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Greetings!
I've been a lurker for quite awhile on TL's website. I've enjoyed reading all the guides for SC2 and the Live Streams in between breaks 
I played WoL on the day of release as Terran and decided to really improve my skill in 1v1 for the next couple years.
I failed miserably.
Unable to break out of Silver I found myself at a constant loss. This was obviously before the option to switch regions or play UnRanked matches for the sake of trying out new builds.
One day, a few months ago, I lost a whole MMM BioBall to banelings and festors. I sat, I stared at my computer screen, I contemplated life itself.
After several drinks and a trip to the E.R. to stitch the wound in my hand, I decided to take a deep breath and said "You know what? I'll try Zerg..."
Needless to say since those few months ago I went from Silver and now I just recently got promoted to Platinum. I was Rank 10 but have just kind of slipped to Rank 21 at the moment due to me not having the time to play.
I guess this is where the main question comes in, and it was something I hadn't even thought about until my third loss in a row...
Right now I'm hovering around 51% win in general so I think I'm where most people should be. The issue, however, is that I've only played 70 games this season.
Whenever I'm getting absolutely STOMPED and destroyed it's against an opponent with anywhere from 250-450 games for the season (that's coming to a close.)
I hadn't even put 2 and 2 together until tonight. Now that I'm in Platinum, am I past the point of watching fun TL replays and reading build guides on the forums? Can I no longer be a casual lurker and play a few games a week? Is this where a Starcraft player has to crank it up a notch from "Casual"?
Bear in mind I'm not complaining about this imba or that imba, I'm just needing to know if 35-70 games per season ain't gonna cut it anymore.
What have you all experienced? What can I expect? I can say for certain I won't have the time to put in a few hundred games every season.
Any insight would be much appreciated
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Some people are Masters with that many games. Some people languish in Gold or Platinum for years even though they play 400 games a season and a focus on improving. If the amount you can play is fixed, then your league will correlate to your talent and to how much you focus on correcting flaws in your play.
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Well, a lot of people place into Platinum out of their first 5, so no, it's not necessary to play a lot of games to stick to Platinum.
I do feel like the jump from Platinum to Diamond is a bit more extreme than from Gold to Platinum, however, because now there's this threshold where just "making more stuff" than your opponent doesn't quite work anymore. More decision making must come into play and that's where a lot of players (including myself) struggle.
I think the best method to to improve in Platinum is to pick one good all-around build against each race and do it every match. This will allow you to refine your game even more.
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On April 25 2013 12:35 U_G_L_Y wrote:
Some people are Masters with that many games. Some people languish in Gold or Platinum for years even though they play 400 games a season and a focus on improving. If the amount you can play is fixed, then your league will correlate to your talent and to how much you focus on correcting flaws in your play.
Quoted for truth.
It doesn't ALWAYS matter how much you can play, time+talent+repetition = your skill ceiling.
Also you want to ask yourself the question, do you WANT to get promoted higher yes or no? are you happy with where you are now, there are plenty of people that don't care about their leagues and just play to have fun.
And ofcourse with all sports, the higher you get in leagues, the more effort it takes to improve as fast as you did before. Even till the extend that you cannot improve that fast ever again.
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First off, wrong forum, this belongs into Blogs. The strategy forum is meant for posting strategy and strategy advice.
I believe that if you are truly dedicated, or at least moderately dedicated and play at least 5-10 games a day, in which you concentrate on correctly executing a build, focus on your macro as much as possible, then you should be able to reach low master, or at least diamond.
Watching streams and vods of higher level players certainly helps to a degree, but you need to be able to discern why they do what, dont just copy builds, try to grasp the thought process behind it.
So to answer your question, yes, i do believe that if you step out of the "casual" zone and seriously focus on your 1v1 play you can and will improve.
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I believe there is definitely a certain minimum amount of games you need to play to keep your skill somewhat consistent.
Starcraft is already a very volatile game. I think this is something that people who are getting discouraged should realize. The great players are able to take losses in stride and analyze them. There is always something you can do better.
You do not need to play hundreds of games per season to improve. You do have to commit time though. And you have to commit to improving. Playing doesn't equal practicing.
Again, I believe you have to play some amount to keep your basic skill up so that you can have a somewhat consistent skill level but if you are watching pro streams or reading TL and really trying to better understand the game then you will improve as well, it's not just the amount you play it's the quality of your practice.
Unfortunately mechanics are probably a platinum players' most important thing to improve so strategy threads and pro streams dont' help as much as just practicing mechanics. Everyone says it but it's true. I'm still working on probes and pylons and Ive been playing this game for 2 years. I'm starting to learn to multi-task and do other things, but I still get supply blocked, and there are still games that I lose because i don't have enough econ/money to make the units I need.
If you do these 3 things, I guarantee you will get to diamond level MINIMUM.
1) Make workers until you have 60-70 on 3 bases.
2) never get supply blocked
3) never have over 500 minerals.
I can't do these unfortunately, sometimes i get 2/3 but.. it's hard out there man. Stick with it, just have fun.
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On April 25 2013 12:46 thurst0n wrote:
If you do these 3 things, I guarantee you will get to diamond level MINIMUM.
1) Make workers until you have 60-70 on 3 bases.
2) never get supply blocked
3) never have over 500 minerals.
I can't do these unfortunately, sometimes i get 2/3 but.. it's hard out there man. Stick with it, just have fun.
Not as Terran.
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Well, I was bronze a year ago and never had any RTS experience but I've played shitloads of games ( I would say few thousands ) in the next 2 season. First season, bronze to top silver. Next season, top silver to top master in my division ( ranked #600ish) by cheesing every single game.
It is sad and boring so I've decided to play the legit way... to be honest, I've no knowledge in macro games or whatsoever, but using 3rd party programs, I've learned the concept of scouting and able to defend and have a concept or idea of what my opponent is doing. I've quitted on and off during the past year, now I'm a 1200 points HOTS Master...
I would say experience comes on handy.. everytime you lose, ask yourself what you did wrong. If you win, ask yourself what you can improve on and what your opponent's mistake and that way you will learn and process faster.
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I started out playing something like 200 games in bronze. After that, I played like 500+ games in gold and platinum combined before I got into diamond. After getting into diamond, masters was significantly less time consuming to get into. It took less than 200 games from diamond to masters for me.
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I had a similar experience actually. I played as Protoss for a while and couldn't break out of gold for the life of me and then I switched to Terran and focused on my mechanics and macro. I got into Plat soon after and since HoTS has come out I dropped back down to gold.... Macro training limits what I am allowed to build so I usually have to beat superior tech armies with MMM.
I think thurstOn's point is pretty much on the money but as the general player base gets better more and more players are capable of constantly building scv's and not getting supply blocked even while macroing half decently. This means that I don't think you will be able to get into diamond on that solely but you will do fairly well. The focus on improving is the big thing I think.
My friend is a zerg player and plays half as much as I do but improves twice as fast despite this. He is diamond and I am pretty sure I can count the amount of times I have beaten him on one hand. Some get better faster and some slower but I think it has less to do with the amount of time played but more so with the dedication you have to improving and the ability for you to reflect honestly on your game. If every terran player thinks that the reason they lost that game was because banes are OP then they will continue to suck rather then learning to split.
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Usually don't post because lets be fair I'm bad and my input on these forums wouldn't be worth much. However I feel this is something I can relate to.
First off you don't have to play a lot but if you want to improve quickly it's probably needed. If you’re amazing at figuring out things just from watching your replays that could also cut down on the games you need to play.
However I have 33 games played this season as ranked (some unranked but my mmr went haywire and I only played against master players so I stopped that) and I feel like I have improved a lot but this mostly comes down to how clueless I was when hots came out.
I still get supply blocked loads and I'm shocked at times how bad some people in diamond are (talking 2base carriers into flaming that swarmhost is op) however I'm pretty sure if u have a decent knowledge base (not through playing a ton of games I guess) and your macro isn't horrendous getting diamond is not something you need to play a lot to get aka reading forums and builds is always helpful if it gives you a better sense of what to do in the big picture which I think is even more important for zerg than other races. I know the last statement is quite biased but let’s be fair if u get supply blocked as toss or especially terran you get demolished because you can't catch back up.
Personally I'm not really following a build as zerg and mostly wing it which is probably why I'm not improving fast or anything but Not getting supply blocked is something even in diamond (I can't speak for master league since I lose like 1/3 against them so I assume they are quite a bit better than me) do so you don't need perfect macro to improve but if you do you would probably go up a league or so.
Focus your play and figure out what you problem is (if it's macro playing more is probably the key) and try to plan your game play more since winging it like myself (if you’re not talented which I'm unfortunately not) does not help you improve fast and improving certain aspects of your game will take longer.
Just as a side note I have a friend who started bronze and is gold now but it still took around 1k games (he played a lot and switched races a couple of times) which is almost as many I have played since launch so it differentiates a lot
Edit: Incase u wanted to know before reading I'm diamondish not sure where and I generaly don't get the rank I could cause I don't play enough (put less emphasis on rank over skill while improving)
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On April 25 2013 13:00 nak0z wrote:
Well, I was bronze a year ago and never had any RTS experience but I've played shitloads of games ( I would say few thousands ) in the next 2 season. First season, bronze to top silver. Next season, top silver to top master in my division ( ranked #600ish) by cheesing every single game.
It is sad and boring so I've decided to play the legit way... to be honest, I've no knowledge in macro games or whatsoever, but using 3rd party programs, I've learned the concept of scouting and able to defend and have a concept or idea of what my opponent is doing. I've quitted on and off during the past year, now I'm a 1200 points HOTS Master...
I would say experience comes on handy.. everytime you lose, ask yourself what you did wrong. If you win, ask yourself what you can improve on and what your opponent's mistake and that way you will learn and process faster.
This sounds kinda interesting...
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I play a few games every month and still beat high master players (although the ranking system seams a bit buggy atm in HotS), so basically no it's not about how many games you play per season. Platinum is nowhere near the level that active players seperate from casual ones.
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On April 25 2013 17:41 RubiksCube wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On April 25 2013 13:00 nak0z wrote:
Well, I was bronze a year ago and never had any RTS experience but I've played shitloads of games ( I would say few thousands ) in the next 2 season. First season, bronze to top silver. Next season, top silver to top master in my division ( ranked #600ish) by cheesing every single game.
It is sad and boring so I've decided to play the legit way... to be honest, I've no knowledge in macro games or whatsoever, but using 3rd party programs, I've learned the concept of scouting and able to defend and have a concept or idea of what my opponent is doing. I've quitted on and off during the past year, now I'm a 1200 points HOTS Master...
I would say experience comes on handy.. everytime you lose, ask yourself what you did wrong. If you win, ask yourself what you can improve on and what your opponent's mistake and that way you will learn and process faster. This sounds kinda interesting...
What is more interesting is that he wanted to play the legit way...
With 3rd party programs...
Seems legit!
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I've gone from bronze to diamond during my stay in SC2. I don't play very regularly, but sometimes considerably more, sometimes not at all. I also consider that playing 50ish games a season is already enough to improve with when talking about these lower leagues of bronze - diamond. It will be too little however to stay relevant at the top, as above certain point you simply cannot be playing sloppy, and precise playing requires lots of repetition. This however is not the case in diamond at least.
What I've also noticed with long breaks from game is that you don't truly lose the skill in game even with months of absence. You might get slightly rusty, but that gets fixed rather fast when picking up the game again. I've never gone down a league when coming back, since I still have the basics from before down pretty well (have played bit less than 1300 games since buying WoL at release 3 years ago), and you really don't need much more than the basics for getting up to diamond (maybe even masters, but I can't make that claim as I've never got up there myself).
I would say that it's perfectly ok for most to expect to get to diamond level with moderate play. Who knows, maybe you can get even higher than that with sound practice, or maybe you'll get stuck in plat. Full guessing game without knowing you. Just don't expect this improvement to be fast, but it might take a very long time when playing low number of games. I for example was stuck in platinum for a cosiderably long time when just looking at calendar, but not super long when considering the number of games played.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
I hadn't even put 2 and 2 together until tonight. Now that I'm in Platinum, am I past the point of watching fun TL replays and reading build guides on the forums? Can I no longer be a casual lurker and play a few games a week? Is this where a Starcraft player has to crank it up a notch from "Casual"?
I think, the point where the vast majority of people have to sit back and put some work in (some work varying from 5 games a week to 20 to 200) is somewhere in diamond
The ratio of people in platinum to diamond is 1:0.9.
The ratio of people in diamond to masters it 9:1 - a much more harsh ratio.
Playing casually (2.8k games in almost 3 years about two thirds 1v1) with sc2 as my first multiplayer RTS (i started out doing the 1 base thor until i realized that obviously, 1 base battlecruiser was better) i went silver in season 1, plat in season 2 - diamond a couple seasons later, but i held diamond for 7 seasons because 30 or 40 1v1 wins a season was not enough for me to overcome skill increases, to beat the other 9 people in the top 20% for a masters spot, however low masters now vs low diamond 2 years ago? I was constantly improving at a rather fast rate, just nowhere near as fast as somebody who would play a LOT.
The type of person you are, how you react to training, so many mental factors are just MASSIVE - the type of player that can be the best in the world with 400 hours of practice the month before an event can often be really really awful or slow to improve without playing, and the Stephano's that can destroy continents with a couple hours a day play typically don't seem to see many real gains from lots of practice, either option is good. Scaling well with practice, but to some extent being a natural good player, is probably the best
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you seem to think most peole end up in the smae place ... that is simply not true as evidenced by the fact there are many leagues.
There is no league you shuodl be in.
Next up .... everyone is constantly improving and the game is constantly changing - I still remember how to deal with early terran reapers from early wol days as z and protoss but haven't played them in over a year. That knowledge is not relevant now.
Why expect to get into a certain league. People turning around and saying things liek everyoen shuold be able to get into diamond are essentially saying ';Well i got into diamond or better so from my perspective everyone should' ... ie its a round about way of a smackdown.
Everyone feels like a noob. Get over it ;p
It sounds to me that you ahev a good attitude and enjoy learning ... give up on league fixation and results.
Also you don't just gain skill you are also constantly losing skill ... if you dont play for 2 weeks your game gores to shit (well mine does). If you really want to push past your constant norm then to keep it up there requires ever more work. So these people playing 40 games a day will be up in the stratosphere of their own potential - if they use their practise time right.
Your real question is do you *really* need to be in diamond? Whats wrong with plat?
What you really look to want out of this thread is someone to say 'look dude, really you are asking is it ok to get to the point where the game is so much work that its no longer fun?' the answer you should give is something along the lines of 'Well i love starcraft but you know i like to get laid, see my friends and finally find a job i am happy to do'
So plat is great. have fun.
Could you get into diamond if you really really wanted to and had the time. Of course you could you could get into masters if you wanted. It might take you twice as much effort as the next guy but of course you can do it.
I know why i am not in higher leagues ... i cant be arsed to put in the analysis work and the time on improving my game or relearning what the current metagame is. When i play now i just look up what flash / innovation / dream is doing and steal their build .. play for a few weeks and wander off.
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I played my ass off to get out from bronze and it took a lot less effort to get into gold and then it took me a while to get into diamond (but I didn't really practise hard to get into diamond, I just kept playing a little every week)
I only play around 50 games the most per session about 55% win rate since I don't have much time available anymore.
that's my mindset:
I really didn't want to be a bronze and so I worked really hard to get out from it.
I didn't expect to get much higher after silver but I got into gold quite easily.
Then I wanted to see how far I get and with reading some guides and general improvement on my play, I got to plat.
I wanted to get into diamond (but not as much as I wanted to get out from bronze) since I can beat my master terran buddy quite fairly often but I didn't care too too much and so I didn't play that much.
After I got into diamond, then I feel pretty comfortable at my skill and just want to play some opponents who have put equal/similar amount of effort into the game and enjoy the game.
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I relate to ETisME here. I think high Platinum-low master is where you are guaranteed to get games where people play reasonably enough to create interesting and novel situations so that the games are fun. (Which isn't taking anything away from epic Voidray battles in Bronze, but there's a difference there between real games and wacky games.)
Also, grinding out games doesn't seem to be all that important. I've played a few hundred games since WoL released and I'm diamondish. (I had Diamond as my rank all through WoL, currently platinum with <20 games played) but my unranked is matching me against master's for some silly reason.
So, I'd say you can advance more before your casual attitude stops you at your skill ceiling but there's also very little reason to seek promotion if you're in Platinum. Just enjoy the fun games that you get and see where it takes you. Also, it takes away ladder anxiety and the frustration of losing.
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Russian Federation14 Posts
Imo I could push myself to high diamond at least (casually playing since WoL beta, ~800 games, always been plat-low dia level) without ANY ladder games just by reading guides, watching replays, memorizing what should I do in what situation and playing vs AI to get not-so-horrible timings and macro till 12:00 or so. This feeling is based on my occasional ladder play in HoTS diamond - when I f*ck up the macro game royally and still win.
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EPT
