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Siretu
151 Posts
Reading your post was like reading my mind. I got a huge interest for SC2 but I can't play for long. On the other hand, I think I'm improving and my multitasking is getting better. I just need solid mechanics to actually start winning some games(I do win, but I don't count winning against protoss people who go 8,9,10,11,12 pylon, 13 gateway into mass zealot) | ||
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G_G
Canada178 Posts
Warning: Noob musician talk below. Skip to the third last paragraph if you want. In the beginning, about two months ago, I tried to simply sit down and grind through piece after piece until I got it right. This gave quick results, but the muscle memory I gained from one was mostly useless when I moved on to the next piece, and I wasn't learning to sight read very well. Whenever I tried to learn to sight read, I'd get "worn out" within about twenty minutes because it was overwhelming trying to keep track of two hands doing two rhythms, two notes or chords, focus on what key I'm playing in for sharps and flats, and so on. I was making progress, but it was slow and felt like it was going to take my whole life just to be decent. So, starting three days ago, I decided to focus on one isolated skill at a time that is involved in sight reading. I spent four hours, with a few breaks, grinding through flash cards to memorize pitches on the staff (just two ledger lines in each direction for both staffs, but still). Then, I memorized the pitches of the piano keys in about twenty minutes (yes, I was that kind of muscle memory grinder that didn't even know the pitches of the white keys). The next day I reviewed all that and then spent about three hours associating ranges of C to B on the staff with ranges of C to B on the keyboard. I then spent a good number of hours grinding through pieces with one hand at a time, ignoring rhythm and just practicing hitting the right keys as fast as possible. Yesterday, I isolated hands together rhythm as a skill and just tapped out, using one finger from each hand and a metronome, the rhythm from a bunch of pieces. That took most of the day, I was even practicing it at work (like quarter notes in one hand and triplets in the other). Today I've been combining all those things and it's 100x easier than before to do it all at once. I honestly can't believe it's only been a few days and I've progressed this much. My point is not on isolating and focusing on skills, as that has been said by others in this thread and even day[9] and I think Chill in his how to improve thread. The thing I noticed is how easily I was able to spend many hours practicing when it was just one thing at a time. The progress was blatant even over short intervals like ten minutes, and it was addictive because I knew that "just ten more minutes!" would actually be really helpful. I even felt sad at one point thinking about how I'm making so much progress in one hour and I've wasted at least a hundred already. In Starcraft, lets say you focus on not getting supply blocked. Then you lose a long game, but you didn't get supply blocked. It feels good because you achieved your goal, and the lose didn't matter, since you can feel the progress. It's so easy to mass games when you feel like you've made a lot of progress after every game, win or lose. Even Flash and Jaedong lose, so winning 100% of the time is an incredibly stupid goal. Have small, focused, goals. You'll feel the progress and regardless of winning or losing you'll want to keep playing because you know it'll help. Massing games and just trying to win will help eventually, but it's harder mentally since you're making very small progress in many skills, and it's hard to feel it. | ||
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Meldrath
United States620 Posts
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Santriell
Belgium151 Posts
It gets pretty tiring mentally because... it's a mind games game. You're always on the lookout for some dirty trick to be pulled on you and since it's a "1 chance game" it gets pretty unnerving that's all. Not like in TF2 where dying is relatively not important. Ok that player may have killed you 2 times but you'll respawn immediately and own his ass for the rest of the game. In SC2 (or most RTS really), you get one chance at taking your opponent. If you blow it, you're done. | ||
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mufin
United States616 Posts
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mcneebs
Canada391 Posts
I think that there is a wealth of solid advice here ranging from skillset isolation to piano analogies. Good stuff guys. To the BW crew, I think you should re read a point brought up earlier regarding my CS experience. When you first got into BW, you most likely weren't playing to get a D+ rank on iccup, you were more than likely playing with buddies on UMS or BGH or single player and just goofing around. After you've become experienced, you dedicate yourselves to get better, but so many aspects of the skillsets needed have been developed and conditioned without your knowledge. SC2 beta, it's 90% 1v1 with a competitive mindset. Sure we've got YABOT and greentea, but we've also got a plethora of "pros" telling us that you need to do XXX to improve. Playing BW in 2002 there were no streamers saying "his +1 attack is way too late" or "queuing units is one of the worst thing in the world you can do". We (dedicated newbies) are trying to learn the mechanics flawlessly, and not develop habits. I want to learn how to do things as efficiently as possible. It's going to take a ton of work, and a ton of dedication. Improving on one thing at a time surely seems to be the way to go as opposed to trying to do everything at once. I know that I'm not going to spend any time playing UMS or BGH because I know that aside from being fun, it's sub standard. I'll take an hour of tiring practice over 4 hours of casual fun any day, because I think I will improve faster. Many people chose the latter without really making a conscious decision. It just happened. And once again, I commend all of you for being able to do it. | ||
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Pablols
Chile517 Posts
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Holcan
Canada2593 Posts
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Aberu
United States968 Posts
On July 17 2010 14:32 mcneebs wrote: I've been learning starcraft for the last few months, and I feel I have been going about it the right way, in spite of having no friends (IRL or otherwise) that play with me. I study the liquipedia, watch the streams, and every night after work I throw on the day9 daily. I do a lot of lurking on the forums and occasionally throw in my two cents. I never cry foul on balance issues, and try to develop solid techniques. When it comes to playing the game, however, I can't play for more than an hour. I can play CS, TF2, basically any FPS for hours. I've been playing them so long that it's just easy, and aim and decision making has come naturally to me. But even when I first got into playing FPS games, they never fatigued me so much as starcraft has. There have been times in large tournaments that I've felt mentally wiped after an intense match in CS 1.6, but I've never had a map change in a public server and said "wow, I need a break". After I finish playing a game of starcraft, I need to take a break. Not just to watch the replay and reflect on all my mistakes (and trust me there are a ton), but because the game just wears me out so fast. make SCVs, hows the food, rax almost finished?, remember to scan, rally points ok?, build an ebay, get that upgrade? shit i forgot that depo, okay now i'm supply blocked, throw down an expansion, damn mutas are here, pull scvs and on and on and on. I'm sure there comes a point where you just do these things without having to consciously think about them, but for me it's such an incredibly difficult process to keep up with. I commend you 200APM players who can just sit there and mass games, but I just feel that I can't ever put in 4-5 hours of starcraft. I love the game. I could watch gretorp's stream for hours. It's awesome. It's just so difficult to climb up this steep learning curve. Win or lose, gold or diamond, those dedicated to getting better through massing games have my respect. How did you get over this initial hump of being able to execute actions without consciously making every decisioin? Having a game plan before the game finishes loading is key. This match, if they are Z T or P what are you going to do. Have trained that game plan vs all sorts of things and knowing already how to do things can get rid of a lot of this mental stress. But that being said I still get worn out. My body gets hot, I sweat more, etc... It's how RTS has always been for me. It depends on if you psychologically deal with mental stress well or not. The game has been training me in a way for this. I played Red Alert 2 at a very high level as well, and I always got tired after each match and they were usually only 5-20 minutes long. After a 1 hour match of this I have to step outside and drink some water, talk with my roommates, wind down, pet my lizard, I mean everything. I can't even imaging going back to the game. Don't worry you aren't alone on this one. | ||
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Ricjames
Czech Republic1047 Posts
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Santriell
Belgium151 Posts
On July 18 2010 04:28 Ricjames wrote: i don't smoke when i am at home, but when i play broodwar i just have to smoke after every 2-3 games..to get a break Nevermind that I smoke WHILE playing :D | ||
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hachidan
United States21 Posts
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NIJ
1012 Posts
On July 17 2010 14:59 sev1 wrote: I think it's the 1v1 aspect, the razor-sharp competitive nature of the game. 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, even FFA are all very relaxed and fun. Why? Well, you're not judged in any way, if you lose it's not necessarily your fault, you have teammates to fall back on if you mess up, etc. But in 1v1, if you screw up, it's because *you screwed up*. In a finely balanced game like Starcraft, losing means that the other guy is better than you in some way. He outsmarted you, or had better reflexes, or had a more solid plan going into the game. The game is easy to understand when you're on the outside looking in. Watching dailies and streams makes it seem so easy and intuitive. But when you're actually in the game, head to head with an equally skilled opponent that could run you over if you so much as hit the wrong hotkey, the pressure can be too much to handle. 2v2 is just as if not more taxing if you take it seriously. Ever played 1v1 FPS or fighting games? They arent the same. It's because in those games you can choose to burst your concentration at different points in the game, where you choose to make monentum / where the gameplay is critical. And there are reset points in between matches and respawns. I can also choose to sit back and not engage in fighting games / fps. Due to RTS (flawed? yet interesting) design you cant do that. That would be like choosing to stop running in a marathon. You stop doing something in rts = You lose. | ||
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l90 Proof
64 Posts
Just like a beginner chess player who struggles to think 1-2 moves ahead, once that thinking becomes rote you move up and up until eventually you see the Grand Masters thinking 6-10 moves ahead and thinking in terms of broad positioning strategies rather than just trading pieces. | ||
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Lexpar
1813 Posts
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Armsved
Denmark642 Posts
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vanskater
United States146 Posts
but if i loose i can go back to back to back i guess if you are playing right its harder to play that way | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
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DocSnyder
Germany137 Posts
On July 18 2010 03:57 mufin wrote: I think people get worn out because the amount of mental focus required for each game is pretty much your maximum. Sure there are a few gimmicks and cheeses but at the end of the day, the game is extremely balanced. If the matchmaking system is doing its job and putting you up against players of equal skill, then for you to beat your opponent, you have to stretch your mental stamina further then your max. This its very taxing,its like taking a test at your university,youre very tense and worried about losing atleast in the beginning..... To beat that i just use my passion about everything starcraft,just hearing "We shall stand against the darkness" eases the tension since i recall: 1)This is just a game... 2)I love this game,its just good fun.. 3)Theres nothing on the line,winning or loosing doesnt matter....fun does...otherwise its a waste of time... So as long as your passionate about the game itself,and not winning at the game...youll stop worrying so much.Otherwise if you feel you got to mass games to win and you dont feel like massing for its own sake,then all you can do is lose...Just play the game when you feel like it and dont take it to seriously,otherwise it becomes a chore.. Anyway unless u plan on going pro,u dont need to mass hundreds of games.The good thing about sc2 is there will always be opponents at youre own level,so youll always feel challenged and winning will always feel good... Also playing with friends is 1000 times more satisfying and less stressful. If youre really competitive and hate losing then you have a problem,since half of youre games will inevitably be losses | ||
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Luvz
Norway356 Posts
Think of it as any other sport, u dont just run 10miles becouse u decide "imma get good at running" u get there eventually without becomming totally worn out. | ||
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