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Don't worry too much OP. This is TL, a starcraft community thats been around for some time. This is where all the SC junkies chill and talk about SC. Of course we just assume you have some RTS background.
People here know Flash, Boxer, OSL and even some IdrA rage quotes. This is where I can pull out my calculator and tell someone exactly how many reapers you are going to have after the patch 1.1 if you want to maintain the timing, and without feeling like a total geek(not denying, just less conscious LOL.)
Your intelligent insight on bronze league did not help either. Its well written (which I find hard to believe because I'm studying eng and most of us are not good at writing) and most of us are going "why cant a person like this get off a bronze league?"
it was an entertaining read. I personally think its like this on every league, except maybe the builds are better polished or better executed.
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First off some reps would help alot but against what I'm picturing as like sitting on 1/2 base wallin yourself in and just make stuff. A good way around that IMO is get a very early expo and with that you should be able to outproduce them. Keep expanding but at least keep an army enough to deal with his, and from there macro him to death. If your up 4-5 bases to 1-2 you don't need to micro basically just amove and eventually you'd win unless you tried a-moving tanks into broodlords 
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On September 01 2010 13:29 sabre_X wrote:
OP here...
I thank many people who appreciated my insight. A bunch of people who said that getting out of Bronze is just a matter of intelligence, I think are a bit short sighted. I am an engineer in real life, but am not a gamer. Every once in a blue moon I pick up a title and start playing, but I have no RTS background. (I was pretty scary at Unreal Tournament about 10 years ago.) A friend of mine who is a Diamond, turned me on to the game.
Furthermore, the statistics show that 40-50% of people are in bronze, so being at the top of bronze puts me somewhere near the middle. I hear lots of "all you need to do is___, and you'll be in platinum". I can understand why people say this, but its a bit short sighted. There are skills you mastered during BW or WC or SC2 beta, that I don't have.
My observation is that there are ALOT of players with 150+ games still stuck in Bronze. I am fortunate that I am not one of them. I hope to progress to silver within next 20 games... But the observation is that playstyle has matured in Bronze, and that getting to silver is not necessarily easy for someone who just picked up a copy in Best Buy and never played RTS before. Also, being older, I have less time and inclination to devote myself to it. There are lots of other good things in life... this is a minor pastime, but an enjoyable one.
Think about this: 40-50% of people are in Bronze. Getting to silver takes a bit more than competent build order. I can say that the top bronze players are competent in their own way, and have gotten better over the month since release. Moving out of Bronze is not as easy as it was a month ago. The bar is higher (for any division). You have to progress faster than everyone else at your level to advance.
While I wasn't asking for advice, I appreciate some of the good suggestions. If I had to summarize why I believe I am not in silver I would say it is because I dont have enough game knowledge, and havent practiced a wide range of options to respond to various scenarios.
For instance, I opened with a 3 Raxx against a zerg on kulas ravine. He early expanded and I put the pressure on an kept knocking down his expo, but couldnt get his main. He eventually got an expo. By the time I had massed a pretty formidable MM ball, he had amassed a large amount of burrowed banelings as a defensive force. I marched my army on his expo and down went 80% of my army! The tides turned just like that!
Honestly, I'm not sure what to do in that situation. Its just situational knowledge and awareness that I lack.
And of course mistakes! In another game, I expanded to a rocked off area. And my main force was destroyed (as was his). I was planning on destroying the rocks at the last minute (to offer some protection to the SCVs in there, but because my force was destroyed, I couldnt get my other SCVs to the expo. There were 20 SCVs zapping the big rock. Just stupid. I had no money to build.
Of course experienced players are not improvising as they go. They have a sequence already worked out. I do not. It was more like... hmm maybe I should expand.. I made the judgement to keep the rocks in place, which was a bad idea, thus I lost. Lots of things like that happen to me.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
with zergs like that... a raven or 2 is invaluable, it doesnt matter what the match up is, i like to get a raven with my forces on 2nd push (first push is usually timed before they can get cloaked units, unless going for a straight rush)
great job on picking up on the fast expand and constantly denying him the expansion
with expanding, the first expansion is always the hardest, i think it was day[9] saying in one of his eps that the hardest thing to learn is when to get your 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc expansions, and also when to attack, when to pull back... i played the beta for the entire time it was up, enjoyed BW, and this is something im yet to master, or understand... i know if a zerg goes hatch first, i need to put pressure on, but other than that, no freaking idea
but i have to say, that's one of the most well written and thought out posts ive seen in a long time  and it's provided me, and hopefully some others, with an interesting and insiteful idea of what it's like at other levels of the game
most of the time posts like this are "OMG F*CKING RUSHERS IN BRONZE!!!" or some rage post like that
keep up the good work OP :D
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I've been playing lots of 2v2s with old buddies of mine that have zero experience with SC, and it's interesting to see what a different experience they get in the lower leagues. My friends are having trouble winning games in bronze, and it's not like they're idiots or bad at video games. One thing that strikes me about bronze play, and that I remember from when I was in bronze in the beta (which is more like silver/gold nowadays), is how totally variable the games are.
The bronze experience is very chaotic with large single-unit armies. People also find out tactics that are pretty effective, but when you mix that with poor mechanics and weak economy, it makes for a pretty unpredictable game. For people who don't have the time or knowledge to refine their mechanics, bronze can be pretty intense and I don't think it's an environment that's very conducive to learning the proper way to play the game.
It's interesting to hear the perspective of someone in bronze, since that is where a large number of players fall.
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On September 01 2010 13:52 sabre_X wrote:
But anyway, the older you get, the more things are on your plate, and the less immediate something like SC2 seems.
qft, i keep telling myself I just have to let video games become a thing of the past and focus, but its not happening...
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Don't want to sound like a douche, but... I'm a douche.
On topic, I'm not really surprised by this. Everyone I work with plays StarCraft 2, but I'm the only one who is remotely high Diamond, let alone Diamond, but it seems to me that trends are emerging everywhere and they are completely bizarre and off the wall. Just from what my friends are telling me about their games, I try to help them out, give them advice, but it seems that most of it is useless because these lower level players are playing the game completely different than what I'm used to.
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god, I only read the first page because it was all i could stand
the guy posts some observation (that's literally all it is - his observations), and then EVERY SINGLE POST jumps on him about some irrelevant bullshit "man you're in bronze" "lol it's just bronze league". well that's great you elitist fucks you didn't have to reply to it, he didn't ask for your opinion on being in the bronze league.
i went through the entire thread and count like 4 people that weren't elitist shitheads
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On September 01 2010 13:52 cive wrote:
Don't worry too much OP. This is TL, a starcraft community thats been around for some time. This is where all the SC junkies chill and talk about SC. Of course we just assume you have some RTS background.
People here know Flash, Boxer, OSL and even some IdrA rage quotes. This is where I can pull out my calculator and tell someone exactly how many reapers you are going to have after the patch 1.1 if you want to maintain the timing, and without feeling like a total geek(not denying, just less conscious LOL.)
WE ARE AWESOME! xD
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They do plenty of random stuff in my experience though I'm only around 20 bronze atm. I just had a Zerg opponent go something like 9 hatch (it was half done when my 9 scout found him) before pool and then tech straight to Ultras. Or Ultra...I should use the singular since there was exactly 1 Ultra up by the time I got through spine crawlers blocking his ramp. Pretty sure he didn't produce more than maayyyybe 20 lings even after I started rallying my zealots straight into his base. The Ultras have probably worked plenty for him in the past because his opponents didn't appreciate how vulnerable he makes himself early. On the other hand, if he had a clue he'd have known better than to continue throwing all his money at tech once I started being so aggressive. I don't think he even attempted to scout me.
Haha, I had a match around thirty bronze that my opponent was favored in. His build wast a 12ish expand and rush to dual port battle cruisers with ups without ever making a single non-worker unit before the battle cruisers.
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If you enjoy rush, but is not effective anymore, then learn some timming pushes. There is plenty of info in the strategy forum.
edit: And dont think people upper in the leagues dont improvise, some of them do it a lot, but not in build orders.
I think you could enjoy more some 2v2 with your diamond friend, there you can ge the gimnastics required to be stable in above leagues, its not the same game, but its the same macro.
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how do u regular TL.net and stay in bronze?
biggest difference imo between a bronze and a gold level player-
the gold level player stays on his macro/production game while he is micro'ing.
A bronze player will focus hardcore on his "omg look at my reaper with 25 kills!" and forget to produce....
This is what seperates my friend and i when we play for fun... he understands all the concepts of micro... but completely forgets about macro'ing up. our games usually consist of fairly close early games... with my eventually having 3-4x as many expo's and then running him over...
imo in bronze level... focus on containing and expanding... then just mass whatever u want when u have an insane econ and win no matter if u micro or not...
Im not saying to turtle... but contain.
Another thing = in bronze harrassment will usually end the game because your opponent gets frazzled and starts getting nervous and chasing ur 2-3 harassers with his whole army of 50 units and will eventually get tired of making more workers and will quit lol.
one thing that is dangerous about being in lower divisions and frequenting this forum is you become too smart for your own league. "omg i was gonna push but he has 4 warpgates! i better retreat" too bad when you watch the replay u see he has 4 warpgates and 2 zealots with a stalker haha... dont look at their bases and start over analyzing ull just confuse urself lol
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On September 01 2010 14:07 travis wrote:
god, I only read the first page because it was all i could stand
the guy posts some observation (that's literally all it is - his observations), and then EVERY SINGLE POST jumps on him about some irrelevant bullshit "man you're in bronze" "lol it's just bronze league". well that's great you elitist fucks you didn't have to reply to it, he didn't ask for your opinion on being in the bronze league.
i went through the entire thread and count like 4 people that weren't elitist shitheads
"I only read the first page"
"I went through the enitre thread"
...Wait, what?
That said, I actually agree, travis. "OMG LOL YOU'RE IN BRONZE SO I'M GOING TO BE MAKE A POINTLESS POST AND RESTATE THAT YOU'RE IN BRONZE EVEN THOUGH EVERYONE THAT'S NOT FUNCTIONALLY ILLITERATE WOULD HAVE READ IT IN THE OP" is basically a summary of this entire thread. There's no sane reason to expect everyone on TL to be Diamond or Gold or any other league, and there's no reason for anyone to disregard his post- which I actually thought was pretty damned interesting to read- based on his league.
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On September 01 2010 14:07 travis wrote:
god, I only read the first page because it was all i could stand
the guy posts some observation (that's literally all it is - his observations), and then EVERY SINGLE POST jumps on him about some irrelevant bullshit "man you're in bronze" "lol it's just bronze league". well that's great you elitist fucks you didn't have to reply to it, he didn't ask for your opinion on being in the bronze league.
i went through the entire thread and count like 4 people that weren't elitist shitheads
I couldn't agree more, its bad rep for TL when people post short answers such as "your bronze stfu im gosu plat."
I thought his post was very well informed and i am not surprised one bit by your observations. While learning sc2 you have to always understand your advantages. Probably the hardest one at a very new level is understanding your map control advantage. Just by seeing 2 spines down should be a huge tip off. Instead of trying to end the game quick, be patient, and your your map control to take more expansions.
I am sure though at the lower levels as you get more bases it gets really hard to keep your money low, so make sure you focus at least 80% of your energy and apm to making sure you have a ton of units, they don't even have to be the perfect unit compositions, just so long as you have just "stuff" as day9 would say.
Just keep trying to stay 1 full base ahead, scout, and get static d if you sense mutas/dts/anything sneaky.
Thanks for the insight.
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All of you idiots who fail to read the OP and think he's asking for advice should go request a ban from nearest mod :/ Interesting to read about the bronze league, never been anywhere near it so it's kinda hard for me to comprehend what goes on there. Hell i have a friend who i think is awful but even he is in platinum. I have one question though, You claim 40-50% of players are in bronze but i always assumed the players were evenly divided between the divisions, so same amount of people in bronze as in every other league where did you get that information?
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On September 01 2010 14:23 nttea wrote:
All of you idiots who fail to read the OP and think he's asking for advice should go request a ban from nearest mod :/ Interesting to read about the bronze league, never been anywhere near it so it's kinda hard for me to comprehend what goes on there. Hell i have a friend who i think is awful but even he is in platinum. I have one question though, You claim 40-50% of players are in bronze but i always assumed the players were evenly divided between the divisions, so same amount of people in bronze as in every other league where did you get that information?
SC2ranks.com has statistics... for example on the SEA server:
Diamond
6.07% (2,820)
Platinum
11.97% (5,560)
Gold
18.05% (8,382)
Silver
22.45% (10,424)
Bronze
41.45% (19,248)
interestingly enough, protoss is the highest % played race, except for bronze, where its terran, and zerg is uniformly around the 20% mark
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This was a pretty well thought out OP, and people did everything from casually dismiss his opinion to question his intelligence. I think people need a little perspective. The fact that you are even visiting perhaps the best english language strategy website for a widely popular video game with a relatively high skill cap puts you in an overwhelmingly tiny percent of the player base. Not everyone takes the game as seriously as you, or possesses the same skill set as you. All he did was post his observations, its not like he presented himself as an authority on a subject over his head and talked down to everyone, which is more than you can say for 99% of the balance replated posts in this forum.
The funny thing is he is mostly right if you think about his core observation, which is that the game will tend to be played differently over time, and what worked months ago may not be what works months from now. If an average C iccup player went back in time to 1998 he would probably dominate the bnet ladder until the talented players figured out how to beat him and advanced their strategies. In a deep game people tend to get better as "staple" strategies get figured out and everyone learns to counter them, even in the bronze league. Perhaps even more in Bronze league as there are all sorts of wacky things players need to figure out don't really work before they can advance.
On September 01 2010 14:07 travis wrote:
god, I only read the first page because it was all i could stand
the guy posts some observation (that's literally all it is - his observations), and then EVERY SINGLE POST jumps on him about some irrelevant bullshit "man you're in bronze" "lol it's just bronze league". well that's great you elitist fucks you didn't have to reply to it, he didn't ask for your opinion on being in the bronze league.
Agreed 100%. Stop being dicks.
EDIT: Damn while writing this 3 people pretty much said what I said. Now I just look silly.
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I was only somewhat engaged in the post until I reached the part about the simple decision matrix.
Yes.
Not only yes, but hell yes. Around Bronze play, it's going to be like that. Simple truth is that most people who enjoy the game enough to join TL, but aren't really stellar yet are going to be between Silver and Platinum Leagues. At any level of game, even at the professional level, a Starcraft game can be viewed as a decision matrix—but it can most easily be observed in Bronze, where there isn't too much sophistry as people are still figuring out the game.
Very keen observation—and exactly why top players insist on the importance of scouting. There's no reason to be a League bigot when you can see the same principles at work at any level.
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This was actually a good read, however, it also happens in higher leagues to a lesser extent. In my platinum games, pretty much every one on lost temple is fast expand, then macro like crazy and wait. Defenders advantage is important in every matchup, so people wait until they either have a good timing to move out (probably this isn't what's going on in bronze...) or they wait until 200/200 on one or two bases and wait for their opponent to attack.
I guess in bronze, or at least in your games, people have recognized that if the big battle happens at home, that they are more likely to win, so they sit there maxed out until they get attacked.
Seems like a correct response to an important idea imo, just too hardcore. Gl on getting out of bronze! :D (this coming from an ex-copper leaguer)
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Osaka27146 Posts
I don't want to be a dick, but take a breath people. This thread is entitled observations, and is not in the strat forum. Keep that in mind before pounding out your advice.
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On September 01 2010 12:47 TheAntZ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 12:44 iEchoic wrote:
I'm going to have to jump on the bandwagon here. I don't get how you can be a functioning, intelligent human being and be stuck in bronze with 100+ games. You can do literally anything and get out of bronze. I have a friend whose strategy is to rush two-robo mass immortal and he just got to plat.
Just 4gate, 3rax, or 1base muta and do the same thing every game and you'll get to at least gold. Just watch a replay and copy it. Not if hes simply not trying hard enough on mechanics. Some people just think 'i'll do some rush and be a baller!' or 'I'll harass like a boss!' instead of just thinking ' IM GONNA GET A TON OF CRAP AND FUCK THIS GUYS FACE' some of the people that cant get out of bronze are the ones too obsessed with tactics, build orders, harass and micro to simply macro and win. At bronze you dont even need a BO, just see what your opponents doing, expand if he doesnt have enough shit to kill you, make more unit producing structures if he does, and just constantly keep making units. that is literally enough to get you into gold at least User was warned for this post
I'd like to clarify that i wasnt trying to help the OP, nor was I directing my post at the OP, i was simply replying to
You can do literally anything and get out of bronze.
And I didnt think it was offtopic enough to warrant a PM
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EPT
