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I play the piano as well, and I've often had thoughts along very similar lines. There are a lot of places where the analogy breaks down, because of the great deal of variability that is involved in a SC2 match, but of course improvisation in music would be similar, and you can certainly improve your improvisational skills by practicing mechanics at a reduced speed and then speeding them up.
The issue that always gets me is the difficulty of repeating "passages" during my SC2 practice. One of my worst habits in musical practice is that every time I make a mistake, I tend to go back to the beginning of the piece or movement I am working on and start again, instead of just repeating that measure and then that line until I've ironed out the wrinkle. The result is that I end up with a lot of pieces that I can play flawlessly for a few pages, then with a few mistakes for a few pages, and then I just fall apart. The very nature of SC2 reinforces exactly this sort of practice pattern, though, because you always return to the opening measure after a game ends.
YABOT is the best tool currently available for the sort of phrase-based practice that I think is the best for learning builds and macro, because you can save a state (though it's a bit wonky) and then practice the same section of your build over and over again. It's still not ideal, though - what you'd really want is the ability to load a game state in a two-player game so that you can practice a specific scenario repeatedly. For example, I would love to load up the state of a game following an FFE when a Roach/Speedling all-in arrives and play out just that fight at half speed 20 times, then play it out at full speed another 20 times. It's currently possible for me to practice the build up to that point in a vacuum, but to practice against the attack I have to play through the entire opening over and over again against a practice partner, or (worse still) wait for a PvZ on ladder on a map that allows for an FFE, then hope that my opponent responds with a Roach/Ling all-in.
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I learned how to play both Starcraft games through what you describe as "music mechanics", i.e. pressing a sequence of keys in order for macroing and micro, over and over until I could eventually play the game without even needing to look at the hotkeys. It was very much like typing, and I do believe that your approach has potential for those that want to focus on a more memorization-oriented strategy.
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@ TheOne85 - I'd appreciate if you actually read my post - I just spent my entire post dispelling this opinion, and you offer your claim without any justification other than stating that they are "different."
@ niteReloaded - Good stuff, and I especially like the weightlifting analogy.
An ideal practice regimen does combine elements of speed and accuracy. However, I believe that training accuracy is far more important than raw speed for most of us mortal SC2 players. People not named Flash, Jaedong, and Bomber will find their biggest improvements by practicing accuracy, and not speed.
In addition, qxc's practice method isn't necessarily the best way to train speed. For example, a musician would never practice his or her piece over the designated tempo. Similarly, why would we play a game faster than it was intended? If we want to focus on speed, why not work on speed within the confines of a normal game rather than an unrealistic environment?
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Yeah, I was surprised when I found out that qxc wrote that. I mean, as you said in the OP, doing something faster will not necessarily make you be able to learn how to perform it well faster.
I feel that it would be like playing two different games to play it on UMS than to play on the ladder.
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btw, musician they don't approach the new piece, they just play it, it's called sight reading.
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On October 08 2011 07:25 brachester wrote:
btw, musician they don't approach the new piece, they just play it, it's called sight reading.
There is a huge difference between sight-reading something and perfecting something. You seem to be suggesting that any musician can sight-read any work perfectly and instantaneously. This is simply not true.
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On October 08 2011 07:08 TheOne85 wrote:
Sports and e-sports are different than your piano lessons or weight lifting analogies...
You want to learn over time in the most effective environment. If you want to be fast, then its a fast environment you want to place yourself in and grind it out. "Professionals", yet you do not brush upon this simple, natural concept.
No.
You want to learn over time in the most effective environment. There is no reason to think that the most effective environment is "grinding it out", but there is a lot of research suggesting the opposite.
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If you play zerg, I think its a waste of time to do anything but play another human, as your play is dictated almost soley by the other player as a zerg. otherwise you're just sitting there making drones in an unrealistic 0 pressure scenario. I don't know how to practice as terran or toss though, so this could be valid there
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this is a GREAT post. All those years of playing instruments didn't go to waste :D
I'm going to take this into account and change my practice now. I'm definitely going to do this. thanks man, great writeup! :D
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On October 08 2011 07:46 Arisen wrote:
If you play zerg, I think its a waste of time to do anything but play another human, as your play is dictated almost soley by the other player as a zerg. otherwise you're just sitting there making drones in an unrealistic 0 pressure scenario. I don't know how to practice as terran or toss though, so this could be valid there
In my opinion, this is far from useless. When you approach a new build, rather than jump into a high-pressure situation and be unfamiliar with your mechanics/strategy, shouldn't you practice it in a low pressure environment so you actually know what the mechanics are?
This is more useful for Zerg than you think - at each phase of your strategy as a Zerg player, you should be able to instantly build certain army compositions, This is a mechanical skill. In addition, all Zergs not named DRG and NesTea could probably use some practice on their larvae-inject mechanic.
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For those who disagree with the OP, he's not telling you to stop mass gaming; his point is that, by working on specific parts on your gameplay such as landing queen injects or constant scv production, you can improve your overall gameplay multitudes faster than by just "grinding it out".
Take a new Zerg player for example. He will likely not be very efficient with queen injects and get supply blocked a lot. As he plays, his skill will gradually improve. It may not happen quickly, but overtime he will get better at landing injects. If he only works on his play via mass gaming, it will take him a long time, hundreds, perhaps even over a thousand games; however, by simply focusing on one aspect of play at a time, you will improve multitudes faster - perhaps within a few hours instead of weeks of grinding.
After improving single aspects, you still need to put the pieces together --THAT is where mass gaming comes in.
Sorry if some of my post doesn't make sense, I'm posting from an iPod 
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OP's method of training is meant mostly for beginners that does not really understand the game. I never grinded a ton of games (I have 1500+ wins now, but only like 300 1v1 wins), yet was placed into diamond first and masters as soon as that came out. Didn't play beta either. What I did instead was watch a lot of Husky and HD during the summer up to the release of SC2, which really got me hooked - thus teaching myself the basics of the game without playing it. When I got to play it, I of course was terrible, but I knew what I needed to do, so it just came natural to me.
Sure, you might be able to grind through 10-50 games where you just focus on injecting with your queen where in the last game you hit nearly every inject spot on. But when it comes to a real game, you will not just have to focus on queen injecting, which probably would result in terrible injects as you simply can not compute everything at once. This multitasking only comes through mass gaming, talent or sheer experience with gaming in general.
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Well this can work well for Zerg macro, but for P and T it's basicly just keep building workers, don't get supply blocked and make more production facilities in time. That isn't stuff you can practice better at low speeds, you just have to play a ton.
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On October 08 2011 08:08 MonkeyMaan wrote:
OP's method of training is meant mostly for beginners that does not really understand the game. I never grinded a ton of games (I have 1500+ wins now, but only like 300 1v1 wins), yet was placed into diamond first and masters as soon as that came out. Didn't play beta either. What I did instead was watch a lot of Husky and HD during the summer up to the release of SC2, which really got me hooked - thus teaching myself the basics of the game without playing it. When I got to play it, I of course was terrible, but I knew what I needed to do, so it just came natural to me.
Sure, you might be able to grind through 10-50 games where you just focus on injecting with your queen where in the last game you hit nearly every inject spot on. But when it comes to a real game, you will not just have to focus on queen injecting, which probably would result in terrible injects as you simply can not compute everything at once. This multitasking only comes through mass gaming, talent or sheer experience with gaming in general.
I think its applicable to just about any skill of player. Even GM players have room to improve their mechanics. In addition, players of all skill levels could perhaps draw something from a musician's practice method when they learn a brand new build.
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This is not music. This is starcraft. Your claims require music training to be a useful analogue, but you
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On October 08 2011 08:17 arbitrageur wrote:
This is not music. This is starcraft. Your claims require music training to be a useful analogue, but you
While you didn't finish your post, I think I know where you're going.
You can make the case that a musical instrument (in this case, Piano) and Starcraft have the exact same mechanical skill-set.
- Both require the same muscles in the hand and fingers.
- Both use the same mechanical motion (action of fingers pressing down on keys).
- Both emphasize muscle memory and dexterity over power
- The list goes on...
Given these and other unmentioned similarities, why can't we draw similarities between the practice methods of Piano and Starcraft? If the two are mechanically identical, why can't we practice them the same way.
(Please note that I'm comparing mechanical similarities, and not tactical/emotional/etc. similarities.)
On October 08 2011 08:16 Logros wrote:
Well this can work well for Zerg macro, but for P and T it's basicly just keep building workers, don't get supply blocked and make more production facilities in time. That isn't stuff you can practice better at low speeds, you just have to play a ton.
Sure you can practice it. If you are unfamiliar with the mechanics of your build order, why throw yourself into the fire of a real game when you can get comfortable with them in a training game?
For example, let's say you are a Terran player, and you want to make a 4 Barrack 2 Factory timing push in the mid-game. Your ultimate goal is to transition into a late-game 3 base economy of 8-10 Barracks with Tank/Medivac support. Instead of repeatedly playing your build ad-nauseum, practice your mechanics first by breaking down the build.
- Practice the beginning of the build, up until the timing push. Make sure you know your build order like the back of your hand while making supply depots/scvs.
- Practice macroing out of 4 Barrack 2 Factory while moving your army around the map to simulate your push.
- Practice your late-game macro out of 8 Barrack 2 Factory 2 Starport while moving an army around the map.
All of this will get you comfortable with your mechanics. If you can do your mechanics in your sleep, you'll be much better able to deal with sudden attacks and strange scenarios, since you won't have to think about building supply depots and SCVs.
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On October 08 2011 08:17 arbitrageur wrote:
This is not music. This is starcraft. Your claims require music training to be a useful analogue, but you
It's a skill, skills are learned, learning is a process that follows certain patterns and regularities. There's nothing magical about Starcraft or music in this regard. I pointed this out in my second reply, but apparently nobody bothers reading past the first few posts...
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There are several main differences between SCII and a musical instrument, and then an additional flaw in your original criticism of qxc. At the same time, I definably agree that mass gaming isn't the best strategy for improvement, and that working on one aspect at a time is best, can be very helpful in specific aspects of your play. But this alone won't get you into Diamond.
In my opinion, the main difference between music and Starcraft is the requirement of decision making(and the randomness implied by that). Unless you are performing improvisation, at no point in performing music are you required to do anything other than a completely planned approach. This makes it very easy and simple to break down music into smaller components, or else slow it down to half the speed.
But it is impossible to do that with Starcraft, beyond the very early stages of the game. Your carefully planned build comes to a screeching halt when he drops four hellions in your base and begins wrecking probes. Therein lies the difficulty in Starcraft. My Bronze and Silver friends can all macro just fine - as long as nothing is forcing them to make and adapt important decisions on the fly. Even changes and decisions that don't require immediate attention, can and will wreck havok on your macro cycles. Suddenly, those fourteen corrupters mean you have to stop making colossus. Or he is going mass queens into Ultralisk - what the hell do you do to counter that? This is why you must play in real starcraft conditions - you can't get any decent practise beyond your early build versus the AI
Decision making is IMO the single most important aspect of Starcraft, and one that is neglected beyond belief in terms of practise - and also one that simply isn't found in music. There is no musical equivalent for choosing when/where to throw down forcefields, or how to deal with that baneling bust that just appeared at your front door. You have already decided when you will hit your piano keys, and nothing is going to change that.
This is also where your criticism of qxc goes wrong. He isn't somebody picking up a sheet of music for the first time. He is already the guy playing at jazz clubs. He (and anyone following his methodology should as well) can already easily press the buttons to macro at 50% increased speed - but the question is, can you make the correct macro decisions, at 50% increased speed?
In Summary: OP's idea is good for the early game and really specific builds/problems, but the decision making element of starcraft makes it significantly different from music, and is an issue the OP fails to address. And failure to also improve your SC decision making ability, will hold you back from jumping leagues as surely as bad macro will.
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On October 08 2011 08:40 Hapahauli wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2011 08:17 arbitrageur wrote:
This is not music. This is starcraft. Your claims require music training to be a useful analogue, but you While you didn't finish your post, I think I know where you're going. You can make the case that a musical instrument (in this case, Piano) and Starcraft have the exact same mechanical skill-set. - Both require the same muscles in the hand and fingers.
- Both use the same mechanical motion (action of fingers pressing down on keys).
- Both emphasize muscle memory and dexterity over power
- The list goes on...
Given these and other unmentioned similarities, why can't we draw similarities between the practice methods of Piano and Starcraft? If the two are mechanically identical, why can't we practice them the same way. (Please note that I'm comparing mechanical similarities, and not tactical/emotional/etc. similarities.)
First of all, they are not mechanically identical, "actions of fingers pressing down on keys" is a huge oversimplification of the things involved, and it doesn't cover mouse actions. You can't play starcraft at a high level without a mouse or similar device. Touch-typing is closer to playing Starcraft mechanically than Piano is; writing e-mails in a web browser is even closer, but nobody is arguing that you practice the same way because of that.
It has nothing to do with the mechanical properties.
It is all about learning a skill, and that is where the similarities are. Music, and the piano in particular, is not special here; you can also draw on other things like programming, or mechanically completely unrelated things like chess.
There is a lot in common in the practice methods of world-class chess players and violinists, but this is not because of any mechanical similarity. It is because training a skill efficiently requires certain conditions to be met, it is the demands of the learning process that leads to the similar requirements, not the activity itself.
On October 08 2011 08:16 Logros wrote:
Well this can work well for Zerg macro, but for P and T it's basicly just keep building workers, don't get supply blocked and make more production facilities in time. That isn't stuff you can practice better at low speeds, you just have to play a ton.
No, playing a ton is not an efficient way to practice it. Playing and specifically paying attention to this is, and perhaps doing so in an artificial environment -- not necessarily at lower speeds, but at lower complexities; e.g. it's much easier to make a habit of building workers and then moving on to holding early-game rushes than doing both at the same time. And yes, the skill does transfer: If you learn one first, it's easier to learn the other, because building workers is exactly the kind of thing that you can automate to the point of not requiring much active thought.
Sure you can practice it. If you are unfamiliar with the mechanics of your build order, why throw yourself into the fire of a real game when you can get comfortable with them in a training game?
Exactly.
For example, let's say you are a Terran player, and you want to make a 4 Barrack 2 Factory timing push in the mid-game. Your ultimate goal is to transition into a late-game 3 base economy of 8-10 Barracks with Tank/Medivac support. Instead of repeatedly playing your build ad-nauseum, practice your mechanics first by breaking down the build. - Practice the beginning of the build, up until the timing push. Make sure you know your build order like the back of your hand while making supply depots/scvs.
- Practice macroing out of 4 Barrack 2 Factory while moving your army around the map to simulate your push.
- Practice your late-game macro out of 8 Barrack 2 Factory 2 Starport while moving an army around the map.
All of this will get you comfortable with your mechanics. If you can do your mechanics in your sleep, you'll be much better able to deal with sudden attacks and strange scenarios, since you won't have to think about building supply depots and SCVs.
I don't necessarily agree with the exact suggestions you made, but very much with the ideas.
If you want to practice a solid macro foundation, it is actually great to practice a certain build repeatedly until you meet a certain baseline of efficiency -- even if you just 4gate repeatedly. The important part is knowing what you are practicing for and having a way to measure your progress. Just mass gaming is terrible that way: You have no solid baseline to compare yourself against; whether you win or lose can be almost entirely independent of whether you actually met your training goal or not.
It's much better to do a dozen or so games in a simpler, artificial environment, until you have the macro for a certain part of the game down, and then moving to the real games. That will teach you much faster, since you can easily identify your mistakes, you know what your ideal outcome is (e.g. so many stalkers/zealots at a certain point), and so no.
Once you have that down, that's when you're ready to apply it to real games and deal with the complexity of competing against a human. It's very inefficient to think that you can play a thousand games and improve as much as if you had practiced in a more structured fashion.
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On October 08 2011 08:40 Hapahauli wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2011 08:17 arbitrageur wrote:
This is not music. This is starcraft. Your claims require music training to be a useful analogue, but you While you didn't finish your post, I think I know where you're going. You can make the case that a musical instrument (in this case, Piano) and Starcraft have the exact same mechanical skill-set. - Both require the same muscles in the hand and fingers.
- Both use the same mechanical motion (action of fingers pressing down on keys).
- Both emphasize muscle memory and dexterity over power
- The list goes on...
Given these and other unmentioned similarities, why can't we draw similarities between the practice methods of Piano and Starcraft? If the two are mechanically identical, why can't we practice them the same way. (Please note that I'm comparing mechanical similarities, and not tactical/emotional/etc. similarities.) Show nested quote +On October 08 2011 08:16 Logros wrote:
Well this can work well for Zerg macro, but for P and T it's basicly just keep building workers, don't get supply blocked and make more production facilities in time. That isn't stuff you can practice better at low speeds, you just have to play a ton. Sure you can practice it. If you are unfamiliar with the mechanics of your build order, why throw yourself into the fire of a real game when you can get comfortable with them in a training game? For example, let's say you are a Terran player, and you want to make a 4 Barrack 2 Factory timing push in the mid-game. Your ultimate goal is to transition into a late-game 3 base economy of 8-10 Barracks with Tank/Medivac support. Instead of repeatedly playing your build ad-nauseum, practice your mechanics first by breaking down the build. - Practice the beginning of the build, up until the timing push. Make sure you know your build order like the back of your hand while making supply depots/scvs.
- Practice macroing out of 4 Barrack 2 Factory while moving your army around the map to simulate your push.
- Practice your late-game macro out of 8 Barrack 2 Factory 2 Starport while moving an army around the map.
All of this will get you comfortable with your mechanics. If you can do your mechanics in your sleep, you'll be much better able to deal with sudden attacks and strange scenarios, since you won't have to think about building supply depots and SCVs.
You say they have the exact same mechanical skill-set, but they don't. They may be similar but far from identical, there are important differences. The point has already been brought up but in Starcraft there is no such thing as too fast. The goal of QXC's method is to push yourself beyond your normal limits, play as fast as you possibly can. This makes no sense in the context of a musical instrument, you play at the speed the music is meant to be played, there is no sense in and no need in going faster than that. You hit the notes that are meant to be hit and those notes only, in Starcraft 2 there are almost an unlimited number of notes to be hit and the goal is merely to hit as many as you can. This is why increasing your speed is so important.
For even the fastest progamers there are so many things left undone in a game of SC2. That's the problem QXC is attempting to solve and it's a problem that no musician has ever experienced.
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EPT
