playing ladder games (as I did). Yes you can.. but it takes 10 times longer. Thats called inefficient. I actually pointed out like.. i dont know.. ~5 times already why it is inefficient.. even in my last post i pointed out why it inefficient, by using well known facts. For some reason people like to ignore all viable arguments that proof them wrong. and thats the reason i am out of this "discussion" now.. i am tired of writing the same thing 10 times, just to have people quote one line out of 1 full page and say "its wrong". All i see in this thread, is a few people posting viable arguments and proof of their claims.. and other people telling their opinion, not only ignoring the arguments of other people, but also not posting a single argument themself. | ||
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gronnelg
Norway354 Posts
Coaching won't instantly make you better (like a maphack would), but it will increase the rate at which you improve. So is it worth it? If you want to improve, then yes, definitely. | ||
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Chrono000
Korea (South)358 Posts
more focus should be put on the background of the player/coach because really who cares if u won a few tournies if u cant really communicate or connect. some more talk about mental game and psychology would be the last step but not the least important. which i feel is the least touched on topic in sc2 in general. lets stop repeating ourselves now. | ||
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Ymba
Romania3 Posts
On March 22 2013 16:36 Hider wrote: If its the case that spezialised mechanical-training is so much better that ladder-training, why isn't there a single example of a player who is just really really good today, that barely plays 1on1's? I agree with Minigun that the best way to practice mechanics is to mass ladder games as it is very time efficient. Secondly there is no saying that you can't focus on improving a certain part of your play by playing ladder games. For instance I think I went from 50 SQ to 95+ SQ in 4-5 months by just playing a bit of ladder games (wasn't massing them, just a couple on a daily basis), and I would have games where I never missed scv's. That got me very close to GM in spring 2011, however then I hit a wall as my unit control wasn't good enough. This took me quite a bit of time, but I slowly began changing my build orders (less defensive more aggresive) in a way to put me into more microbased situations. At that time my SQ probably declined to 85 or something like that, but I could clearly notice that my unit control improved. I never got to GM though as terrans being nerfed set me back unfortunately, but looking back, I doubt that custom game exercises would have had any noticeable effect on my gameplay. Even though I barely played in 2012, I am still a much stronger allround player than I ever was without any glaring holes in my play. For some people custom games might be a decent idea, but I still believe that gold+ players should primarily que que up ladder games. Playing like 5-10 minutes of "custom game exercise" followed by 5 minute break, "then 5-10 minutes of custom game" exercise is simply a too time inefficient method. Often times custom games are a lot more boring than ladder and since there is no one who forces you to play these exercises during the whole time you sit on the chair, you will simply not spend your time very inefficient since most people are too undisciplined. Some people may think that I could have used some custom games to improve my unit control, however these people are likely ladderchair pro's, as unit control is alot about positioning your units in relation to the map and how your opponent moves. Again not saying you can't spend 10 minutes once a day splitting marines against banelings, but it should be 90% ladder games, 10% custom games and as you get better and better the amount of custom games you play should decrease. Using badminton/other sports as an argument This isn't valid as you will play against other human beings and often times you will be put into somewhat realistic game situations. In Sc2 on the other hand the situations you face in custom games aren't as similar as thus you face in a real game. Secondly, a big part of the reason why you train specialised exercises in physical sports is to train your weak area's, which you would otherwise try to find ways to circumvent using them in a real match. For instance when I played tabletennis my backhand tehnique wasn't optimal, so if I only matches, I would simply overuse my forehand to optimize my short-term winning chances. However, Sc2 isn't like that way, as most people (including me) are willing to give up short-term wins in order to improve over the longer haul by 1) Not allining, 2) Not playing overly defensively/turtling. I've skimmed through this whole topic and found your reply as a very realistic response in comparison to the others. If we also take other subjective aspects in discussion, we may also find that our temperamental behaviour may help us or bring up a big disadvantage. For example being a much more tensed guy, when it comes to important moments and decisions, I develop an anxious behaviour which can also help me further, because it forces me to fix my mechanics and put up a more fluid playing style. From this, you can expect what you're opponent is doing, much more easily, at least I've found myself feeling empathic with everyone I play. As a tennis player ( not professional yet ) match anxiety has a "very" bright side on my playing style. In the end, I think that the psychology is very important to analyse, if your emotional intelligence lets you, because all the progress will come from itself after spending the right amount of time analysing and scarcely trying to touch your limits. The single aspect which depend on you is the attitude. Choosing to be open and accept failure as a way to progress and to get better at your own game, can open many doors for you. As a perfectionist I've also "bumped" with my head into many walls when practicing my mechanics, but it depends on how you reflect on it later. Consequently, it's very important to analyze the game mechanics and build orders, spotting your mistakes and so fixing them... But a very important aspect is being ignored and I think many people quit from it because they haven't taken the right amount of time meditating and analysing their choices and mistakes. Coming back on-topic: I think Starcraft coaching is pretty similiar to any real-life sport coaching. Having an indifferent or even poor coach, won't lead you to a great progress on your way. The latter option of having a supportive and good coach for you can give you a psychological advantage, as the time is very precious and analysing the mistakes on your own will take a lot longer, than if they're analysed by a pro. | ||
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NerdUpgrades
Canada41 Posts
On March 22 2013 22:48 gronnelg wrote: I 2nd the above post. Coaching won't instantly make you better (like a maphack would), but it will increase the rate at which you improve. So is it worth it? If you want to improve, then yes, definitely. Very well put indeed. A student can also benefit from a coach in many more ways than just improving their ladder rank. For instance I believe that simply having dialog with someone about Starcraft (ot any competitive game) alone can be very beneficial. Many gamers don't know anyone in real life that they can chat with about day-to-day theory crafting and strategy. Watch day9 daily 100 were he explains the importance of this in his Starcraft career. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9349 Posts
On March 22 2013 22:06 JustAGame wrote: Yes you can.. but it takes 10 times longer. Thats called inefficient. I actually pointed out like.. i dont know.. ~5 times already why it is inefficient.. even in my last post i pointed out why it inefficient, by using well known facts. For some reason people like to ignore all viable arguments that proof them wrong. and thats the reason i am out of this "discussion" now.. i am tired of writing the same thing 10 times, just to have people quote one line out of 1 full page and say "its wrong". All i see in this thread, is a few people posting viable arguments and proof of their claims.. and other people telling their opinion, not only ignoring the arguments of other people, but also not posting a single argument themself. Ok lets stop this discussion now - I don't agree that you proofed why it is wrong. I agree that there are situations where custom games exercises can be beneficial, however I think you vastly oversimplify a very complicated area. Since this is so complicated I think normal people like you and me can't solve the it from a theoretical point of view. There are simply too many factors which you don't take into account and the badminton vs Sc2 comparison gives me the impression that your PoV is too unnuanced. The decision on whether to play custom game exercises or 1on1's is simply a trade off on the advantages (if doing something isolated helps you improve faster) or disadvantages (the skills you require from the exercises may have relatively little use in real 1on1 games). There is really no clear saying which one is better, and while the advantages may outdo the disadvantages in badminton, it is likely not the case in Starcraft 2. Instead, it IMO makes a lot more sense to look at the real world, and if your thesis was correct then we should expect that there would be at least a couple of highly succesful players who plays mostly custom game exercises rather than 1on1's. But lets just agree to disagree, because this discussion won't bring us any further. | ||
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iSTime
1579 Posts
On March 24 2013 05:05 Hider wrote: Ok lets stop this discussion now - I don't agree that you proofed why it is wrong. I agree that there are situations where custom games exercises can be beneficial, however I think you vastly oversimplify a very complicated area. Since this is so complicated I think normal people like you and me can't solve the it from a theoretical point of view. There are simply too many factors which you don't take into account and the badminton vs Sc2 comparison gives me the impression that your PoV is too unnuanced. The decision on whether to play custom game exercises or 1on1's is simply a trade off on the advantages (if doing something isolated helps you improve faster) or disadvantages (the skills you require from the exercises may have relatively little use in real 1on1 games). There is really no clear saying which one is better, and while the advantages may outdo the disadvantages in badminton, it is likely not the case in Starcraft 2. Instead, it IMO makes a lot more sense to look at the real world, and if your thesis was correct then we should expect that there would be at least a couple of highly succesful players who plays mostly custom game exercises rather than 1on1's. But lets just agree to disagree, because this discussion won't bring us any further. This is basically what I've been saying. JustAGame keeps making bold claims about how people who do specific training in SC2 learn "10 times" faster, with no actual evidence. As far as I can tell, it's merely his anecdotal experience mixed with a heavy dosage of theorycrafting. Most of the players I know who are GM level don't play custom games to practice micro and macro, and I never did when I was in GM. I'll take the anecdotal evidence of myself and dozens of other GM players over one guy who doesn't seem to understand the difference between something that has been proven and a mere conjecture. He's like a platinum player who continues to post walls of text about his theorycrafting in the fact of a bunch of GMs telling him that despite all his logical efforts, he's just wrong. | ||
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Mementoss
Canada2595 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9349 Posts
On March 24 2013 07:56 iSTime wrote: This is basically what I've been saying. JustAGame keeps making bold claims about how people who do specific training in SC2 learn "10 times" faster, with no actual evidence. As far as I can tell, it's merely his anecdotal experience mixed with a heavy dosage of theorycrafting. Most of the players I know who are GM level don't play custom games to practice micro and macro, and I never did when I was in GM. I'll take the anecdotal evidence of myself and dozens of other GM players over one guy who doesn't seem to understand the difference between something that has been proven and a mere conjecture. He's like a platinum player who continues to post walls of text about his theorycrafting in the fact of a bunch of GMs telling him that despite all his logical efforts, he's just wrong. Well, I agree with JustAgame that coaches (such as Minigun) can't use anecdoctal evidence from their students in order to proof that their coaching is efficient. There is simply no easy way to measure the effect of a coach and thus we need to use an understanding of the human mind to determine the optimal way to coach. And I fundenmentally agree with JustAgame that coaches should focus on teaching students how to make decisions (which factors matter), rather than just order them what to do (as Minigun does). However, when the question comes to how we improve our mechanics in the most optimal way, then we have a very reliable way of measuring efficiency by simply looking at how the pro's of today have become so good. Like why would Minigun advice his students to do custom game exercises rather than just massing ladder games? Minigun went from gold league to a pro in like 6 months by massing ladder games. Why isn't there a single individual out there who have become pro by massing custom game exercises? | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 24 2013 07:56 iSTime wrote: This is basically what I've been saying. JustAGame keeps making bold claims about how people who do specific training in SC2 learn "10 times" faster, with no actual evidence. As far as I can tell, it's merely his anecdotal experience mixed with a heavy dosage of theorycrafting. Most of the players I know who are GM level don't play custom games to practice micro and macro, and I never did when I was in GM. I'll take the anecdotal evidence of myself and dozens of other GM players over one guy who doesn't seem to understand the difference between something that has been proven and a mere conjecture. He's like a platinum player who continues to post walls of text about his theorycrafting in the fact of a bunch of GMs telling him that despite all his logical efforts, he's just wrong. Or you could read the proof i posted and point out why this proof is incorrect. The reason you dont do it.. because its correct.. I didnt see a single argument by both of you, while i posted proof multiple times, which was completely ignored. What you do is insulting and attacking me without prooving anything wrong that i claimed, you didnt quote the proof once and only say "its all wrong". Here is one for you, (its just copy paste out of my earlier post). Proof it wrong or stop talking about me: ( i even made it a litte more simple for you) 1.) Mechanics are mostly about muscle memory. 2.) Muscle memory works like this: you practice what you are doing, meaning: if you do something wrong, you practice something wrong. Combine 1 and 2 and you get: -> 3.) Doing something wrong is bad for practicing muscle memory and therefore bad for practicing mechanics. 4.) People with flaws in their mechanics make many mistakes while playing ladder games (the more flaws they have, the more mistakes they make) Combine 3 and 4 and you get: Playing ladder games leads to many mistakes, which is bad for practicing muscle memory and therefore bad for practicing mechnics. => 5.) Playing ladder games is bad to practice mechanics. (unless the mechanics are already good, but since we talk about practicing them, its unlikely that they are good) The fact, that there are much more efficient ways to practice, is not accepted in the community because of people like you, who constantly ignore the proof and keep spamming "play a lot". Who would try the more efficient way now, after a blue poster says its bad? No one. You are basically just sitting there and saying " I do it this way, so there is no other way" There was a time when people thought the world was flat and the middle of the universe..... (Its also very funny that you know how relevant the exercises are, without even knowing the exercises) PS: The numbers are not made up. + Show Spoiler + The reason it is up to (or even more than) 10 times as fast is this: Take a 15-20 minute game of sc2. The standard player who has weak mechanics, has nothing to do during the first minutes of the game ( You cant practice mechanics without doing anything). Depending on the player and the build, this varies a lot. Once the playxer hits a certain amount of bases, he cant handle all the stuff he needs to and makes a lot of mistakes (If you need proof, open 100 replays of platnium players and see it yourself). Again, this varies depending on the player and the game situation. (remember: Doing something wrong = learning something wrong). Assuming the player hits 3 bases at 12 minutes and has very little to nothing to do until 6 minutes, he has 6 minutes with little to no practice effect, 6 minutes close to the optimal practice conditions and everything after that is spent at bad practicing conditions, meaning, the player is practicing something wrong. On a 15 minute game this would be about 3 minutes, on a 20 minute game this would be 8 minutes. (IF the player is better, than he he is above his maximum slightly after.. but therefore also AT his optimum slightly later, for a weaker player its the other way around, so this factor doesnt really matter.) Assuming "close to" the optimal training conditions is 100% efficiency (although its not... so i even ADD efficiency here) The game has 6 minutes at 0% efficiency (remember you cant practice while doing nothing) 6 minutes at 100% efficiency ( which is less for real, but cant be calculated, so putting it to 100%) and 3-8 minutes, learning something wrong. (Also, the game doesnt allow to focus on your weak mechanics, which is another efficiency reduction that is not included) 15 min game.. efficiency+ = ( 6*0% + 6*100% ) / 15 = 40% ; learning wrong stuff in 3/15 = 20% of the time 20 min game.. efficiency+ = ( 6*0% + 6*100% ) / 20 = 30% ; learning wrong stuff in 8/20 = 40% of the time It is really hard to tell how to add up those numbers. In some game, the practice will be completely countered by the bad practice, in some games, the bad practice is close to zero. Assuming that the bad practice has an influence somewhere between 0% and 100%, the resulting total efficiency of the mechanics training is: 15 min game: total efficiency = 40% - 20% to 40% which means between 20% and 40% middle = 30% 20 min game: total efficiency = 30% - 40% to 30% which means between -10% and 30% middle =10% (!) Do not forget, that mutiple times during the calculation, the efficiency has been rounded up, which means the real values are below this. This doesnt include the lost time for queueing, it doesnt include the fact, that you cannot focus on weaker mechcanics while playing (low flexibility) and it assums that "close to the optimum" means "at the optimum". Good exercises have close to 100% efficiency, as they are done at the optimal conditions all the time, the only "wasted" time is needed for setting up the exercise, which can be ignored since its less than 1% (at least for the exercises i give my students). This makes real exercises AT LEAST 3,33 times more efficient and can be up to (and even more than) 10 times as efficient. The real value depends on various factors like: Average playstyle, own skill level, average opponent skill level etc.. *Edit* However, when the question comes to how we improve our mechanics in the most optimal way, then we have a very reliable way of measuring efficiency by simply looking at how the pro's of today have become so good Not too long ago people who were building computers needed large room for a computer that wasnt even as good a cell phne is today. They were even claiming that there is "a worldwide market for only 5 computers" (see spoiler in the end). See were we are today... And ask yourself.. how did we get there ? The answer is: by doing something new.. more efficient and better. Just imagine we would still do things the way our grandparents did them... + Show Spoiler + | ||
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On March 24 2013 09:16 Hider wrote: Well, I agree with JustAgame that coaches (such as Minigun) can't use anecdoctal evidence from their students in order to proof that their coaching is efficient. There is simply no easy way to measure the effect of a coach and thus we need to use an understanding of the human mind to determine the optimal way to coach. And I fundenmentally agree with JustAgame that coaches should focus on teaching students how to make decisions (which factors matter), rather than just order them what to do (as Minigun does). However, when the question comes to how we improve our mechanics in the most optimal way, then we have a very reliable way of measuring efficiency by simply looking at how the pro's of today have become so good. Like why would Minigun advice his students to do custom game exercises rather than just massing ladder games? Minigun went from gold league to a pro in like 6 months by massing ladder games. Why isn't there a single individual out there who have become pro by massing custom game exercises? If I may add in a little bit to this discussion, from the point of view of a musician who spends 3+ hours practicing every day: JustAGame has many valid points, and the badminton comparison is not bad at all. Especially for lower level players, it's really important to spend some time practicing perfecting mechanics, because perfect practice makes perfect. I personally train with custom games just repeating builds and economic benchmarks to perfect my macro so that I can focus on other things like microing and decision making in-game. I definitely believe this is a more time-efficient way to practice, as well as a good way to construct well-refined builds. Ladder has its specific applications, too. In ladder, you learn micro, decision-making, damage control, and map control - things you can't learn in custom games. However, as important as these things are, the most important thing in SC2 is having a solid mechanical background in macro; therefore, I recommend that all players play custom games to improve their level of macro. This method of practice has accelerated me from gold to masters in a year. At the highest levels, players play a lot of custom games within team houses to work on improving strategy, metagame, etc., through the feedback of another pro player. There's a reason why players who mass ladder as their only practice (like Kas or Minigun or DeMuslim) aren't on the top tiers of SC2. I don't doubt that they are talented, but engaging in custom games under the supervision of a coach definitely makes players overall better. <3<3 | ||
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Hider
Denmark9349 Posts
On March 25 2013 05:32 SC2John wrote: If I may add in a little bit to this discussion, from the point of view of a musician who spends 3+ hours practicing every day: JustAGame has many valid points, and the badminton comparison is not bad at all. Especially for lower level players, it's really important to spend some time practicing perfecting mechanics, because perfect practice makes perfect. I personally train with custom games just repeating builds and economic benchmarks to perfect my macro so that I can focus on other things like microing and decision making in-game. I definitely believe this is a more time-efficient way to practice, as well as a good way to construct well-refined builds. Ladder has its specific applications, too. In ladder, you learn micro, decision-making, damage control, and map control - things you can't learn in custom games. However, as important as these things are, the most important thing in SC2 is having a solid mechanical background in macro; therefore, I recommend that all players play custom games to improve their level of macro. This method of practice has accelerated me from gold to masters in a year. At the highest levels, players play a lot of custom games within team houses to work on improving strategy, metagame, etc., through the feedback of another pro player. There's a reason why players who mass ladder as their only practice (like Kas or Minigun or DeMuslim) aren't on the top tiers of SC2. I don't doubt that they are talented, but engaging in custom games under the supervision of a coach definitely makes players overall better. <3<3 Demuslim and Kas are both top 5 foreign terrans. Simply put, the reason they have not performed better during WOL is a race question. There are probably of dozens of patch zergs who have performed better while only playing ladder as well. I think espeically Demuslims mechanics are absolutely phenomenal, and since we were only talking about how to improve mechanics, I guess those two examples are great examples of why massing ladder games are great at improving mechanics. But yeh you can accomplish the same thing by playing custom 1on1's. Also please be aware that I do not disagree that bronze-silver players can benefit from playing macromaps. But once you get to a decent level it is highly limited what you can get out of playing custom maps exercises. Massing games is simply a vastly superior way of practicing mechanics for most players. Justagame: Long post, but what your doing is absolutely insane and I already told you I won't reply further.I can make a math question proofing why I have the best personality in the world by using some insane assumptions, but really such a math question doesn't make sense at all. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 25 2013 05:46 Hider wrote: Justagame: Long post, but what your doing is absolutely insane and I already told you I won't reply further.I can make a math question proofing why I have the best personality in the world by using some insane assumptions, but really such a math question doesn't make sense at all. And yet you do reply and offend me over and over again. I wrote a bolt section, i left it there for you to proof it wrong.you just showed that you are not able to.. why even bother answering or using my name in your post if you cant post a single argument or proof my argument wrong? If i post the eveidence, you ignore it, if i post the math behind a number its "theory crafting" (how to explain a number without math ?).. if i post that every student i had went to master league within 3 month or less, its worthless experience or "made up". Lets face the truth, you dont even know how to do good isolated exercises, and still you constantly and blindly bash on me without a single argument to back you up. All you say is "massing games is good". I gave you the chance to proof me wrong, you couldnt do it, so leave me alone now. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9349 Posts
On March 25 2013 06:03 JustAGame wrote: And yet you do reply and offend me over and over again. I wrote a bolt section, i left it there for you to proof it wrong.you just showed that you are not able to.. why even bother answering or using my name in your post if you cant post a single argument or proof my argument wrong? If i post the eveidence, you ignore it, if i post the math behind a number its "theory crafting" (how to explain a number without math ?).. if i post that every student i had went to master league within 3 month or less, its worthless experience or "made up". Lets face the truth, you dont even know how to do good isolated exercises, and still you constantly and blindly bash on me without a single argument to back you up. All you say is "massing games is good". I gave you the chance to proof me wrong, you couldnt do it, so leave me alone now. Where I exactly did I offend you over and over? I stated that you try to simplify something that is very complex (no you can't do math exercises on this - I think that would be very obivous because your basing it on assumptions which you don't know whether they are true or not). And I also said that we would never agree on this so I would not discuss further. I think you are bit too offensive on me - Please read my previous posts once again because I don't feel like I have been offensive. I have just tried to express my point of views. I clearly stated that its a trade off between 2 factors and neither of us knows the truth thus I rely on "empirical evidence" rather than theoretical. | ||
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PanzerElite
540 Posts
simple scenario;"x wants better marine splitting vs banes" --> ladder, gets to practice splitting if opponent is zerg and if opponent makes banes. If splitting fails miserably you die instantly. = almost no time invested into practicing splitting, yep very efficient way to improve. --> custom game, marine split challenge. efficient spending of time to improve splitting. Omg this sounds insane?!~~ lol just lol. If you want gosu marine control it's just stupid to mass ladder games to achieve that goal. It's far more efficient to spamm custom games/retake control with a friend/ teammate and play the same situation over and over again. How else does flash play a ridiculous amount of games a day? Ladder? Nah I'd say customs with teammate's. It's like playing guitar or piano. If you want to improve efficiently you do repetitive exercises to improve that specific technique. Demuslim and Kas are both top 5 foreign terrans. Foreign = noob league in comparison with Koreans. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9349 Posts
Foreign = noob league in comparison with Koreans. Thats missing the point. Also regarding splitting marines, I adressed that previously. Once again you guys simplify what mechanics are really about. Having great tank/marine control is a lot more than just marine splitting it self which is why I believe there is a trade off. | ||
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On March 25 2013 06:44 Hider wrote: Thats missing the point. Also regarding splitting marines, I adressed that previously. Once again you guys simplify what mechanics are really about. Having great tank/marine control is a lot more than just marine splitting it self which is why I believe there is a trade off. And you are true, but practicing the splitting out of the game and the rest in the game is simply more efficient than practiting everything in the game at once. And going even further, practicing splitting out of the game, then practicing the full army movement against a skilled opponent (or even better, mutiple different opponents) in isolated exercises, and doing it in games after (to add the pressure etc), you are even more efficient. But.. i offer you the only proof you will accpet: You play (what ever time you play per day right now) for one week and monitor your effective apm, to see how much it improved. After that i give you exercises that you do 50% of your total play time, while playing the other 50% of the time. Again you monitor your eAPM improvements over that one week. You will see, that your eAPM increase (that is the best way to measure small improvements in your mechanics or even the only way i know of), will be about 3-4 times as much as with the pure playing. (Why 3-4 times? Becasue only 50% time spend on isolated exercises, so its high effectiveness is halfed.) So .. are you in ? | ||
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Gobbex
Norway4 Posts
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HotStuffs
2 Posts
I don't feel like starcraft is that different from any sport or profession - all of these require: a) a solid foundation b) experience -Basketball players spend tons of time practicing thousands of shots from every position, but consolidate that by playing alot of games. Both drills and experience playing real games make a better basketball player. -Doctors spend two years of medical school going over basic anatomy, physiology, and pathology. They then spend the next two years out on the wards - giving treatment to real patients. You need both a solid knowledge foundation and actual experience with patients to become a successful doctor. -Starcraft players, especially if they are new, can spend a good amount of time just practicing macro and micro basics, but need to put that to good use by actually laddering. They need both foundation and experience. So basically, train a bit on your own with custom games, AND play ladder. You don't have to just do one - why is this issue painted so black and white? | ||
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Everlong
Czech Republic1973 Posts
On March 25 2013 06:40 PanzerElite wrote: Justagame is so right. Ladder is inefficient. simple scenario;"x wants better marine splitting vs banes" --> ladder, gets to practice splitting if opponent is zerg and if opponent makes banes. If splitting fails miserably you die instantly. = almost no time invested into practicing splitting, yep very efficient way to improve. --> custom game, marine split challenge. efficient spending of time to improve splitting. Omg this sounds insane?!~~ lol just lol. If you want gosu marine control it's just stupid to mass ladder games to achieve that goal. It's far more efficient to spamm custom games/retake control with a friend/ teammate and play the same situation over and over again. How else does flash play a ridiculous amount of games a day? Ladder? Nah I'd say customs with teammate's. It's like playing guitar or piano. If you want to improve efficiently you do repetitive exercises to improve that specific technique. Foreign = noob league in comparison with Koreans. I think you miss the big point. That is getting actually better in Starcraft 2. You base your arguments on this simple scenario "x wants better marine splitting vs banes" . I base my arguments on "I want to be better in Starcraft 2". There is no better way to get better then queing like 20-30 games in a row on ladder. You can train your splitting to death, but unless you dedicate to laddering, you are going to get absolutely CRUSHED the second you play an actual real game of Starcraft 2. Also, by playing ladder game, you drill certain things like marine splitting. But while only drilling how to split effectively, you don't practice how to play SC2. Of course, if you are like diamond-master league player and you know (or you are pointed out by someone) you have some big issue that is hurting you a lot, you can actually go ahead and train this specific thing. But overall, what I said is what is going to get you better I believe since this is what I was doing and what got me from platinum to top8 masters. See I play drums. I can spend whole week training paradiddles and rudiments and then I play at concert and I'm just not satisfied with my performance. I mean, I played this part with paradiddle break perfectly, but guess what? Nobody noticed (even I), because my overall performance was not good enough. No go ahead and play 50 live concerts. You don't have to play your paradiddle break perfectly, but oh boy, you are going to be a way better drummer. Notice that it's hard to compare SC2 to drumming, but you can see the pattern. edit: I absolutely agree with the post above mine. Could have saved my time writing my post, lol... | ||
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On March 25 2013 19:40 Everlong wrote: I think you miss the big point. That is getting actually better in Starcraft 2. You base your arguments on this simple scenario "x wants better marine splitting vs banes" . I base my arguments on "I want to be better in Starcraft 2". There is no better way to get better then queing like 20-30 games in a row on ladder. You can train your splitting to death, but unless you dedicate to laddering, you are going to get absolutely CRUSHED the second you play an actual real game of Starcraft 2. Also, by playing ladder game, you drill certain things like marine splitting. But while only drilling how to split effectively, you don't practice how to play SC2. Of course, if you are like diamond-master league player and you know (or you are pointed out by someone) you have some big issue that is hurting you a lot, you can actually go ahead and train this specific thing. But overall, what I said is what is going to get you better I believe since this is what I was doing and what got me from platinum to top8 masters. See I play drums. I can spend whole week training paradiddles and rudiments and then I play at concert and I'm just not satisfied with my performance. I mean, I played this part with paradiddle break perfectly, but guess what? Nobody noticed (even I), because my overall performance was not good enough. No go ahead and play 50 live concerts. You don't have to play your paradiddle break perfectly, but oh boy, you are going to be a way better drummer. Notice that it's hard to compare SC2 to drumming, but you can see the pattern. edit: I absolutely agree with the post above mine. Could have saved my time writing my post, lol... You must be a bad drummer lol. In practice, it's important to spend about half of your time on technical exercises and practicing difficult runs slowly. You should only be playing straight through pieces a handful of times during an entire practice session. This will help you improve much faster than simply trying to play a full piece over and over. Your technique will also be stronger so that each time you encounter new music, you can pick it up more easily and more fluidly because your hands can already do it. Likewise, in Starcraft, you should practice your macro, build order, and mechanics in custom games AND THEN put them together with micro and decision making in ladder games. I'm not saying that ladder games aren't important, but they will not improve your base skill as quickly as practicing specific mechanics in isolation. If you ONLY mass ladder, your improvement will definitely not be as fast, and there's a very good chance you'll start to stagnate. EDIT: If you agreed with the post above you, you probably should have actually agreed with him in your post. I basically just repeated what he said. | ||
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0mg_t1red
Russian Federation104 Posts
I really enjoy playing starcraft and teaching ppl) So if u want to improve and ready to invest some money I will be glad to help you! I coach bronze – diamond players (8$ per hour). So maybe you will just try and find out :pLessons include: -replay analysis -improving mechanics -most suitable BO for every matchup and MOAR :D For any additional information contact me: email vaniagolushko@gmail.com skype Omg-_-t1red User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24178 Posts
On March 26 2013 02:14 SC2John wrote: You must be a bad drummer lol. In practice, it's important to spend about half of your time on technical exercises and practicing difficult runs slowly. You should only be playing straight through pieces a handful of times during an entire practice session. This will help you improve much faster than simply trying to play a full piece over and over. Your technique will also be stronger so that each time you encounter new music, you can pick it up more easily and more fluidly because your hands can already do it. Likewise, in Starcraft, you should practice your macro, build order, and mechanics in custom games AND THEN put them together with micro and decision making in ladder games. I'm not saying that ladder games aren't important, but they will not improve your base skill as quickly as practicing specific mechanics in isolation. If you ONLY mass ladder, your improvement will definitely not be as fast, and there's a very good chance you'll start to stagnate. EDIT: If you agreed with the post above you, you probably should have actually agreed with him in your post. I basically just repeated what he said. You can't practice everything in isolation, playthroughs are good, ladder is good too. Also people learn things differently anyway, with music I practice pretty much every new technique at full speed, or close to full speed and 'clean it up'. People chastise me and give the 'practice slowly and speed up' speech, which doesn't work for me at all. I end up stuck at a certain tempo and my muscle memory is totally locked in to that. There seems to be this obsession with 'my way is the right way' on here, but people do learn things differently, I don't really think practicing everything in isolation will increase your base skill quicker than ladder and doing 'everything' in a proper game. Ladder will find the flaws in your play, and custom games or specific practice routines can help fix them, then go back and ladder if you so desire, only for it to expose you to some other flaws you were previously unaware of. A lot of Starcraft is making 'reads' of builds, and ladder is the absolute best tool to teach that, if nothing else. Ladder also forces you to confront the unknown. I would definitely extoll the virtues of custom games vs practice partners to work out the viability of some builds, but I do feel certain familiarity with your partners does make it imperfect too. | ||
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Orbry
Russian Federation3 Posts
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Eiskaffee
Germany31 Posts
2 Pro tips with wich everyone can get into master and above -build drones -keep da moneyz low The rest will just come. Its really just about mechanics. | ||
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