EPT[D] Practice Myths and Methods - Page 9
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oxxo
988 Posts
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Tenks
United States3104 Posts
I'll put it like this. IdrA is someone who practiced like a musician. When there is no variance he can do what he practiced as well as anyone on the planet. However, SC2 isn't music. It isn't predictable. You can't practice for all the variables. A wrench gets thrown into his plan and he suddenly cannot improv past his mistakes. That is the fundamental difference. I'd say, if anything, playing SC2 is more like completely improvising a song on the guitar knowing only the basic key signature and timing you'll be using. | ||
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cLutZ
United States19573 Posts
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Roxy
Canada753 Posts
I will definitely start practicing and here are the components I will try to master: Im writing this as a note to myself, but others can feel free to copy Builder Probe To start, I am going to make sure that for every game, by the mid game I have an idle probe laying around hotkeyed to 4. This is going to be my macro probe. I will go to the area of the map i want to build, then I will hit 44b/v etc. This could delay building production by only a couple seconds, but will save me a couple seconds from selecting probe from mineral line, building stuff, shifting back to mineral line. Mineral Split F8 will be for idle probes Build probes will be E and P Will Ctrl-F8 to send probes to mine, then P to build probe. Rest of game will use E as am used to it. Baneling / Hellion Defense Will make S and ; stop workers from doing anything. This way i can select all workers, press ; (to stop them), press ctrl+0 (to set control group) and hold F8 and spam click around my base for a quick probe spread. 0 will select all so i can send them back. Will test out how long it takes me to ctrl+0. It may be better to just take the extra time after threat is dealt with and ctrl+click on probes afterwards and just make sure none are idling. I will also get used to sending my army around to where the attackers will be. not where they are going So often it is a race with my probes, followed by the hellions, followed by my army. I need to have it so my army intercepts the hellions. Probe Scouting I will see if I can macro up to 4 bases with full army and upgrades while having a probe going in circles in my opponents base. Hopefully I can go 20 minutes without stopping probe movement. Will hopefully get a friend who wants to practice this too so my probe doesnt just die Observer Control I'm going to have a minimum of 4 observers by the mid-game 1 with my army (hotkeyed to 1) 1 in my base (hotkeyed to 8) - this can be defensive or for replacement if my army obs is killed. 1 on the left side of the map (hotkeyeed to 9) 1 on the right side of the map (hotkeyed to 0) I will practice keepign them moving (the same as microing a probe in the oponent sbase in the early game) Warp Pylons I am going to hotkey my warpin pylon to 5 I will play entire games where the only way I cna warp in is if it hit (55w (ssszzz etc.) select all shit+1 11) I will try to do this in tandem with my observer micro Depending on testing, instead of making it 55, i may make it a camera position Camera Control I will try to start using the camera buttons. I already use the base camera well. I will have F1 as my main base. F2 as my natural. F3 as my third. Spacebar will bring me to the closest nexus to that camera position. (esentially giving my 6 camera locations in addition to the two obses i'm supposed to be getting for out in the map). Once I get good enough with 3 camera locations I will try to expand to 5. Upgrades Will put my forges on to my nexus hotkey. This way I can see that the upgrades are continuing (as I am already used to selecting my nexus frequently). Will tab if need to select forge. | ||
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Far.771
United States51 Posts
it's always been simple. just play. i see soooo many people asking for help on forums. about all the hard time they're having playing and they can't get anywhere no matter what they do. and then i look at their profile and they've got like. a grand total of 200 games played. that's nothing!!! and play the way day9 would say would be ideal to play. by this i mean standard for the most part strategies. no gimmicky stuff. just play. the more you play the more you'll experience and learn. first hand experience beats and stream watching or build order reading. to be quite honest. everytime i try to learn a new build. i execute GOD AWFULLY. even though my normal standard run of the mill build i execute awesome all the time without a doubt. it's because i'm not experienced with it. i haven't learned the ins and outs of what i need to worry about with the build. expansion timings. attacking timings. learning things like that through firsthand experience is key to improving. sure. reading forums and talking with friends and exchanging tips and theory crafting everyone once in a while can help develop your game. but it's nothing in comparison to learning through firsthand experience. so guys. just play. you'll learn. play. play more and learn more. no one cares about your record. you shouldn't either. it means nothing other than the amount of games you've lost vs the amount of wins you have. it doesn't tell you who you played. or how you were playing most of those games. tasteless said something on the GSL a LONG time ago that's stuck with me ever since. "In World of Warcraft you level up your ingame character, in Starcraft 2 you level up yourself." truer words have no been spoken! the only person leveling up while you watch a stream is the guy streaming! not you! so go play! hell. even stream! who gives a shit if no one watches! at least you'll be playing! just learn the game. play. experience it. learn from your mistakes. don't take losing too hard. try not to rage. | ||
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quickpost
7 Posts
On October 12 2011 03:58 dementrio wrote: "learning a new skill" does not generalize everything. For example, take learning a new language. It is widely thought that the best method for learning any language is to move to a place where you'd be forced to speak it everyday. Indeed, many think it's the only method to become fluent. In a situation where you don't have a coach, there are no well-defined teaching or training techniques, or simply where it's easy and cheap to mass game, it may very well be that mass gaming is the best method to improve. I don't think this is the case with starcraft, but mass gaming certainly makes you improve, and by a lot. I got from 0 rts experience to the top of masters in ca.5 months by just playing a lot, not even analyzing my replays once. The reason this total immersion is so good is because of how much practice you're getting. You're constantly getting exposed to the language at nearly all waking hours; of COURSE you're going to get better. This is a good analogy to mass gaming, actually. Another thing that makes moving to an area an effective way to learn a language is that language curriculum always differs from what needs to be known to speak a language in real life; obviously, education can't cover every little phrase or expression. Starcraft 2 is not like that, however, and I believe that what the OP is talking about could have pretty huge ramifications for training. On October 12 2011 05:26 Roxy wrote: Thank you for this thread I will definitely start practicing and here are the components I will try to master: Im writing this as a note to myself, but others can feel free to copy Builder Probe To start, I am going to make sure that for every game, by the mid game I have an idle probe laying around hotkeyed to 4. This is going to be my macro probe. I will go to the area of the map i want to build, then I will hit 44b/v etc. This could delay building production by only a couple seconds, but will save me a couple seconds from selecting probe from mineral line, building stuff, shifting back to mineral line. Mineral Split F8 will be for idle probes Build probes will be E and P Will Ctrl-F8 to send probes to mine, then P to build probe. Rest of game will use E as am used to it. Baneling / Hellion Defense Will make S and ; stop workers from doing anything. This way i can select all workers, press ; (to stop them), press ctrl+0 (to set control group) and hold F8 and spam click around my base for a quick probe spread. 0 will select all so i can send them back. Will test out how long it takes me to ctrl+0. It may be better to just take the extra time after threat is dealt with and ctrl+click on probes afterwards and just make sure none are idling. I will also get used to sending my army around to where the attackers will be. not where they are going So often it is a race with my probes, followed by the hellions, followed by my army. I need to have it so my army intercepts the hellions. Probe Scouting I will see if I can macro up to 4 bases with full army and upgrades while having a probe going in circles in my opponents base. Hopefully I can go 20 minutes without stopping probe movement. Will hopefully get a friend who wants to practice this too so my probe doesnt just die Observer Control I'm going to have a minimum of 4 observers by the mid-game 1 with my army (hotkeyed to 1) 1 in my base (hotkeyed to 8) - this can be defensive or for replacement if my army obs is killed. 1 on the left side of the map (hotkeyeed to 9) 1 on the right side of the map (hotkeyed to 0) I will practice keepign them moving (the same as microing a probe in the oponent sbase in the early game) Warp Pylons I am going to hotkey my warpin pylon to 5 I will play entire games where the only way I cna warp in is if it hit (55w (ssszzz etc.) select all shit+1 11) I will try to do this in tandem with my observer micro Depending on testing, instead of making it 55, i may make it a camera position Camera Control I will try to start using the camera buttons. I already use the base camera well. I will have F1 as my main base. F2 as my natural. F3 as my third. Spacebar will bring me to the closest nexus to that camera position. (esentially giving my 6 camera locations in addition to the two obses i'm supposed to be getting for out in the map). Once I get good enough with 3 camera locations I will try to expand to 5. Upgrades Will put my forges on to my nexus hotkey. This way I can see that the upgrades are continuing (as I am already used to selecting my nexus frequently). Will tab if need to select forge. I don't think you have the idea quite right, at least as I understand it. To me, this is you mapping out your hotkey and control group setup much more than it is mechanics. For example, here is how I would apply the OP's ideas as a zerg: -Play a game vs an AI (difficulty doesn't really matter) and focus solely on macroing well - hitting every inject, spreading creep tumors like crazy, having good expansion timing, taking gases on time, etc. The lower the AI the better as its purpose is really just to let you start a game and have a little realism; the point of this exercise is just to practice macro without having to react to your opponent much (for example, you don't have to worry about drops or the opponent pushing out). -Play a ling/bling custom game to work on the pure micro aspect (which is a combination of quickly deciding what each unit needs to do and then physically executing it which takes good mouse accuracy). Alternatively, play a real game with a friend but just agree to both go ling/bling and have a constant war (if you want to practice hitting injects while microing ling/bling). -Assuming your SC2 mouse sensitivity is equal to your windows sensitivity, playing a game like reflex TE might be beneficial for mouse control. Naturally, given the relatively small size of the Starcraft 2 community in relation to other widely known sports, there's no way to conduct studies on how effective exercises like these are - we're essentially forced to pulling analogies from other activities (like piano) and essentially "theorycrafting" the ideal training regimen. Finally, one point to everyone saying this isn't fun or you should just mass games to get better: getting better can be fun and highly rewarding, but regardless of whether it is or isn't, this thread is about achieving the best results in the smallest amount of time - in other words, efficient practice. Also, I don't really agree with playing on slower settings unless you're very new to the game because Starcraft 2 doesn't have huge combinations of actions you have to memorize - you just have to be fast at each individual action and also fast at scheduling when to perform each. In other words, you're not memorizing a piece like in piano, but you're still trying to get better at hitting each individual note so you can piece together a new song every game. | ||
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seaofsaturn
United States489 Posts
The only thing I would like to clarify is that playing a game of Starcraft is not exactly like learning a piece of music. It's more like learning the music theory and then using that theory for improvisation. I'll draw the analogy by using jazz because it is a good example of organized improvisation (which is what I believe Starcraft to mainly consist of). The "metagame" of jazz is pretty stable by now. There is a large collection of Standards that most musicians know that have been around for many years and if you go to a jazz club you can expect to hear them. These chord progressions are the "build orders". They have evolved much in the same way Brood War has evolved, they are now pretty stable with very occasional small innovations. These are the things you just memorize and recognize. Over top of the build orders you have the micro (can be improved by scales and exercise) and, more importantly we have the decision making. This is affected by game knowledge, knowledge of your opponent, "star sense", and intuition. I think decision making in musical improvisation is most affected by your knowledge of music theory. This transcends the actual scales and arpeggios and exercises (which would be considered micro). The theory explains why something sounds harmonious or why something sounds dissonant and what balances these two aspects down to the detail of every note and every frequency vibrating within that note. Now there are some people that just "get it" and don't really need it explained because they have an amazing sense of hearing or are just geniuses(super rare obviously). Then there are the people who can get "stuck in diamond" even with practice and study. But like anything, with years of practice and study these ideas eventually become natural to you. The thing is, these ideas are not explicitly fleshed out on the Starcraft side of this metaphor. What starcraft lacks is this indepth theory. The top players are the few people who can catch on quickly and are able to trust their intuition in a game where you don't have time to analyze what scale you need to play over an Em7add9 in a particular progression. What the hell is an Em7add9 you say? Starcraft has no metaphorical equivalent because it's just too young and probably will never be stable long enough to have an explanation for something that exact. The equivalent would be something like you are base racing and have 550 minerals left, where do you build your nexus and position the remainder of your army on a particular map against your opponent with 3 burrowed infestors. Anyway, disregarding this convoluted metaphor, all I'm trying to say is that if Starcraft ever has a real pedagogy and methodology to learning then all these random situations will have to be taken into account, and in order to do that they all have to be organized and labeled. We are really still in the Dark Ages of starcraft, we haven't found our Bach, we haven't had our Hanon (author of famous piano exercises). | ||
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Rolezn
63 Posts
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Hattori_Hanzo
Singapore1229 Posts
Cheese breaks down the dynamic and chaotic battlefield into a science, build x unit, move out at y minutes, execute Z set of maneuvers upon engagement. This allows a beginner specific benchmarks to improve upon. needless to say then THE CHOICE of cheese becomes critical. Obviously Protoss cannon rushing is less technically demanding than a 100 supply BO for a two base 5 colossi/stalker/zealot deathball. | ||
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SoKHo
Korea (South)1081 Posts
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Vari
United States532 Posts
On October 12 2011 06:55 Far.771 wrote: i don't understand why people go through all this long drawn out speculation and debate among each other what the best way to learn is. it's always been simple. just play. i see soooo many people asking for help on forums. about all the hard time they're having playing and they can't get anywhere no matter what they do. and then i look at their profile and they've got like. a grand total of 200 games played. that's nothing!!! and play the way day9 would say would be ideal to play. by this i mean standard for the most part strategies. no gimmicky stuff. just play. the more you play the more you'll experience and learn. first hand experience beats and stream watching or build order reading. to be quite honest. everytime i try to learn a new build. i execute GOD AWFULLY. even though my normal standard run of the mill build i execute awesome all the time without a doubt. it's because i'm not experienced with it. i haven't learned the ins and outs of what i need to worry about with the build. expansion timings. attacking timings. learning things like that through firsthand experience is key to improving. sure. reading forums and talking with friends and exchanging tips and theory crafting everyone once in a while can help develop your game. but it's nothing in comparison to learning through firsthand experience. so guys. just play. you'll learn. play. play more and learn more. no one cares about your record. you shouldn't either. it means nothing other than the amount of games you've lost vs the amount of wins you have. it doesn't tell you who you played. or how you were playing most of those games. tasteless said something on the GSL a LONG time ago that's stuck with me ever since. "In World of Warcraft you level up your ingame character, in Starcraft 2 you level up yourself." truer words have no been spoken! the only person leveling up while you watch a stream is the guy streaming! not you! so go play! hell. even stream! who gives a shit if no one watches! at least you'll be playing! just learn the game. play. experience it. learn from your mistakes. don't take losing too hard. try not to rage. big huge agree, you've got it all right. | ||
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Zax19
Czech Republic1136 Posts
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NeWeNiyaLord
Norway2474 Posts
After I started to code android apps i've gotten alot better on guitar. Why? Because that's when I learned how to learn. Weird fact, but true. The first 2 weeks on my trainee time was all about breaking one big problem into many smaller problems. This has helped me very much in both life,work and gaming. I was very surprised seeing this thread just about 2 minutes after he reminded me of the fact, when I was having a big issue with my code. (Which really wasnt that big at all!) Actually, I'm kinda freaked out of this thread. So weird that it popped up minutes after the Wizard (i'm the wizards apprentice in his eyes...) told me the excact same advice. Thx for actually taking the time to write all this down. + Show Spoiler + This should be spotlighted and stickied for future reference! Well done! | ||
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Hapahauli
United States9305 Posts
On October 12 2011 03:58 dementrio wrote: "learning a new skill" does not generalize everything. For example, take learning a new language. It is widely thought that the best method for learning any language is to move to a place where you'd be forced to speak it everyday. Indeed, many think it's the only method to become fluent. In a situation where you don't have a coach, there are no well-defined teaching or training techniques, or simply where it's easy and cheap to mass game, it may very well be that mass gaming is the best method to improve. I don't think this is the case with starcraft, but mass gaming certainly makes you improve, and by a lot. I got from 0 rts experience to the top of masters in ca.5 months by just playing a lot, not even analyzing my replays once. The language-learning comparison is very interesting, and thank-you for bringing it up. That being said, I believe you're confusing learning fluency and learning basics. Suppose one wanted to learn how to speak French, having no prior experience or knowledge about the language. The quickest way to learn the language certainly wouldn't be to fly out to Paris - without any knowledge of the fundamentals of French grammar, you would undoubtedly be completely lost in the learning process. Only after learning grammar and a decent amount of vocabulary would living in France help; you wouldn't be learning the basics of French, you would be learning fluency. The same goes for Starcraft; it is important to learn basic mechanics in a controlled environment first and foremost. Only then can we train fluency through mass-gaming. Therefore, I still believe my analogy holds. On October 12 2011 04:34 Tenks wrote: Not sure if I agree with the assertions in this post. Mass gaming is advertised as good practice because SC2 is not like music. You need to learn timings, build orders, scouting, reactions, macro and any number of other mechanics. I'll put it like this. IdrA is someone who practiced like a musician. When there is no variance he can do what he practiced as well as anyone on the planet. However, SC2 isn't music. It isn't predictable. You can't practice for all the variables. A wrench gets thrown into his plan and he suddenly cannot improv past his mistakes. That is the fundamental difference. I'd say, if anything, playing SC2 is more like completely improvising a song on the guitar knowing only the basic key signature and timing you'll be using. I actually address this concern in my OP: "The goal of slow mechanical mastery isn't simply to be able to execute your mechanics. You want to be able to execute them without even thinking. If your macro-cycles (larvae injects, SCV building, warp-ins, etc.) are second nature to you, you'll be able to devote more of your concentration to that hellion-drop or DT harass instead of thinking about your macro. I don't think the IdrA comparison is valid. The cause of his problems aren't his training methods, after all, since he is Korean trained, wouldn't every Korean also have the same problems? Rather, his problems are his strategic predictability and mental state. On October 12 2011 15:09 Hattori_Hanzo wrote: This thread is specifically why I am a firm advocate of learn through cheese style of learning. Cheese breaks down the dynamic and chaotic battlefield into a science, build x unit, move out at y minutes, execute Z set of maneuvers upon engagement. This allows a beginner specific benchmarks to improve upon. needless to say then THE CHOICE of cheese becomes critical. Obviously Protoss cannon rushing is less technically demanding than a 100 supply BO for a two base 5 colossi/stalker/zealot deathball. This is a really interesting view, and I agree with you that the first builds one should learn should be conceptually simple. I would extend your idea from "cheese" more toward "timing push" builds though. | ||
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Houkka
Finland51 Posts
In SC2, handling your basic mechanics (minimap, supply, unit production, droning, injects, unit control etc.) are all things that improve very fast once you start practicing them explicitly. And they're all things that will get your playing to a very high level once you got really good at them. When it comes to drumming, your hand and foot technique are the absolute first things you'll want to practice. Playing anything at all on the drums is extremely hard without basic technique. Once you start practicing it, however, your overall drumming improves rapidly. Do a single stroke roll (32nd notes on alternating hands) at a steadily increasing tempo for half an hour every day for a few weeks, just concentrating on doing each stroke with correct technique, and suddenly you will be able to play with a hugely increased precision, speed and confidence. Without getting tired. Now this drums/sc2 analogy kinda falls apart once you start thinking about shit like polyrhythms and strategies, because essentially, complicated drumming is a direct continuation of simple drumming. Generally, you just pick a couple of simple figures and assign each to a different limb and voilà, got yourself a complicated figure (sounds easier than it is, really). So what I'm saying is in drumming, you can play pretty much anything by just practicing two things: your basic technique and your coordination/motorics/4-limb independence (the ability to play different rhythms with different limbs) or whatever you want to call it. If you want to play faster than everyone else? Just practice your technique, increase the tempo and eventually you'll get there (again, sounds easy, but isn't.) In SC2, what you do after you start nailing your mechanics is you start to use strategy. That's not something you'll ever need to do with drums. You never have to figure out how to keep your guitarist from playing a solo the way you want to keep your opponent from expanding. Also, I was extremely excited when Day[9] did the last newbie tuesday (#360) on "drills", because that's the way I've been practicing drumming for years, but there really hasn't been much talk of any good ways to do that in SC2. Everyone's always talking about getting better mechanics and macro, but there's no agreement on what's a good way to do that. A lot of people suggest just mass gaming, which doesn't seem like a bad idea; if you want to learn how to play the game, play the game, right? But I don't think it works very well if you don't know what you want to practice. Just massing games is a horrible way to learn, but massing games with a clear focus on what you want to improve seems like a great idea to me. But doing these "drills" seems to me like pretty much the best way to familiarize yourself with the mechanics. You're completely isolating the thing you want to improve and just doing that. This kind of practice is absolutely perfect for shoving that shit in your muscle memory. You want to be good enough at the basics so you never have to actively think about it, so you can think about all the other stuff that's going on in the game. Isolating the mechanics and just mindlessly drilling them out works for every single musical instrument out there, I guarantee. So I'm thinking it'll probably work for SC2 as well. And as a disclaimer, I might add that once you can use your mechanics in an isolated environment like single player without an AI forever, perfectly, you'll still screw it up in ladder, because your opponent will disrupt your routine. But you'll still do it better than before. I didn't intend to write a walloftext like this, but I did, so here it is. TL;DR, mindless drilling of basic mechanics works for any musical instrument (to a different extent, depending on the instrument). I bet it works great in SC2 as well. Once your mechanics work in an isolated environment, you can practice them in the ladder as well, because... well, as long as you're using your mechanics, you're practicing them! How great is that?! P.S. If you haven't, watch Day[9] Daily #360. I'm really excited about this one. It's like rudiments for SC2! | ||
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Vod.kaholic
United States1052 Posts
From my experience, becoming a good ballroom dancer has to do with equal parts dancing to music in an environment emulating actual competition (large floor, other couples, music playing, people walking on the floor in rounds), and equal parts drilling you technique alone or with your partner. I think the analogies to practice in SC2 are pretty damn near parallel. The biggest difference I think is that while competitive ballroom is...competitive, it doesn't determine winners the same way sports or martial arts do. It's about results, but the results are determined by judges who are essentially scrutinizing more than just technique: they're looking at aesthetics, musicality, footwork, floorcraft, AND technique. First of all, you can't get good by just dancing to music non-stop because you will reinforce bad habits that you do unconsciously that will make your dancing look sloppy. As in, sure you can put your foot down on the right counts and the right timing, but the way you're getting there won't make you look good at all, and will probably not build a foundation that allows you do perform other patterns or figures. This would be analogous to a person who mass games without spending time on breaking down the fundamentals of play. You also will never get good by just drilling technique to your own count (without music) because everything you do will be slow and clunky when you first try to speed it up. If you never actually dance your technique and only do things slowly, you won't be able to show good movement and you'll look timid. I know I'm pretty guilty of this in my dancing because I like the feeling of mastering a certain movement or part of my body by repeating the action until it becomes second nature. However, if it can't stand the test of being done to music, it needs to be reassessed and approached differently. This would be equivalent to a guy who only plays against AI or only practices macro in non-realistic gameplay scenarios. When he faces his first opponent on ladder he will be thrown off by anything the other guy does and lose when his action loop is disrupted enough. I think it's easier in SC2 to say that macro is at the root of everything and should be practiced day in and day out. However, from the dancing analogy, it doesn't make sense to only focus on one aspect of your dancing at a time. Like one of my coaches told me recently, you can become too "technical" and careful, and then you forget how to move. The point where I think the analogy breaks down is on the point that macro will always keep taking you higher, while in dancing, always working on the analogous aspects (which I would consider to be footwork and posture) won't take you anywhere without other stuff. Until you've learned more about HOW to apply your footwork, or when you reach a level where extra crisp footwork will make a difference, just constantly practicing footwork won't get you anything compared to practicing your body positions or the timing of certain figures. So really, I think SC2 players, just like ballroom dancers, need to spend time each day working on macro and refining/drilling their builds, and the rest of the time towards putting all their training to use in actual games. My view is that no aspect of gaming or dancing can realistically stand on its own, and that the road to improvement should be taken with a holistic approach. | ||
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gruff
Sweden2276 Posts
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y0su
Finland7871 Posts
On October 14 2011 18:29 gruff wrote: Since some people can't see the parallell to music practise why not just compare it to regular sports like hockey or football where people can't claim it doesn't have an element of unpredictability? Playing games is only a small part of getting better in sports. This would be the same in sc2 when it comes to finding optimal training methods. Exactly, running plays in football at 1/2 speed helps develop vision and decision making (teaching your brain how to read a situation and react). People don't always seem to realize that "muscle memory" doesn't actually have to do with muscles themselves (IE it doesn't matter that you're not using the same amount of muscles or using them in the same way in a video game as in a real sport). It's about the brain learning to patterns of actions. A new player will get overwhelmed by action going on in two+ locations at full speed. If they slow the speed down at first so they have time to actually learn how to react they will then be able to do it better at full speed - and to give QXC some credit, if they continue to be able to do it well at an even faster speed it will make it easier when returning to normal speed (but only after they're very proficient). I think this thread goes very well with the issue of players being told to just "learn to 3 base macro".... Sure the goal should be to be able to play efficiently with 3+ bases, but you have to start small. Learn a 1 base simple build - possibly perfected at a lower speed. Then do it at full speed. Then do it at lower speed with stress (another player harassing/countering). Then at full speed. Then focus on 2 base play at slower speed > full speed > low speed with "stress" > full speed full stress etc | ||
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-Xios
England79 Posts
Since i started playing I sort of have done that in my own way, got hold of Yabot and similar things and researched into build orders, gameplay mechanics and spent a lot of time focusing on how pro's play and trying to, well, 'get better'. But I haven't ever given it a truly structured and focused attention, or at least I've never looked at it that way, i just saw it as me trying to improve a game i enjoy playing because every game i lose I wanted to win, so improving is a no brainer, to me that would always involve actually breaking down how the game works as a system and trying to master each little aspect of it, isn't that how one gets better at any game? Anyway, I'm rambling now. What I'm saying is I completely agree with the method you've portrayed. To me its the most obvious way of actually improving at something. I'm learning music theory at the moment. I'm teaching myself after a good few years of attempting to make computer music and discovering I need to understand actual music theory as well. I'm doing that by following a few books that methodically take you through the learning process step by step and I'm learning at an incredible pace, soo much quicker than I ever learned by simply messing about with a keyboard. I mean if you look at it 'learning' anything follows the same pattern, look at how curriculum is built in education, methodical, repetitive, broken down practice of concepts that are then bought together and built upon in increasingly complex and more difficult contexts. This thread has inspired me to really focus down on improving. Nice one  | ||
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Crusnik
United States5378 Posts
Personally though, and I know this is does follow conventional wisdom, but I do prefer looking at my replays and just seeing what I did wrong, even when I win. I feel like that gives me specific areas to work on in games, both on the ladder (currently re-teaching myself through bombed placements and working back up the rankings) and against teammates/friends in custom made games. | ||
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