OP's Note: While I make specific references and criticisms of certain TL posts, it is not my intention to be insulting or "call someone out." I simply want to start a discussion on practice methods in Starcraft.
I: Introduction
Recently, qxc posted a blog on Starcraft Training DBZ Style, which was spotlighted on the TL front page. For those of you who haven't read it, qxc theorizes about a form of speed-training - increasing the speed of the game in a UMS map to improve one's game.
As someone who has an extensive background in piano and music education, I'm very surprised to see a professional player take this attitude towards practicing Starcraft (my original response), and I wanted to start a discussion on practice myths and methods in Starcraft. I've always considered the learning process on musical instruments and a computer keyboard to be fundamentally similar, yet conventional community "wisdom" goes against this.
This post attempts to highlight this learning process with analogies to music education. Keep in mind that one could create an analogy with many other activities and sports.
II: Practice in Music
By understanding how a musician approaches a new piece, we can better understand how we can learn to approach learning Starcraft mechanics. For example, when a professional musician approaches a new piece of music, these are the steps usually taken:
1) Break up the piece into smaller, simpler sections. 2) Practice each section slowly with an emphasis on proper technique and efficiency. 3) Put all the smaller sections together at a slow tempo. 4) Gradually bring the piece up to proper speed. 5) Polish the finished product.
There is a clear emphasis on breaking up the learning process into smaller fragments and prioritizing slow, mechanical mastery. You will never see a competent musician start learning a piece by beginning to play it at full speed.
This practice philosophy is not exclusive to music. Many other activities, such as sports, emphasize these same traits in practice. Does a basketball player learn how to shoot a three-pointer in the middle of a heated game? Of course not! He learned how to hit that buzzer beater by spending thousands of hours shooting in practice. These practice methods are universal in every sport... except for Starcraft!
For some reason, the popular attitudes toward practicing and improving in Starcraft are nothing like other sports and activities. These attitudes are revealed below.
III: Practice Myths in Starcraft
A quick TL search for a typical "help me improve" post reveals much about the conventional wisdom of Starcraft practice.
If macro is what you want to focus on, you want to focus on playing more games.
This is the most common advice I see, and is also the most shocking. A lot of TL'ers think that by playing more games, you will eventually get better at the game. While there is some truth to it, I argue that this is a very inefficient way of learning.
Telling one of my beginner piano students to practice a piece by playing it at full speed multiple times would be horrible advice. They would barely be able to coordinate themselves properly, and if by some miracle they learn the piece, they would undoubtedly play it sloppily.
This "trial by fire" method would be considered insane in all other fields, yet it is exactly the advice I see being given to Starcraft players.
Something that helps me a lot with my macro is just to go 1v1 against the AI
This suggests that we should play games against an unrealistic opponent. A computer AI behaves nothing like a human, so what is the sense in playing against something you will never see?
LaLuSh's response makes an important distinction between using an AI to start a game and playing an AI to beat it. I am against the latter, not the former.
Play against the computer to concentrate on macro and injects.
Now we're getting somewhere. The idea of targeted practice is supported by authorities such as Day[9]. While this advice is a step in the right direction, I believe it doesn't go far enough.
IV: Practice Propositions
My ideal practice method would draw as many influences from music education as possible. As such, it is based around three components: dividing an activity into sub-sections, slow mechanical mastery of each sub-section, and mastery through real situations. As an example, what if we approached a new build-order in the same way that musicians approached new music?
1) Break down the build into "phases." For example, a beginning (up until you establish your main production structures), a middle (macroing out of your base production structures), and an end (your late-game plan and tech tree). 2) Establish your "macro cycles" for each phase. Hash out exactly what buttons you will be pressing in your typical macro cycle for each phase. 3) Practice this slowly until you are comfortable with the mechanics. 4) Polish against real human opponents (i.e. mass-gaming).
Note that mass-gaming has a part in the practice process, but only after one devotes some time to slow, mechanical mastery.
In addition to learning new builds, these same ideas can also be applied to maintaining and improving macro mechanics.
Iust like a musician practices scales, and a basketball player practices dribbling, why not devote a bit of your time to practicing macro mechanics as a Starcraft player? For example, a Zerg player could devote some time at the beginning of every session to practice their larvae-inject mechanics.
Stop right here! As bmn points out, the differences are irrelevant. Learning Starcraft and music are fundamentally the same because they involve learning a new skill. This learning process is common and well-established in many other fields (sports, music, etc.), but for some reason, hasn't carried over to Starcraft.
If you need extra convincing, I encourage you to read Ghol's post, which provides an excellent Muay Thai analogy.
What's the point of practicing in this manner when it all goes to hell when you get hellion dropped?!?
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.
But Koreans mass game!
There's an important distinction between mass gaming and Korean targeted mass gaming. A core of the Korean practice model is isolating strategic and mechanical situations in-game. Koreans don't play games for the hell of playing them; every game is directed at improving a facet of one's game.
I'm simply proposing the logical extension of the Korean model into mechanical practice.
Starcraft is just a game!
I'd like to remind you that you are posting on a community website dedicated to competitive Starcraft. Most TL'ers take a lot of joy in improving and winning games. If that's not for you, I suggest you look at this alternative game. You'll love it. I promise.
VI: Questions and Discussion
So TeamLiquid, how do you practice Starcraft? I'd be especially interested in hearing the opinions of some high ranked/professional players.
Do you think there is any "practice wisdom" to be gained from music education?
Great post. I find a similarity in both music or Starcraft: when playing it should be treated as art, rather than SC2 people trying so hard to be competitive on ladder when you'll end up with 50% winrate anyways. This kind of mindset in a game helps a lot.
This kind of refined and methodical practicing plan sounds definitely better in many cases, as you are breaking your gameplay down and focusing on what you know you need to practice. And once you've done this, just like said: you will need to ladder to see if your gameplay works in realistic situations and ones you haven't prepared for in your previous practice.
As music practice methods have been developed for thousands of years, it really seems a very solid regime and I find it safe to say that bringing this over to Starcraft 2 is an amazing idea.
Fully agree. This sort of approach is what I used to make the jump from being a 20 apm BW noob to a D level player that could macro decently in about a week.
If you break things up its much easier to focus on, as well as perfect, that aspect. Then from their you can integrate it into the whole and move on to the next item.
Bravo, awesome post. Couldn't agree more. I don't have much time for games so I barely even play now. When I used to play and decided to improve by focusing on the specific idea of making more workers and units as well as scouting more, I jumped 2 leagues and felt that my game improved a lot to the point where I was pretty confident of all my matchups
Play against the computer to concentrate on macro and injects.
Now we're getting somewhere. The idea of focused practice has been mentioned by authorities such as Day[9], and I believe this a step in the right direction. However, I think this doesn't go far enough.
A way that worked for me to fix my sloppy early-game macro was very simple: Establish a benchmark on what you want to achieve, e.g. by watching a very strong player do a similar opening, and then repeatedly play the early game up to that point and measure how well you're doing.
In my case, it was playing up to ~5:30 minutes. I had far fewer drones than I should've had. I play Zerg. To work on that specifically, what I did was:
1) Find a replay from a strong macro player who did a standard macro opening without facing any early pressure (no 2rax/2gate). 2) Count how many drones he had at ~6:00. 3) Play a game -- not a ladder game, either vs AI or a custom -- where I know I won't be attacked for 6 minutes. Focus on good macro. 4) Stop the game after ~6 minutes, count drones. If my number is significantly lower than the baseline, watch replay. 5) Repeat step 4 until I can reliably meet the desired goal.
This is an example of practicing a very specific part of the game in isolation. Early-game macro was a source of many of my losses, so that's what I did to improve it. Within 1-2 hours, I had done more to improve my early-game macro than months of playing did. It's surprising how effective it is if you have a *specific* and *measurable* goal, and you focus on just that and nothing else for a while.
It's harder to do the same for other things -- tech decisions, late-game multitasking -- because the early game is the only part that is trivial to repeat in isolation under the same conditions. Perhaps the same can work with the unit tester map to focus on unit control. I don't know what the best way to apply it to mid/late-game problems would be, but I never tried.
Just my 2 cents, i could be completely off base here.
Well I agree the focusing on areas is important, and that doing it slowly then bringing it all together can provide some surprising results.
But I think you're making the mistake in comparing Starcraft 2 to learning Piano. What is starcraft 2 to the vast majority of people (>99%)? It's a game. A fun game - yes. The funnest - says Artosis. But still a game.
Whereas Piano is not just a game, it's a life-skill essentially. The ability to play an instrument is a wonderful thing, and there are a ton of studies that show that it helps kids perform better in school, etc. But when practice Piano, you know you're doing something that takes a long time to master, and that is your general goal (I'd assume, or at least general competancy).
But when most people go play SC2, they just want to steal nerd's ladder points. They want to cannon rush or macro, or marine micro or baneling bust. Then don't want to become a pro. Maybe they want to get to the next league up, whatever.
Maybe i'm wrong idk. I know that when I go on to play SC2, I just want to win and have fun, and i'm not always sure the order of those But I know that I'll never take a day to hash out one build and practice it over and over like a pro does. Obviously there are exceptions, but I think for most people, SC2 isn't smoething they want to turn into different drills or exercises and practice the different peices individually. They want to play.
I think this is where the advice "play more games" comes from. You can obviously tell people to do it your way, which is most likey a much more efficient and effective way to do it. But most people just want to play. So the practice their injects - while playing. Or they practice their marine micro - while playing. It's what we do.
If people could "just play" piano, you'd probably see the same thing occur, why practice specific parts over and over and over if you can just learn gradually while having fun most of the time? Of course, people can't just "play piano", put me in front of a piano and I'd probably make noise that sounds like a dying cow trying to faceroll a piano. But you can "just play" starcraft to a certain degree. And while pros/dedicated/motivated people wll of course always practice methodically, I think for the most part they just want to play more games
Also, more generally, all of this is well-known stuff that has been researched. Not specifically in the context of SC2, but there's absolutely no reason to think that the standard approach to training skills would not apply here. (Yeah, the specific things such as /what/ to practice will differ, but /how/ to practice them will be similar in many domains.)
Your post is very valid and I agree with almost everything you said but there's also some truth to what qxc says...
For example, I feel that Starcraft also has an emphasis on quick thinking and reaction time that music may not and in that regard playing faster games might help you by forcing you to constantly stay on your feet and keep yourself attentive.
To be honest I don't think either of you are wrong lol.
@ galtdunn - I believe the comparison is valid, no matter what the difference in "magnitudes" may be. My post doesn't try to make an exact comparison between Piano and Starcraft, rather, I suggest that we can learn something about practicing Starcraft from practicing Piano.
You make a good point that the advice of "play more games" is derived from playing Starcraft for pure enjoyment. However, many people derive enjoyment from improving at Starcraft, and I believe my advice caters well to this.
@shishy - My initial response to qxc's blog discusses more on that subject. I believe qxc's method is valid for certain, specific goals, such as wanting one's hands to move faster. However, I believe this training method does nothing for improving one's mechanical game. After all, I can have blazingly fast hands, and yet still be horrible at macro.
On October 08 2011 06:37 Hapahauli wrote: @ galtdunn - I believe the comparison is valid, no matter what the difference in "magnitudes" may be. My post doesn't try to make an exact comparison between Piano and Starcraft, rather, I suggest that we can learn something about practicing Starcraft from practicing Piano.
You make a good point that the advice of "play more games" is derived from playing Starcraft for pure enjoyment. However, many people derive enjoyment from improving at Starcraft, and I believe my advice caters well to this.
@shishy - My initial response to qxc's blog discusses more on that subject. I believe qxc's method is valid for certain, specific goals, such as wanting one's hands to move faster. However, I believe this training method does nothing for improving one's mechanical game. After all, I can have blazingly fast hands, and yet still be horrible at macro.
Yeah I agree with you, I guess I was just pointing out that a lot of people just won't want to put that much work in In a longwinded manner I suppose. Great write-up and interesting comparison, not the first I've seen of people comparing SC2 and piano though, must be some truth there!
While I agree with most of what you're saying, there are certainly phases in development where just "playing games" might indeed be the most beneficial method of improving one's game. One key difference between music and games is that games are an "open" environment, where adapting strategies and thinking on one's feet are part of succeeding. At the same time, there are skills embedded in the game that considered "closed skills" which benefit greatly from incremental repetition. A real challenge then lies in balancing open and closed elements within training.
In sports training, there is a tendency to put higher volumes of closed training (simple drills, physical training, basic technique work) in the preseason and early season. Then as the season progresses, the transition is towards playing out certain game situations, doing scrimmages, intra-club competitions, etc.
First off this is from my phone so please forgive any mistakes.
A slow methodical approach to learning or improving Starcraft seems very practical. A common element that Day9 mentions and is commonly referenced in psychology, is that you can hold ~7 items in your short term memory at any given time. This makes nearly several new things at once extremely difficult. Remembering to micro, macro, inject, an expand is hard to do if you're new to it.
Building habits slowly over time is more than likely not the most fun thing. Starcraft is a game but to improve with efficiency requires dedication.
If you don't enjoy playing the game in the first place, why would you continue playing it? Even if that leads to your enjoyment of getting better, there are plenty of other games to get better at. Pick one that you fundamentally enjoy before you worry about improving.
As far as the topic in the OP, I find it similar to playing music, but it is also very different.
Rarely do I have issues in music of not being able to move fast enough to hit the notes that I want to hit. Music is about performing things at the correct tempo, not performing them as fast as humanly possibly.
This is the major difference between StarCraft and music. In StarCraft, if you can do it faster, that is better. Always, with no exceptions.
There are always more notes to be hit, always more keys to press.
This is not the same in music. For comparison of that medium, it would be that you have this endless string of smaller and faster notes to hit, but most of them are optional.
I guess it kind of has to due with the difference in performance of the two. Music is performed for an audience to listen to your perfection of a previously existing song. Starcraft is performed to beat the pulp out of your opponent.
On October 08 2011 06:47 zylog wrote: While I agree with most of what you're saying, there are certainly phases in development where just "playing games" might indeed be the most beneficial method of improving one's game. One key difference between music and games is that games are an "open" environment, where adapting strategies and thinking on one's feet are part of succeeding. At the same time, there are skills embedded in the game that considered "closed skills" which benefit greatly from incremental repetition. A real challenge then lies in balancing open and closed elements within training.
In sports training, there is a tendency to put higher volumes of closed training (simple drills, physical training, basic technique work) in the preseason and early season. Then as the season progresses, the transition is towards playing out certain game situations, doing scrimmages, intra-club competitions, etc.
I agree with you completely - there are certainly times where mass gaming is good for practice, just as it is good for a musician to play through his or her pieces in their entirety.
However, that's usually in the last step of the practicing process. After we have solidified our mechanics and foundations, mass gaming is great. Unfortunately, conventional advice suggests that we should hone our mechanical skill through mass gaming instead of simple practice. My objections are against this conventional wisdom.
Very interesting post. I didn't know you could draw such a parallel between SC2 and playing a musical instrument, having had no experience playing a instrument. I guess that logically it makes sense.
I had the same feeling, while playing practice games just to nail my macro it felt like I was having some substantial improvements compared to playing ladder. You gave me some interesting ideas for a practice regime now.
@Jermstuddog - You make interesting points, however, I believe most of the differences you list are in fact similarities!
On October 08 2011 06:50 Jermstuddog wrote: Rarely do I have issues in music of not being able to move fast enough to hit the notes that I want to hit. Music is about performing things at the correct tempo, not performing them as fast as humanly possibly.
This is the major difference between StarCraft and music. In StarCraft, if you can do it faster, that is better. Always, with no exceptions.
This is true, however, it doesn't change the validity of a practice method. If I want to learn an incredibly fast musical work, I'll approach it by the practice methods that I listed. The same method can hold true for practicing Starcraft, only that you have the luxury of setting the "speed" bar as high as you'd like.
This is not the same in music. For comparison of that medium, it would be that you have this endless string of smaller and faster notes to hit, but most of them are optional.
I'm not suggesting that we should script every mechanic that we play during a game - that's impossible. However, we can practice macro mechanics that constantly repeat themselves throughout a game. For those, we can draw upon music education.
guess it kind of has to due with the difference in performance of the two. Music is performed for an audience to listen to your perfection of a previously existing song. Starcraft is performed to beat the pulp out of your opponent.
I'd actually suggest that the two are fundamentally the same. Some of us play Starcraft in front of an audience, whether or not our audience is at an MLG live event or the viewers of a replay that we post. In addition, can we not admire the "art" of starcraft, and the beauty of a perfect game?
I think there's a way of practice that includes both qxc's and your approach, and is superior to both at the same time.
Here's what I mean. StarCraft is a strategy game, so ideally you'd want all your losses to come from simply being outsmarted strategically. You don't want to be superior to your opponent but him winning just because you couldn't execute the plan. So obviously to make sure that doesn't happen, your mechanics should be solid as steel.
-> Our goal, steel solid mechanics. We get there by making sure our mechanics hold even in the heavier-than-normal circumstances. That's the part QXC is accentuating. Ultra-fast speed surely is heavier-than-normal, so that's covered.
However, it's wrong to start at high speeds without making sure the technique is right.
If you draw parallels with real sports, the gym work athletes do regularly could be compared to mechanics practice in StarCraft.
You want to know the tactics of the sport, but when it comes to making it happen, you need to make sure you're able to complete the run/jump well/hit the ball powerfully.
So, you're in the gym now. Your goal is to get stronger. It would be foolish to lift your maximum weight right away if you wish to progress. You start by making sure your technique is spot on, and from there you increase resistance, making sure that the weakest link in your body is strenghtened, and then the next weakest link and then the next. You polish your quirks while increasing resistance.
So in the end, you have good technique, and are lifting huge weights, you are strong! Then you can be a top player, if your strategy and tactics are top level too.
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.
I think partly the difference in opinion between the approach your suggesting and qxc's post is his is intended more for people that already very good, whereas you are talking about an approach that is suitable for beginners.
That's why he draws a metaphor to training done by professional athletes and you talk about teaching a beginner a new piece on piano.
The most helpful form of training for me though has definitely been to focus on specific areas and "drill" them, but then again, I'm a beginner...
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.
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.
@ 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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
On October 08 2011 08:48 Icekommander wrote: 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.
Did you honestly ever check? I don't have any friends in bronze or silver -- or even in plat -- who macro well in the absence of unexpected actions of my opponents.
This is why you must play in real starcraft conditions - you can't get any decent practise beyond your early build versus the AI
But "real starcraft conditions" is not the same as "ladder". To practice, you want a very controlled environment: You want a practice partner who will repeatedly do the same thing over and over again so you can learn how to deal with that. Then you can instruct him to vary certain parameters and learn to deal with those. At some point you'll be comfortable enough to understand the underlying mechanics without thinking too hard on a conscious level, and you'll be able to adapt to changes more easily.
If you just keep playing random (ladder) opponents, that's still "real starcraft conditions", but you never laid the groundwork to make rapid skill progress. *Especially* if your friends are overwhelmed by unexpected decisions -- I don't see how you expect them to improve rapidly by repeatedly overwhelming them if they still have so many other problems in their gameplay at the same time.
And failure to also improve your SC decision making ability, will hold you back from jumping leagues as surely as bad macro will.
I think we've seen enough examples of people who made a point of 3raxing, 4gating, or even building mass stalkers all the way to diamond/masters. Macro isn't all you need, but it is one of the most important single things. I do not believe you that bad decision making is as critical as bad macro to getting out of bronze and silver.
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.
This isn't true at all. Musicians do speed drills all the time with scales and such.
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.
This isn't true at all. Musicians do speed drills all the time with scales and such.
But music only goes so fast. There are never more notes to hit like there are moves to make in a game of Starcraft.
OP speaks truth. Think about it. For most players, the first five minutes (and even the first ten minutes), while perhaps stressful due to fear of cheese, is also the easiest. You know what to do without thinking because every single game you play, you rehearse this aspect. How often do you play thirty minute games?
As with music, you have to practice each section separately, and I don't just mean early game, late game, etc, but resource collection, unit production, army control, etc. That's why UMS customs are perfect for this.
You HAVE to play a ton of games at some point. You CAN pin point specific flaws in your play and tackle them head-on, but you can do so in mass while learning to deal with various opponents. It's obviously more efficient though to say, go into a game against no opponent/no AI to work on mechanics exclusively without the variable of an opponent, first...? There was an article a few months ago that explained how mass games, just like mass practice on an instrument is required to develop extensive muscle memory. Everyone pretty much knows this, but it brought it to light via science.
The reference to practicing music is spot on, though. I've always compared learning SC2 to playing a violin.
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.
This isn't true at all. Musicians do speed drills all the time with scales and such.
But music only goes so fast. There are never more notes to hit like there are moves to make in a game of Starcraft.
There will always be faster or more complicated guitar and piano solos that will required increased hand speed. There's no limit.
As both a high masters terran player and a young musician with eight years of training who is looking to study music at university next year, I agree with everything this post says, and have thought about writing a guide/discussion about this myself for quite some time.
If anyone has ever committed to practising anything, be it music or some other technical art, to a degree of absolute refinement, you will understand that the best way to reach perfection is to practise what you're doing slowly and methodically until it is absolutely flawless, and THEN focus on increasing the speed. This ensures that you are conducting what you are doing with the utmost efficiency when you actually bring it up to the required degree of technicality.
After self-teaching myself the drums for many years, with my only lessons being from a local teacher who was not really top-standard, I took lessons with a graduate from my state's academy of performing arts. When he actually told me to play what I had already learnt slower, he revealed to me so many flaws that I had not corrected because I had rushed to play fast, and skipped on learning a lot of important details.
When I eventually decide to sit down and start refining my Starcraft play in a similiar way, I can absolutely guarantee I will notice the same things.
On October 08 2011 09:10 Tyrant0 wrote: Those aren't myths, they're pretty true.
You HAVE to play a ton of games at some point. You CAN pin point specific flaws in your play and tackle them head-on, but you can do so in mass while learning to deal with various opponents. It's obviously more efficient though to say, go into a game against no opponent/no AI to work on mechanics exclusively without the variable of an opponent, first...? There was an article a few months ago that explained how mass games, just like mass practice on an instrument is required to develop extensive muscle memory.
The reference to practicing music is spot on, though. I've always compared learning SC2 to playing a violin.
Mass practice is required, but that's not "mass games". Practice isn't the same as playing ladder games.
I linked to one such article in my first-page reply.
On October 08 2011 09:10 Tyrant0 wrote: Those aren't myths, they're pretty true.
You HAVE to play a ton of games at some point. You CAN pin point specific flaws in your play and tackle them head-on, but you can do so in mass while learning to deal with various opponents. It's obviously more efficient though to say, go into a game against no opponent/no AI to work on mechanics exclusively without the variable of an opponent, first...? There was an article a few months ago that explained how mass games, just like mass practice on an instrument is required to develop extensive muscle memory.
The reference to practicing music is spot on, though. I've always compared learning SC2 to playing a violin.
Mass practice is required, but that's not "mass games". Practice isn't the same as playing ladder games.
I linked to one such article in my first-page reply.
You have to deal with the random variable, at some point. If you can't execute without being thrown off, you're really only good at playing in a vacuum. You can really focus on various elements of your play in an extremely controlled environment, but it should also come with a lot of ladder games in between.
It's almost comparable to learning the first few parts of a song, then attempting to play them at full speed before moving on.
On October 08 2011 09:16 BarbieHsu wrote: The music practice method might be more effective.
But, definitely, improving your play by "playing more games" is more fun.
If a player wants to become extremely good at something, often they will have to sacrifice fun for a while and turn what they are doing into a technical exercise in order to get better. In the case of people playing SC2 for fun and casual enjoyment, there is no reason to do this. But for progamers, taking an absolute, intense, 'boring' approach to improving technical mechanics will, in future, definitely become the way to go for players who have reached a certain level of skill in their play. If you want to be a top-notch player in the most efficient way possible, it's something you'll have to sacrifice.
At this stage in the development of progaming as a sport and an 'art', many people will choose not to do this because the field is not as competetive as it could be. But in future, this sort of refinement is what will be required of players in order to compete with the best.
I agree with most of your post about breaking a piece into sections etc. But I don't understand bashing someone playing an AI opponent in order to learn how to macro better (that is unless the focus of the game is beating the AI, or somehow involves the AI in other ways).
When I start games with the AI, I just think of it as playing a game alone. The AI is a non factor, it's just there for me to be able to start the game. And in the game I work out builds and various timings. Sort of an étude.
Can't agree with the macro myth thing but i agree with the others. If you play 30-40 games focusing on always making your money below 400,expand timing and never geting supply blocked and doing 200/200 attacks in each game you will get better at your macro lol.
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.
I completely agree. Very well said.
On October 08 2011 08:48 Icekommander wrote: 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.
I think you are focusing on largely irrelevant differences rather than focusing on the key idea. The idea of learning a skill, no matter the difference, is fundamentally the same. The reason I don't address the differences is because they are irrelevant to my suggestions.
Now to your argument:
For one, I highly doubt your Bronze and Silver friends have remotely close to acceptable macro. I, for one, have many flaws in my macro (even without enemy interference), yet I'm a diamond Zerg. I'd even argue that Master and GM players have a lot of work to do in their macro - do you think that most people can build as many units as fast as Bomber in a practice environment?
As for "unplanned events," how can one expect to reply correctly to a crisis situation without being mechanically solid in your build? If you can execute your build in a closed environment without thinking, you'll have more mental energy to focus on strategic decisions and crisis management. After all, if I'm actively trying to remember to place supply depots and build SCVs, how likely do you think I'll be able to notice a drop at the edge of my main?
Lastly, qxc may be a professional player, but can we macro as well as a top Korean? Even qxc has a lot of work to do in his macro, and I think he'd be the first to tell you. As for the effectiveness of "50% increased speed," well what's the point of that? Do you want to learn how to execute your build in an unrealistic environment? Is that even practical? In my opinion, not at all.
On October 08 2011 08:53 Exarl25 wrote:
...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
You're missing the point. So what if there is no "top speed;" that doesn't change the validity of practicing mechanics with a certain method. As a Starcraft player, you get the additional luxury of setting your own top speed.
Have to agree about how a musician would go about learning a new song.... i've made videos for my guitar students that use almost the exact technique you outline in the OP. However, if once i know a piece by heart, i usually practice it at a faster speed than i would perform it.... so in essence i'm doing what QXC is talking about....
I don't know where i fall on this one, for a silver player i would recommend taking it slow and breaking it down to one thing at a time.... for a diamond or higher player i think QXC's regiment might work pretty well
On October 08 2011 09:21 LaLuSh wrote: I agree with most of your post about breaking a piece into sections etc. But I don't understand bashing someone playing an AI opponent in order to learn how to macro better (that is unless the focus of the game is beating the AI, or somehow involves the AI in other ways).
When I start games with the AI, I just think of it as playing a game alone. The AI is a non factor, it's just there for me to be able to start the game. And in the game I work out builds and various timings. Sort of an étude.
I interpreted that post as focused on beating a computer, and I think we both agree that trying to beat a computer is a waste of time.
In your case, you're not really playing an AI. You're essentially playing a single-player map. I have absolutely no objections with that.
I think we may be interpreting that quote differently.
I just love how Sc2 can be compared to music in this way. I did play brood war myself (I was young) and I would say I began to take Sc2 a bit more seriously and I wanted to do well after I settled with the Zerg race.
I find it very difficult to improve by just playing over and over. With over 6000 games played myself since day 1 I am still luring around the mid diamond level and unable to improve.
My handpseed/apm are all very poor and my timings are still quite off.
My micro is also very poor and my mouse control is aweful.
These problems don't (at least for me) seem to solve themselves with hours and hours of practice.
Interesting topic. I play piano, and yes, I play it seriously, if Prokofiev's second piano concerto is serious enough. I generally disagree with what's said about how to learn a new piece - the fastest way to learn a piece is to play it as close as possible to what is going to be the performance tempo. You probably have noticed that you begin to use different muscles when you take a certain piece much slower than it originally is suppose to be. And when that happens, all the slow practicing efforts are going vain.
If there is one thing that is common in piano playing and starcraft, it is that they're both an act that happens over time, and by that speed (or tempo) actually matters. Going back to the music learning, I find it irony that so many of the hard practicers just simply mess up once they're on the stage either because they're so scared or they've never experienced the real stages. Smaller the difference between your practice and your actual goal, the better you improve.
On October 08 2011 09:37 Lisitsa wrote: Interesting topic. I play piano, and yes, I play it seriously, if Prokofiev's second piano concerto is serious enough. I generally disagree with what's said about how to learn a new piece - the fastest way to learn a piece is to play it as close as possible to what is going to be the performance tempo. You probably have noticed that you begin to use different muscles when you take a certain piece much slower than it originally is suppose to be. And when that happens, all the slow practicing efforts are going vain.
If there is one thing that is common in piano playing and starcraft, it is that they're both an act that happens over time, and by that speed (or tempo) actually matters. Going back to the music learning, I find it irony that so many of the hard practicers just simply mess up once they're on the stage either because they're so scared or they've never experienced the real stages. Smaller the difference between your practice and your actual goal, the better you improve.
If you want to learn a piece as quick as possible, you can sight-read it. Unfortunately, quality and accuracy may suffer.
If you want to learn a piece quickly and accurately, you play slowly.
Its great to see that you take piano seriously, but every professional practices slowly. You simply cannot learn a piece accurately without careful practice. Even Rachmaninoff was famous for how absurdly slow he practiced, despite his god-given virtuosity. Even your namesake (Valentina Lisitsa) practices slowly.
On October 08 2011 08:48 Icekommander wrote: 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.
Did you honestly ever check? I don't have any friends in bronze or silver -- or even in plat -- who macro well in the absence of unexpected actions of my opponents.
Yes indeed. I was helping one of my Bronze friends today, who was fine macroing off of two base - until a battle happened somewhere and demanded his attention. Simply doing the repetative actions of pressing 4aaaaaaaaadddd 6vv isn't difficult. It is when something forces you to divide your attention that macro suffers.
This is why you must play in real starcraft conditions - you can't get any decent practise beyond your early build versus the AI
But "real starcraft conditions" is not the same as "ladder". To practice, you want a very controlled environment: You want a practice partner who will repeatedly do the same thing over and over again so you can learn how to deal with that. Then you can instruct him to vary certain parameters and learn to deal with those. At some point you'll be comfortable enough to understand the underlying mechanics without thinking too hard on a conscious level, and you'll be able to adapt to changes more easily.
If you just keep playing random (ladder) opponents, that's still "real starcraft conditions", but you never laid the groundwork to make rapid skill progress. *Especially* if your friends are overwhelmed by unexpected decisions -- I don't see how you expect them to improve rapidly by repeatedly overwhelming them if they still have so many other problems in their gameplay at the same time.
I think you are correct - to a point. I can agree that practising under controlled circumstances can help certain aspects of your game very much. And anyone who is seriously practising to get better, should find out which aspects of their game need that work (Macro, dealing with a three-rax).
But if you try and practise versus the same two or three people over and over again, then try to take your build to a tournament, someone is going to smoke you with something you've just never seen before. For example: If your primary zerg practise partner ( and how many practise partners does the average silver/gold player have anyway?) always plays conservatively with his mutalisks, so you might just throw down some, turrets and go about your merry way. Then you play someone who is really aggressive with those same mutalisks, and suddenly your stretched to the brim just trying to hold them off, always having to rebuild turrets, and it seems like you can never move out. Maybe that opponents macro is weaker, which is why he is in the same league as you, but you have no experience with dealing with that style of play, so you can adequately deal with it.
Obviously, if you have a large array of practise partners on the level of a pro team, then no, ladder isn't really required. But otherwise you'll improve rapidly for a bit, and then hit a stone wall, because you are completely unfamiliar with anything outside a very select field of play. Ideally, I think that having a large array of people who you can say "Ok Bob, play me ten times going Three Gate Expand" "Ok now Tim, you play me ten times going Three Gate Expand". But I think many players can't do that (And regardless, the OP has "Polish versus Human Opponents" as the final step, with no distinction of who that is) .
Which is also very different from music IMO. Everyone sounds the same playing the same sheet of music when they play a piano. In SCII, there are many different possible ways to play that same "sheet" of a game.
And failure to also improve your SC decision making ability, will hold you back from jumping leagues as surely as bad macro will.
I think we've seen enough examples of people who made a point of 3raxing, 4gating, or even building mass stalkers all the way to diamond/masters. Macro isn't all you need, but it is one of the most important single things. I do not believe you that bad decision making is as critical as bad macro to getting out of bronze and silver.
You are assuming that this four-gating player is bad at decision making. It isn't. When he does his four-gate, his decision making for that four-gate is at a Diamond/Masters level. He'll know exactly how to crack bunkers, or forcefield roaches. When he is is supposed to reinforce zealots, and when to reinforce stalkers. In fact, that is exactly what all-ins are all about, you are betting the game that you can make better decisions in a big early game battle than your opponent can.
Also this statement is kind of contradictory. You bring up four-gating players making Masters to emphasize the importance of Macro?
On October 08 2011 09:16 BarbieHsu wrote: The music practice method might be more effective.
But, definitely, improving your play by "playing more games" is more fun.
If a player wants to become extremely good at something, often they will have to sacrifice fun for a while and turn what they are doing into a technical exercise in order to get better. In the case of people playing SC2 for fun and casual enjoyment, there is no reason to do this. But for progamers, taking an absolute, intense, 'boring' approach to improving technical mechanics will, in future, definitely become the way to go for players who have reached a certain level of skill in their play. If you want to be a top-notch player in the most efficient way possible, it's something you'll have to sacrifice.
At this stage in the development of progaming as a sport and an 'art', many people will choose not to do this because the field is not as competetive as it could be. But in future, this sort of refinement is what will be required of players in order to compete with the best.
Completely agreed with this. Nobody has ever gotten to the top level in any highly skill-based activity by focusing on having fun. If you ask any NBA player what is the most fun part about his job, I guarantee none of them will say "The hours I spend at the gym to make all of this possible". Ask a professional pianist what is the most fun part about his job, he's probably not going to say "Playing scales for an hour every day to maintain my technique". Look at the stuff athletes have to do to all the time:
Does that look like fun? I remember doing those for tennis and it was the least fun I've ever had. I can't imagine it's any more enjoyable for professional athletes. If I wanted to eventually win the GSL, I would certainly force myself to go through all of the hoops needed to develop pro-gamer level mechanics. Exercises such as practicing stalker vs stalker micro in custom maps over and over to get better at PvP, practicing gateway vs MM micro for hours at a time to never die vs the 2 ghost timing push, 10 games in a row where my opponent is only allowed to attack multiple places simultaneously in order to practice my multitasking, etc. But most of us don't have that desire, and if we're treating SC2 as anything other than a future full-time career, we would rather maximize how much fun we have.
After reading some of the responses along with the OP, here are my own thoughts:
First off, I think the OP is brilliant. I think the points outlined are great guidelines to tailoring a practice method that can best suit your needs as a player. But I feel that a vast majority of people are taking the ideas out of context. The ideas listed in the OP are meant to focus on the basic mechanics, learning them in and out so that you do not have to think about every little action that goes into a move, rather just the move itself. I have heard it said that, "It is better to practice something correctly once, instead of ten times incorrectly." You want to be making good habits with your practice if you want to improve your coordination.
Some people have brought up points talking about how professional musicians may not actually slow down songs a whole lot, but rather just learn it at a performance speed. And that's perfectly okay. But here is why: Music tends to have many different patterns that you can find from piece to piece. Once you have spent a long time mastering and recognizing these patterns, you no longer have to slow things down to perform them optimally. The same can be seen in Starcraft2. There are patterns of key presses which are required for certain moves, and once those key presses are mastered, they can efficiently be performed and the need to slow down the action is no longer required. That is the point that we are trying to get to, to slow down the action in order to create an unconscious understanding of the pattern.
Now, this does not help when it comes to the mental, decision making, aspect of Starcraft2. Others have pointed this out, but I feel that they do not distance themselves from the music mechanic comparison. Musical mechanics have nothing to do with decision making in SC2, so a different exercise is going to be required in order improve that aspect of your game. I believe that you will constantly find a trade off in your play, where either your mental or physical ability is going to be greater than the other, and you have to be able to balance them while pushing their capacity. For example, you have a simple drop going on at the same time. You may know how to correctly/perfectly divide your army in order to defend it, but if you lack the hand skill in order to perform said task, you will not be able to pull it off. Inversely, you may have the physical precision to be able to split your army, but if you lack the understanding of what to do you will be left with possibly a bad composition within your split army. A goal of a good player should be balance these two, because they both are imperative to having success in Starcraft.
Now, I could draw a connection between musical improve and Starcraft, how a musician who can improve holds understanding over the keys, scales, and rythms that make up a piece, similar to how a professional Starcraft 2 player (like Flash for instance) can correctly divvy up his units and look forward to the next move because of his understanding of the game and how player economies and pieces move/react… but that's a different discussion entirely ;D
Best of luck all, sorry for the long post.
:EDIT: Additional point
People seem to be complaining that running drills isn't fun… why can't they be? Seriously, I enjoy playing scales on violin and fixing intonation, and I have enjoy working on my larva injects. I get a thrill out of mastering small skills, and if you change your perspective to encourage your improvement you may find that your sense of accomplishment will be greater.
great post! I think what qxc was refering to was that acceleration should be done at the highest level not for beginners ie bronze to masters. could almost mistake you for Day9 hahaha.
On October 08 2011 08:48 Icekommander wrote: 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.
Did you honestly ever check? I don't have any friends in bronze or silver -- or even in plat -- who macro well in the absence of unexpected actions of my opponents.
This is why you must play in real starcraft conditions - you can't get any decent practise beyond your early build versus the AI
But "real starcraft conditions" is not the same as "ladder". To practice, you want a very controlled environment: You want a practice partner who will repeatedly do the same thing over and over again so you can learn how to deal with that. Then you can instruct him to vary certain parameters and learn to deal with those. At some point you'll be comfortable enough to understand the underlying mechanics without thinking too hard on a conscious level, and you'll be able to adapt to changes more easily.
If you just keep playing random (ladder) opponents, that's still "real starcraft conditions", but you never laid the groundwork to make rapid skill progress. *Especially* if your friends are overwhelmed by unexpected decisions -- I don't see how you expect them to improve rapidly by repeatedly overwhelming them if they still have so many other problems in their gameplay at the same time.
And failure to also improve your SC decision making ability, will hold you back from jumping leagues as surely as bad macro will.
I think we've seen enough examples of people who made a point of 3raxing, 4gating, or even building mass stalkers all the way to diamond/masters. Macro isn't all you need, but it is one of the most important single things. I do not believe you that bad decision making is as critical as bad macro to getting out of bronze and silver.
Actually my bronze league brother can follow a build perfectly as long as he doesn't receive any pressure. As soon as things start happening he looses focus on his macro and things start to go wrong.
Yes that is a major part of macro and mechanics, the ability to still do your stuff while you micro / watch / adapt, but without any pressure some bronze league players can actually follow a build perfectly (or as near to perfect as any non grandmaster player, e.g. their splits aren't nearly as fast so they are a second or two behind from the start)
On October 08 2011 08:48 Icekommander wrote: 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.
Did you honestly ever check? I don't have any friends in bronze or silver -- or even in plat -- who macro well in the absence of unexpected actions of my opponents.
This is why you must play in real starcraft conditions - you can't get any decent practise beyond your early build versus the AI
But "real starcraft conditions" is not the same as "ladder". To practice, you want a very controlled environment: You want a practice partner who will repeatedly do the same thing over and over again so you can learn how to deal with that. Then you can instruct him to vary certain parameters and learn to deal with those. At some point you'll be comfortable enough to understand the underlying mechanics without thinking too hard on a conscious level, and you'll be able to adapt to changes more easily.
If you just keep playing random (ladder) opponents, that's still "real starcraft conditions", but you never laid the groundwork to make rapid skill progress. *Especially* if your friends are overwhelmed by unexpected decisions -- I don't see how you expect them to improve rapidly by repeatedly overwhelming them if they still have so many other problems in their gameplay at the same time.
And failure to also improve your SC decision making ability, will hold you back from jumping leagues as surely as bad macro will.
I think we've seen enough examples of people who made a point of 3raxing, 4gating, or even building mass stalkers all the way to diamond/masters. Macro isn't all you need, but it is one of the most important single things. I do not believe you that bad decision making is as critical as bad macro to getting out of bronze and silver.
Actually my bronze league brother can follow a build perfectly as long as he doesn't receive any pressure. As soon as things start happening he looses focus on his macro and things start to go wrong.
Yes that is a major part of macro and mechanics, the ability to still do your stuff while you micro / watch / adapt, but without any pressure some bronze league players can actually follow a build perfectly (or as near to perfect as any non grandmaster player, e.g. their splits aren't nearly as fast so they are a second or two behind from the start)
If your brother is so thrown off by pressure, I'd argue that he doesn't know his build nearly well enough. The idea of learning a build in practice isn't just to simply be able to perform it in a glass bubble. The idea is to be able to execute it without even thinking.
If we don't have to think about the build order, it won't break down when we are faced with pressure. During times of crisis, we can pay more attention to pressure rather than focusing our energy on when to build an SCV.
Great post, first of all. Secondly, to those who continue to harp on "playing for fun", why does this topic concern you? If you want to play for fun then do so, and leave the people who are interested in developing their SC2 skill efficiently to discuss various strategies for doing so.
Now insofar as the OP claims that the advice to "play more macro games" to really polish your macro is unhelpful advice for people who have macro woes, he is absolutely correct. As anybody who has studied the development of expertise (or has achieved expertise in a competitive/highly developed field) likely knows, deliberate practice of specific sub-skills is paramount to the attainment of the solid base of technical proficiency that is necessary for expert performance. That is, continual and attentive drilling of basic skills in a controlled environment (read: NOT the activity in its totality as it would be performed in competition) is far and away the most effective way to teach beginners a new skill-set, for intermediates to shore up weaknesses in their game and make measurable improvement, and for experts to retain the sharpness and crispness that makes them as good as they are.
I enjoy the musical analogy, but I think there is an even better one given the competitive nature of SC2. I myself have been training Muay Thai (a form of kickboxing, for those unawares) nigh on 6 years now, and the analogy seems strong. How do expert trainers in martial arts teach their students? Do they throw them into sparring every hour of every single session and say "use your punches more" if their punches are lacking speed/power/timing/accuracy? Do they greet their students and tell them to start sparring and "work on their speed"? No, and with good reason. This is the proposed equivalent of the mass-gaming-only approach. If one just "plays a lot" or "fights a lot", you will inevitably get better, but the atrocious mistakes you are constantly making unawares will become habitual over time with this sort of approach. Your sense of how to engage with a live opponent will certainly improve dramatically in this way, and so will your ability to "think on the fly", but this benefit could just as easily be attained through a more deliberate, sensible regimen that is focused primarily on the attainment of solid fundamentals before throwing one into the flames, as it were. The flames will come in training, obviously, but they ought to be kept at bay until the player has some notion of what they should and should not be doing, and what they need to focus on, whether this or that is good/bad execution of some action, etc, etc.
Professional boxers still drill the jab and the cross every single training session. The majority of their training is typically not sparring with live opponents. Rather, it is a far more controlled and focused drilling of various sub-skills such as different combinations of punches, footwork, head movement, and so forth. There are few if any long-lived, well-developed competitive activities that are not approached in this fashion. Music, football, basketball, boxing, MMA, golf, wrestling, Muay Thai, and even activities like chess are trained in this fashion because, quite simply, it is far and away the most effective approach for improving quickly and avoiding the pitfalls of habituating bad/inefficient technique.
Why has it not seeped in SC2, then? Well, primarily because eSports is very young in the grand scheme of things, and this sort of wisdom has yet to work its way in except perhaps in small portions of the professional community. What is and is not efficient/appropriate technique has not yet been deeply explored and laid out by long decades of competition and thought on the subject. This will change with time, and more and more the training that a would-be professional gamer, or just plain old professional gamer receives will come to resemble in many respects the same broad kind of training structure that so many other, more developed skill-oriented activities already have.
Mass gaming has its place, undoubtedly. Just as a fighter who never spars is never going to be very good a SC2 gamer that never actually plays competitive 1v1 is not going to be very good either, regardless of much deliberate practice of sub-skills they engage in. However, focusing on mass gaming only, at any level of skill is a mistake. Once you stop drilling the fundamentals, even as a professional, progress will be slowed, halted, or even somewhat reversed on the many sub-skills that are now only receiving attention in-game. The key is balancing actual practice with the sort of precise, controlled practice that will shore up and make efficient different portions of the competitor's play.
Interestingly, the only place in the SC2 world where this sort of thing is occurring to any appreciable extent is Korea. Koreans have a system left over from Brood War that employs coaches who can watch over players as they play, point out certain things that they need to work on (and thus spur the focused practice of specific sub-skills that would have eluded somebody who simply "plays a lot") and so on. This practice can be as simple as playing a custom game against an AI that sits around and never attacks while focusing on some aspect of play, or it can involve specific builds or strategies with an informed practice partner. I don't think the system in Korea is at the level of a highly developed sport as of yet, but it is far better than what most foreigners have access to. This could well be a factor in the Korean superiority on average amongst the professionals.
In summary, I think the OP is largely correct in that there is a much better way to improve effectively and quickly than what is often pandered on the strategy forums. The literature on the development of expertise points in this direction as well; just doing the activity a lot is not enough when a field becomes developed and competitive enough.
Great post, just one comment in qxcs' "defense": while your approach is imo totally the best way to learn sc2 properly, to push your limits qxcs idea is a good one. Once you have felt the franticness of the upped speed the regular one will feel relaxing to you and you might be able to concentrate on more things. For a beginner or even somebody without a certrain degree of mastery it would be destructive, i agree.
On October 08 2011 10:48 Offhand wrote: How much can you realistically break down SC2 in order to practice sub-skills though? A weak sub-skill could be as broad as one particular match-up.
Where one draws the lines and approaches something as a sub-skill is part of what will be refined over time as the field develops. Obviously being able to snap off a line of perfectly arrayed force fields is a useful sub-skill for all of the Protoss matchups, and this would be something well worth investing one's time in. It is only a fruitful enterprise if you divvy up the practice in such a way that you are focusing on relevant, improvable, and common actions that will have an appreciable affect on your gameplay. Part of the challenge of becoming expert in any field is finding out just what those things are, I think.
On October 08 2011 09:10 Tyrant0 wrote: Those aren't myths, they're pretty true.
You HAVE to play a ton of games at some point. You CAN pin point specific flaws in your play and tackle them head-on, but you can do so in mass while learning to deal with various opponents. It's obviously more efficient though to say, go into a game against no opponent/no AI to work on mechanics exclusively without the variable of an opponent, first...? There was an article a few months ago that explained how mass games, just like mass practice on an instrument is required to develop extensive muscle memory.
The reference to practicing music is spot on, though. I've always compared learning SC2 to playing a violin.
Mass practice is required, but that's not "mass games". Practice isn't the same as playing ladder games.
I linked to one such article in my first-page reply.
You have to deal with the random variable, at some point. If you can't execute without being thrown off, you're really only good at playing in a vacuum. You can really focus on various elements of your play in an extremely controlled environment, but it should also come with a lot of ladder games in between.
I absolutely agree, but the key point here is that you try to deal with a random variable at a time, working your way towards the full "real" environment. You shouldn't try to deal with everything at once if your goal is to improve rapidly.
Keeping it real by playing actual games is certainly important, and there are many things experience brings. I really think we actually agree here.
It's almost comparable to learning the first few parts of a song, then attempting to play them at full speed before moving on.
Yes, that's a good analogy. (Instead of parts of a game, you're working on aspects of a game, but it's easiest to work on those aspects specifically before trying to bring them together all at once.)
Wow, what an interesting post. I'm a professional saxophonist from Texas working on my double music major for performance and composition, and I can highly relate to a lot of the concepts you talked about. Sadly, I didn't naturally try to slow things down for practice, but I DID, however, break the matches I played into beginning, middle and end type of sections and specified when I need to. I guess the fact that I didn't slow the game down initially is just a tribute to my music practice methods, lol. As I'm only 19 years old, looking into my practice methods now, I now realize I haven't been practicing my music as slow as I should considering how I perform them now, so thanks for spurring on that musical epiphany! hahaha. As for my practice method for SCII NOW, well I try to practice with a method I use for my saxophone studies, and that is "Performance provides experience." A musician who never "performs" his piece before his/her actual recital will almost never be as confident in their performance as a musician who plays the music without stopping every now and then during practice to try and provide that "performance" experience before the big day, lol. Likewise, I get my practice in through not the AI, but through real matches. If it takes me a season to finally get promoted to silver because of my losses, then that's fine, but when I get there I'll have more valuable knowledge and experience on how to handle HUMAN players with HUMAN traits and personalities. For instance, I don't think an AI would ever perform something as dirty as a Medivac drop or proxy pylon rush, lol. So like a musician would record these "practice performances" and jot down what/where they messed up, I'll go over replays (whether I won the match or not) and jot down what I did well, what I didn't do well, and what I can add to improve my overall game. Yes I know this method might require a little more patience, but it's definitely worth it in the long run.
On October 08 2011 10:01 Icekommander wrote: Yes indeed. I was helping one of my Bronze friends today, who was fine macroing off of two base - until a battle happened somewhere and demanded his attention. Simply doing the repetative actions of pressing 4aaaaaaaaadddd 6vv isn't difficult. It is when something forces you to divide your attention that macro suffers.
Fair enough -- in that case, practicing macro against an AI isn't the type of practice your friends need. I don't know what the best way to work on that is.
But if you try and practise versus the same two or three people over and over again, then try to take your build to a tournament, someone is going to smoke you with something you've just never seen before. For example: If your primary zerg practise partner ( and how many practise partners does the average silver/gold player have anyway?) always plays conservatively with his mutalisks, so you might just throw down some, turrets and go about your merry way. Then you play someone who is really aggressive with those same mutalisks, and suddenly your stretched to the brim just trying to hold them off, always having to rebuild turrets, and it seems like you can never move out. Maybe that opponents macro is weaker, which is why he is in the same league as you, but you have no experience with dealing with that style of play, so you can adequately deal with it.
Obviously, if you have a large array of practise partners on the level of a pro team, then no, ladder isn't really required. But otherwise you'll improve rapidly for a bit, and then hit a stone wall, because you are completely unfamiliar with anything outside a very select field of play. Ideally, I think that having a large array of people who you can say "Ok Bob, play me ten times going Three Gate Expand" "Ok now Tim, you play me ten times going Three Gate Expand". But I think many players can't do that (And regardless, the OP has "Polish versus Human Opponents" as the final step, with no distinction of who that is) .
I think we're not disagreeing on the fundamentals, more on the details.
I had a long reply typed up, but deleted it for the sake of brevity. I agree with you.
Basically: practicing against a partner should have a specific purpose: You want to practice a specific skill and focus on that. Once you achieved your goal, there's no point in continuing with the same drill. (Example: You can't beat 7-gate. Get a guy to 7-gate you until you figured out how to hold it. Once you know how, move on to learn other things. This is much faster than laddering in the hope of finding someone who 7-gates you.)
I think of it as a gym: You don't need to go to the gym to play soccer or tennis casually. But you can't get around a strict training plan with specific, well-designed exercises if you want to be successful at the same sport professionally, on a high level.
You are assuming that this four-gating player is bad at decision making. It isn't. When he does his four-gate, his decision making for that four-gate is at a Diamond/Masters level. He'll know exactly how to crack bunkers, or forcefield roaches. When he is is supposed to reinforce zealots, and when to reinforce stalkers. In fact, that is exactly what all-ins are all about, you are betting the game that you can make better decisions in a big early game battle than your opponent can.
That's exactly what I mean!
By focusing on a specific, boring, repetitive build, it's easy to learn exactly what works and what doesn't. You're learning decision-making by -- ironically -- reducing the number of decisions you have (namely, by committing to 4gate).
Once you have learned those decisions, the 4gate practice has done its job, and you should move on and learn how to play properly ;-)
But by reducing the number of decisions, you can actually learn much more about the decisions that do remain. It won't teach you everything, but it will teach you some important things very quickly, and then you should move on and learn the rest.
Also this statement is kind of contradictory. You bring up four-gating players making Masters to emphasize the importance of Macro?
No, I brought it up to emphasize that executing something specific very well -- even if it is often a bad decision -- gets you to diamond/masters. Deciding correctly but being unable to execute your choices well is much more crippling at low levels, in my opinion. The guy who only built probes/stalkers and only used a-move (no micro) is probably a better example.
I know when I play I like to focus on a particular area. Its quite easy as Zerg. Focus on spreading creep one game, then on hitting injects perfectly, then on micro/army control etc. Bring the elements together play better overal.
I think there is some merit to just grinding the shit out of games, as long as your taking the time to analyse and target areas of improvement. Afterall the Koreans are better because they play more.
Seems to me speed is product of proficiency. You can't focus on being fast any more than you can focus on being proficient. Make your actions precise and effortless and speed comes.
I don't necessarily agree with the basis of this thread. You are comparing learning to play starcraft with learning to play music when they are totally different. There is no opponent when playing music, and rarely much to distract your attention away from playing. Learning macro cycles isn't very hard either, most platinum+ players can do macro cycles when not harassed. The issue is that they have a lot of trouble dividing their attention properly and doing each task in the optimal order. For example if you see a giant red blob moving at your army do you spread it into a concave first or do you run your macro cycle?
While it may be true that someone who has very poor mechanics could benefit from the slow macro style approach, someone who can execute a near perfect macro cycle while not being bothered can't learn much from this, and can learn alot more from having to divide their attention.
If there is anything that I have learned from this post, it's that a lot of people don't have a lot of… imagination. Some people just don't stretch their mind even a tiny bit before refuting something that doesn't perfectly match up with their preconceived ideas.
Oh well, the world is filled with all kinds and that's why it's beautiful, no? c: c: c:
However, please realize that Starcraft isn't in a bubble where nothing you do has any effect on your gameplay ;D
My friend spent 1 hour practicing stutter stepping (and, having never played an RTS before in his life) can now stutter step better than most plat terran players. He doesn't know whether to stutter step to or away, which is really funny, but his timing is boss. There is no doubt that focused intensive practice offers superior benefits for many tasks. I think it is essential to break tasks down and drill them in. (Although, not all tasks can be handled that way, which is why we probably see so many people objecting to this method, since they see these tasks and go "huh, that wouldn't work for X").
I have concerns about slowing the game speed... so much of becoming good at the game is internalizing it, getting that feel for when things are supposed to happen. As a Zerg player who pulled himself out of bronze and shot up the leagues in season 2, so much of getting good with Zerg was learning those timings from getting pummeled over and over again. While certain mechanical skills can benifit from slowing things down, practicing and then speeding them up, I think much of the game knowledge / game sense things rely on having played hundreds and hudreds of games at proper speed. Therefore, I propose that we use this slow down and speed back up method for things that are more mechanically intensive and less about internalizing timings. I think this is a great tool for training, but is not the right tool for every job.
Thanks! Now I'm going to use it for practicing these army engagements I've been having trouble with XD
On October 08 2011 12:29 Hipsv wrote: I don't necessarily agree with the basis of this thread. You are comparing learning to play starcraft with learning to play music when they are totally different. There is no opponent when playing music, and rarely much to distract your attention away from playing. Learning macro cycles isn't very hard either, most platinum+ players can do macro cycles when not harassed. The issue is that they have a lot of trouble dividing their attention properly and doing each task in the optimal order. For example if you see a giant red blob moving at your army do you spread it into a concave first or do you run your macro cycle?
While it may be true that someone who has very poor mechanics could benefit from the slow macro style approach, someone who can execute a near perfect macro cycle while not being bothered can't learn much from this, and can learn alot more from having to divide their attention.
Which platinum players have perfect macro cycles? If they can produce off of 3+ base without going above 500/500, considering the vast majority of diamond and a lot of masters aren't even that good.
It's not even just about "injecting and making units," or "tapping" your hotkeys. You have to know the exact saturation amounts you add additional production at, how much production you support on x base at x saturations and how much you pull back to fit in additional upgrades/more bases. And then you have to macro perfectly. It is done only one way. Doing so incorrectly results in a shitty economy or floating minerals.
i agree with the op 100%. I would even take it to the next level and say to start of slowing down the game speed. with the extra time you will be able to think about smaller mechanical changes you can make to your game. Have you ever thought about how boxing unit(s) after a specific action can be efficient or inefficient. for example if your mouse is coming from the mini map should i box right top to bottom left or left bottom to top right?I know its small, but it makes a real big difference.then you gradually bring the speed up.
If your bad at starcraft it seems like starcraft would be more like memorizing a peice of music. But really that ain't true son, Starcraft is sexy improvised jazz and nothing else. There is no set sequence to memorize only smaller sets of action to combine at random depending on the situations.
I kind of agree and kind of disagree at the same time. I was able to make it from bronze to diamond season 1 after about 800 1v1 and 400 2v2 or so by just laddering with basic knowledge of what the pros were doing - I watched Husky and HD - so they wernt directly teaching me how to play, just the general idea of what units to make at various points in the game. This was also the first RTS that I left the custom game lobby, so I was basically new to the whole idea of how to play. I always feel that the best way to improve in the lower leagues is not to work on anything specific, and to just play lots of games. The biggest hurdle to getting to diamond(for me at least) is just playing fast enough to do everything that I want to do and you cant really specifically work on that, its just something you gradually get better at with a lot of games played. Strategy is almost irrelevant if you cant execute it properly, so the biggest thing I would say to work on is playing faster.
If people could "just play" piano, you'd probably see the same thing occur, why practice specific parts over and over and over if you can just learn gradually while having fun most of the time? Of course, people can't just "play piano", put me in front of a piano and I'd probably make noise that sounds like a dying cow trying to faceroll a piano. But you can "just play" starcraft to a certain degree. And while pros/dedicated/motivated people wll of course always practice methodically, I think for the most part they just want to play more games
If stacraft made sounds in accordance to the proficiency to which the game is played, I am sure your starcraft play would 'sound' like a dying cow right now as would most non professional gamers. In fact I would be willing to bet that there has not even been a masterpiece yet, not even at the professional level, even though I would say the pros have progressed past chopsticks, they have a long way to go. I think the OP makes a good point however, do to the nature of starcraft, its impossible to have a complete set piece from which to practice.
This is about the practice Thing you proposed, What Main production facilities are you talking about, I mean as terran, you can go Barrack[3] or go for a 1/1/1 style
Maybe there should be a time limit that you could refer too i.e (first 5:30)
On October 08 2011 13:32 RedDragon571 wrote: If your bad at starcraft it seems like starcraft would be more like memorizing a peice of music. But really that ain't true son, Starcraft is sexy improvised jazz and nothing else. There is no set sequence to memorize only smaller sets of action to combine at random depending on the situations.
My OP actually proposes exactly what you believe Starcraft to be: to "memorize only smaller sets of action to combine at random depending on the situations." By breaking down our builds into thematic and manageable sections, we can achieve a mechanical fluidity that can't be accomplished by throwing oneself into ladder games.
On October 08 2011 13:38 FoeHamr wrote: I kind of agree and kind of disagree at the same time. I was able to make it from bronze to diamond season 1 after about 800 1v1 and 400 2v2 or so by just laddering with basic knowledge of what the pros were doing - I watched Husky and HD - so they wernt directly teaching me how to play, just the general idea of what units to make at various points in the game. This was also the first RTS that I left the custom game lobby, so I was basically new to the whole idea of how to play. I always feel that the best way to improve in the lower leagues is not to work on anything specific, and to just play lots of games. The biggest hurdle to getting to diamond(for me at least) is just playing fast enough to do everything that I want to do and you cant really specifically work on that, its just something you gradually get better at with a lot of games played. Strategy is almost irrelevant if you cant execute it properly, so the biggest thing I would say to work on is playing faster.
You bring up a very common situation - a player who quickly rises up to gold/diamond and all of a sudden hits a brick wall in progress. The common attitude here is to start wanting to speed up your game, when in fact, this reinforces a lot of the bad mechanical habits that you learned by progressing through the early ladder ranks so quickly.
My OP proposes the opposite approach - instead of trying to get faster, get slower! Break down your game, understand your mechanics, and build a solid foundation from which you can work up from. It is a tried and proven method in music and other fields, and if you are disciplined enough, you will see rapid improvement.
I'm also a musician and I'm trying to think of ways to practice SC2 similar to music.
stuff like doing inject drills or micro battles in a unit tester is pretty clear. It's like working on scales and arpeggios so that your fingers will automatically recognize and play patterns without needing conscious thought from the brain.
Micro battles are the same, you don't want to have to be thinking during the battle, you want to be acting as quickly as possible with as little interference from the brain.
However, is there value in practicing a micro battle at low speed and speeding it up while you get comfortable with it? I certainly think that for intense micro situations like ling baneling vs ling baneling, this would be pretty beneficial
What about taking an opening build order from a progamer, set several benchmarks, and repeat that opener on slow speed making sure you hit every benchmark, and increasing your speed? Is there value in that, or is it straightforward enough to just do it multiple times at speed.
On October 08 2011 13:55 Tsuycc wrote: This is about the practice Thing you proposed, What Main production facilities are you talking about, I mean as terran, you can go Barrack[3] or go for a 1/1/1 style
Maybe there should be a time limit that you could refer too i.e (first 5:30)
I pretty much made up my own timing push for that example, so take it with a grain of salt. Instead, use my example as a framework for how you should divide a build into sections. I think the general framework is applicable to most timing-push builds.
On October 08 2011 13:58 Oboeman wrote: I'm also a musician and I'm trying to think of ways to practice SC2 similar to music.
stuff like doing inject drills or micro battles in a unit tester is pretty clear. It's like working on scales and arpeggios so that your fingers will automatically recognize and play patterns without needing conscious thought from the brain.
Micro battles are the same, you don't want to have to be thinking during the battle, you want to be acting as quickly as possible with as little interference from the brain.
However, is there value in practicing a micro battle at low speed and speeding it up while you get comfortable with it?
What about taking an opening build order from a progamer, set several benchmarks, and repeat that opener on slow speed making sure you hit every benchmark, and increasing your speed? Is there value in that, or is it straightforward enough to just do it multiple times at speed.
These are two excellent questions. I am not by any means a professional Starcraft player (I'm a diamond zerg), but I can offer answers to the best of my ability.
What's important in your approach to any practice scenario is the level of control you have over your actions. In a micro battle for example, if you cannot process battles quickly enough and are generally feeling confused, absolutely slow it down. However, keep in mind that you are slowing down the battle to have absolute control and conscious over all your decisions and actions.
As for practicing build orders, I believe that's largely of personal preference. Personally, I never found the need to slow down the game speed for build orders. Rather, I put a lot of effort into understanding and memorizing a new build order before I even touch the keyboard. Then I just repeat it a few times until I get it down. As previously stated, if you feel you don't have complete control over your actions, slow it down until you are comfortable. Speed can always wait for later.
As for mimic-ing progamer benchmarks, that depends on your level of competition. If you aren't Masters level, don't even bother trying to mimic a top player. You'll find that practicing macro mechanics are much more important than shaving seconds off your opening.
If you're working on executing something properly at full speed I agree with this. When I used to play guitar hero that was how I would learn new songs. The difference between music and starcraft is that music punishes you for being 'too fast' or off beat as it were. A song has a given tempo that needs to be met to play the song correctly. Starcraft has tempo built into it with all the macro/micro. There's a correct timing to producing additional units, stutter stepping, etc... The idea with my post was a way to possibly increase the number of actions we can perform by pushing our body harder. It's not a way to perfect timings and mechanics but rather a theory on how we might make the body faster.
Additionally, let's say theoretically we're doing 'everything' perfectly at the current game speed. A possible way to increase speed may be to train at a higher speed than normal.
Additionally there are mental aspects that are completely ignored in your post. Consider the mental stress/tension of playing at an increased speed. If you can remain calm and continue to make good decisions at a more frantic pace, perhaps when you return to normal speed you will have a mental advantage.
The main points you've made are substantiated through experience (both mine, yours, and many others) while the points I made are theory.
You won't know what it really will end up doing until you try it despite any amount of theory crafting.
On October 08 2011 14:29 qxc wrote: If you're working on executing something properly at full speed I agree with this. When I used to play guitar hero that was how I would learn new songs. The difference between music and starcraft is that music punishes you for being 'too fast' or off beat as it were. A song has a given tempo that needs to be met to play the song correctly. Starcraft has tempo built into it with all the macro/micro. There's a correct timing to producing additional units, stutter stepping, etc... The idea with my post was a way to possibly increase the number of actions we can perform by pushing our body harder. It's not a way to perfect timings and mechanics but rather a theory on how we might make the body faster.
Additionally, let's say theoretically we're doing 'everything' perfectly at the current game speed. A possible way to increase speed may be to train at a higher speed than normal.
Additionally there are mental aspects that are completely ignored in your post. Consider the mental stress/tension of playing at an increased speed. If you can remain calm and continue to make good decisions at a more frantic pace, perhaps when you return to normal speed you will have a mental advantage.
The main points you've made are substantiated through experience (both mine, yours, and many others) while the points I made are theory.
You won't know what it really will end up doing until you try it despite any amount of theory crafting.
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.
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.
I think this is the answer to the confusion. Like these two posts said, there are 2 parts to improve on, and 1 big difference between starcraft and music. 1 aspect is to perfect a sequence of something, like a build order, making sure you inject/build workers, etc. But because in sc2 you can never be too fast, it means that it's not all about hitting the right notes 100%, because there is no limit to how many notes you can press. Therefore it becomes a challenge of how many notes you can press. A better example would be an impossible piano song, that you can never perfect. But the more notes you play (generally), the better you will perform it. And some notes (or actions in SC2) are more important and should be prioritized over others, like playing the melody over extra rhythms.
So really you can practice both slow and fast; slow to learn something, fast to push yourself. Thanks for sharing input QXC
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.
This isn't true at all. Musicians do speed drills all the time with scales and such.
But music only goes so fast. There are never more notes to hit like there are moves to make in a game of Starcraft.
uhm music goes faster than sc2, I'm pretty good at both (decent at sc2)
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.
This isn't true at all. Musicians do speed drills all the time with scales and such.
But music only goes so fast. There are never more notes to hit like there are moves to make in a game of Starcraft.
uhm music goes faster than sc2, I'm pretty good at both (decent at sc2)
That's not the point. In sc2 you can never be fast enough to play perfect. However in piano, you can. There is the difference of playing perfectly (piano) vs playing as fast as you can (SC2).
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.
This isn't true at all. Musicians do speed drills all the time with scales and such.
But music only goes so fast. There are never more notes to hit like there are moves to make in a game of Starcraft.
uhm music goes faster than sc2, I'm pretty good at both (decent at sc2)
That's not the point. In sc2 you can never be fast enough to play perfect. However in piano, you can. There is the difference of playing perfectly (piano) vs playing as fast as you can (SC2).
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.
This isn't true at all. Musicians do speed drills all the time with scales and such.
But music only goes so fast. There are never more notes to hit like there are moves to make in a game of Starcraft.
uhm music goes faster than sc2, I'm pretty good at both (decent at sc2)
That's not the point. In sc2 you can never be fast enough to play perfect. However in piano, you can. There is the difference of playing perfectly (piano) vs playing as fast as you can (SC2).
if you read what I quoted you'll understand
I did read it. It doesn't matter if music goes faster than SC2 (and how do you gauge that, how many APM/notes you hit?), again that's not the point or I'm missing something. The point is that any piece of music has its limit at 100% speed; any faster is too fast. Your performance does not sound better the faster you play it (not necessarily). However, in SC2, the faster you are, the better you are.
On October 08 2011 14:29 qxc wrote: If you're working on executing something properly at full speed I agree with this. When I used to play guitar hero that was how I would learn new songs. The difference between music and starcraft is that music punishes you for being 'too fast' or off beat as it were. A song has a given tempo that needs to be met to play the song correctly. Starcraft has tempo built into it with all the macro/micro. There's a correct timing to producing additional units, stutter stepping, etc... The idea with my post was a way to possibly increase the number of actions we can perform by pushing our body harder. It's not a way to perfect timings and mechanics but rather a theory on how we might make the body faster.
Additionally, let's say theoretically we're doing 'everything' perfectly at the current game speed. A possible way to increase speed may be to train at a higher speed than normal.
Additionally there are mental aspects that are completely ignored in your post. Consider the mental stress/tension of playing at an increased speed. If you can remain calm and continue to make good decisions at a more frantic pace, perhaps when you return to normal speed you will have a mental advantage.
The main points you've made are substantiated through experience (both mine, yours, and many others) while the points I made are theory.
You won't know what it really will end up doing until you try it despite any amount of theory crafting.
Additionally, let's say theoretically we're doing 'everything' perfectly at the current game speed. A possible way to increase speed may be to train at a higher speed than normal.
If you're doing everything perfect, yes, you are probably completely right. I guess we could get started on creating these maps for when people become perfect at the game… in 5 years (maybe).
Additionally there are mental aspects that are completely ignored in your post. Consider the mental stress/tension of playing at an increased speed. If you can remain calm and continue to make good decisions at a more frantic pace, perhaps when you return to normal speed you will have a mental advantage.
I believe the OP addressed theories and methods of training directed more towards the general player base, who do not have complete control over the basic mechanics of the game. However, the added mental tax of having to perform the necessary tasks at a faster speed may be beneficial in expanding your mental capacity. Is that the best way to increase your mind strength? It very well may be, but there may also be better solutions.
Quick thought for discussion: Which might be better, playing a game on Faster and forcing yourself to make more valid movies (which would automatically require you to make moves faster) (A move being a sequence of commands with an intended result. In other words, not spamming) or playing in a game where you are only making the move faster but not able to capitalize on it? From my theory crafting stand point, forcing yourself to play more moves faster at a normal game speed is going to give you the best gauge of your abilities along with increasing both skill and mental capabilities together, instead of separately. I do not believe that Starcraft 2 is a game where speed comes first, but rather your mental prowess… but that's a different thread ;D Things to consider.
I'm actually planning on either pulling out my keyboard or my saxophone in the next few days to demonstrate EXACTLY what you've said. Even though I was a college music major for a few years, it still sounds like you have more experience than me, but you are 100% right in what you're saying.
Amateurs approach music practice in the following manner - there's a hard passage, so I'll just play through the entire piece over and over and over again until I nail it. Even though that can work, it takes faaaaar more time than by breaking it down into smaller sections and really focusing on what you need to work on.
+1+1+1 post, as someone who plays at a fairly high level (both musically and in starcraft 2) this post is exactly correct, 100% spot on.n "Mass gaming" is the WORST way to practice.
I did read it. It doesn't matter if music goes faster than SC2 (and how do you gauge that, how many APM/notes you hit?), again that's not the point or I'm missing something. The point is that any piece of music has its limit at 100% speed; any faster is too fast. Your performance does not sound better the faster you play it (not necessarily). However, in SC2, the faster you are, the better you are.
I do not necessarily agree with that last statement. Yes, there is evidence to support that claim, but there is also evidence that says you don't have to exceptionally fast at SC2 to perform well. This may just be the state of the game. Only time will tell I suppose.
To address the rest of your response, what if we compare SC2 to a Celtic jig, the kind that starts off slowly and builds in speed and then ends when the musicians can no longer physically keep up with the song. There is no max or min tempo, yet it is still music, no? The term, 'Music,' seems to be putting an imagined limit to the maximum speed that is acceptable to play at.
Many people are putting limits on music but none on Starcraft. I believe this is limiting the amount of valuable discussion we could be having.
On October 08 2011 05:54 Hapahauli wrote: OP's Note: While I make explicit references and criticisms of certain TL posts, it is not my intention to be insulting or "call someone out." I simply want to start a discussion on practice methods in Starcraft.
I: Introduction
Recently, qxc posted a blog on Starcraft Training DBZ Style, which was spotlighted on the TL front page. For those of you who haven't read it, qxc theorizes about a form of speed-training - increasing the speed of the game in a UMS map to improve one's mechanics.
As someone who has an extensive background in piano and music education, I'm very surprised to see a professional player take this attitude towards practicing Starcraft (my original response), and I wanted to start a discussion on practice myths and methods in Starcraft 2. I've always considered mechanical skills on a musical instrument and a computer keyboard to be fundamentally similar, yet qxc's post goes against a lot of standards in music education.
Technical skill in music and Starcraft both rely on having good muscle memory, yet the conventional wisdom of practicing music and Starcraft couldn't be more different. Some of these differences will be revealed below.
II: Practice in Music
By understanding how a musician approaches a new piece, we can better understand how we can learn to approach learning Starcraft mechanics. For example, when a professional musician approaches a new piece of music, these are the steps usually taken:
1) Break up the piece into smaller, simpler sections. 2) Practice each section slowly with an emphasis on proper technique and efficiency. 3) Put all the smaller sections together at a slow tempo. 4) Gradually bring the piece up to proper speed. 5) Polish the finished product.
While variations my exist amongst different musicians, the core concepts remain. There is an emphasis on slow, mechanical mastery before all else. You will rarely see a good musician start learning a piece by beginning to play it at full speed.
Yet many posts, including qxc's blog, emphasize the exact opposite. That somehow, playing full-speed games, or even artificially faster games, will improve your Starcraft skill.
III: Practice Myths in Starcraft
A quick TL search for a typical "help me improve" post reveals much about the conventional wisdom of Starcraft practice.
If macro is what you want to focus on, you want to focus on playing more games.
This is the most common advice I see, and to me, is also the most shocking. A lot of TL'ers think that by playing more games, you will eventually get better at the game. While there is some truth to it, I argue that this is nowhere near efficient.
Telling one of my beginner piano students to practice a piece by playing it at full speed multiple times would be horrible advice. They would barely be able to coordinate themselves properly, and if by some miracle they learn the piece, they would undoubtedly play it sloppily.
Yet this is exactly the advice I see being given to Starcraft beginners over and over again.
Something that helps me a lot with my macro is just to go 1v1 against the AI
Another bit of advice that surprises me. It still suggests that a beginner should repeatedly play games at full speed. Not only this, but it suggests that we play games against an unrealistic opponent. A computer is not a human, so what is the sense in playing against builds you will never see?
Play against the computer to concentrate on macro and injects.
Now we're getting somewhere. The idea of focused practice has been mentioned by authorities such as Day[9], and I believe this a step in the right direction. However, I think this doesn't go far enough.
IV: Practice Propositions
My ideal practice method would draw as many influences from music education as possible. As an example, what if we approached a new build-order in the same way that musicians approached new music?
1) Break down the build into "phases." For example, a beginning (up until you establish your main production structures), a middle (macroing out of your base production structures), and an end (your late-game plan and tech tree). 2) Establish your "macro cycles" for each phase. Hash out exactly what buttons you will be pressing in your typical macro cycle for each phase. 3) Practice this slowly until you are comfortable with the mechanics. 4) Gradually speed it up. 5) Polish against real human opponents.
In addition, just like a musician devotes a significant amount of practice time to mechanics/technique (scales, arpeggios, and the like), why not devote a bit of your time to practicing macro mechanics as a Starcraft player? For example, perhaps a Zerg player should devote ten minutes of their time at the beginning of every session to practice larvae-inject mechanics.
V: Questions and Discussion
So TeamLiquid, how do you practice Starcraft? I'd be especially interested in hearing the opinions of some high ranked/professional players.
Do you think there is any "practice wisdom" to be gained from music education?
Here's the difference between practicing like it was music and as if it was a RTS, rhythm and multitasking.
It's VERY simple given the proper ques to simply macro perfectly, and tweak a build to be as efficient as possible (if your build analysis is good enough). Now, how would you do if someone attacked you at a random timing and you're forced to micro your ass off? Your production stops completely, and you're working with whatever you already have. How do you alleviate this? First, work on your macro to get the basics down so that you don't float 1k minerals or gas, and simply keep playing. Put yourself in these micro-intensive situations and force yourself to keep macro in the back of your head. If you watch NaDa play, he always checks his production between micro actions (it's rather amazing actually). In that case, you COULD get into a rhythm, but it's far more complex than anything you do in music because you have to include the mouse and mouse precision based on what micro is retired.
Improving macro is elementary. Simply ALWAYS make workers, never get supply blocked, don't que up units or workers, and spend your money as you get it. Once you get a solid build order, it becomes even simpler as you remember the simple timing ques that come with it. The issue is maintaining this rhythm as you're fighting for your life against an all in you weren't prepared for.
All you can really learn is to perform macro sequences (ex - move screen to SCV(s), box/select SCV(s), press b, press s, click location for Supply Depot; press 5, press s to make SCV) as quickly as possible. After that, there's the issue of chaining these mini sequences together as quickly as possible to eliminate the lag time between actions to allow yourself as much time as possible to do anything else you might have to do.
There's no reason ever to slow the game down to simply work on macro. The game isn't nearly fast enough that a person (even a beginner) couldn't do everything that they needed to in order to macro properly (not with MBS at least).
And focusing on doing NOTHING but macro mechanics (Larvae Injects, Chrono Boost, and MULE) to do them perfect has little to no value except maybe to impress the general timings in the back of your head, but even that is useless. If you check through your hotkeys often enough (or fast enough), you lose maybe 2 seconds at most per cycle. How often are you able to just sit there and wait for your macro mechanics in a real game? Never. That's why we cycle through our production buildings to see when they are available.
If you just think of the mechanics behind the game, the only way to improve is really in your mindset... The physical mechanics behind it are easy to master simply with blank practice (I use 4v4s to practice macro and builds), but the tough part is having the ability to focus on the right things at the right times - multitasking (also why I choose 4v4 since there are 4 people that can harass me with the most retarded shit ever). If you can get harassed, and still have smooth macro while microing your units around, that's when you know you have REALLY refined mechanics. And that ONLY comes through playing the game a lot.
If I harass you with a Cloaked Banshee, DTs, or Mutas, will you sit there, focus solely on your macro and think "well I can easily macro that stuff back up, so I'll box whatever units I have in the area and A-move to the Mutas"? Will you take your units, and do your best to clean up and/or fend off the enemy while also doing your best to keep your workers alive? Or will you do things properly and macro while retreating your workers and sending your army in and microing it to get rid of the enemy harassment?
So yeah... Just play more games, but have a direction/goal you're aiming for with the games you play. It's beyond dumb to play games simply to "play to get better". You NEED a direction as you ALWAYS do in order to get better at anything. Like, if I wanted to get better at a repetition sport like tennis (somewhat comparable to SC), I can't just go out and hit thousands of balls. It would help, no doubt, but it doesn't fundamentally improve my shots any more than improving my timing. If I want my shot to actually get better, I need a goal like to hit deeper (closer to the baseline), closer to the sidelines, or with more spin. And with tennis as with SC, you need a PROPER goal to aim for. Hitting the ball harder/faster is the same as aiming to have 300-400 APM. It's meaningless if you can't do anything with it (control it). If you keep playing more, ball speed/APM comes naturally as you get better. And a lot comes down to simply how you think, which can only be worked on by going out there and just doing it.
The idea of focused practice has been mentioned by authorities such as Day[9], and I believe this a step in the right direction.
You are hitting the note in the most complex play, if anyone is able to cleanly explain how to best become a better gamer it's Day[9].
I think the chopping up of a complex play into smaller pieces was exactly approached by Day[9] in his newbie tuesday 'How to Steal a Build' and 'Refining a Build'.
Now while this was aimed at letting bronze players mimick a professional (like Naniwa) there is much to be learned about just perfecting a build you have invented and makes you feel succesful.
I advise people to watch these dailies (in order) if they want to know what was meant by 'chopping up a complex play into smaller understandable pieces.
There is one big flow in your theory: In Starcraft, you need to adapt your strategy based on what you scout whereas in Piano, you need to play the exact same thing under any given condition. Forming macro cycles in a build will result in slips of macro when you need to adapt, which will make your gameplay flawed even in best condition. You need to consider strategical part and mechanics part of the game seperately and practice should be different for those two things. Then you need to combine them and form your gameplay.
On October 08 2011 14:29 qxc wrote: If you're working on executing something properly at full speed I agree with this. When I used to play guitar hero that was how I would learn new songs. The difference between music and starcraft is that music punishes you for being 'too fast' or off beat as it were. A song has a given tempo that needs to be met to play the song correctly. Starcraft has tempo built into it with all the macro/micro. There's a correct timing to producing additional units, stutter stepping, etc... The idea with my post was a way to possibly increase the number of actions we can perform by pushing our body harder. It's not a way to perfect timings and mechanics but rather a theory on how we might make the body faster.
Additionally, let's say theoretically we're doing 'everything' perfectly at the current game speed. A possible way to increase speed may be to train at a higher speed than normal.
Additionally there are mental aspects that are completely ignored in your post. Consider the mental stress/tension of playing at an increased speed. If you can remain calm and continue to make good decisions at a more frantic pace, perhaps when you return to normal speed you will have a mental advantage.
The main points you've made are substantiated through experience (both mine, yours, and many others) while the points I made are theory.
You won't know what it really will end up doing until you try it despite any amount of theory crafting.
Thanks for taking the time to reply qxc! As you said, its important to note the difference between Theory and practice.
However, I believe the theory itself to be largely impractical given your conditions of "perfect" play. As I mentioned in your thread, I don't think this practice method can be remotely useful for anyone other than Flash/Jaedong.
That being said, it would be interesting to explore such a method after one achieves perfect mechanics, though I think we are a long way off from that.
On October 08 2011 17:47 Djagulingu wrote: There is one big flaw (fixed?) in your theory: In Starcraft, you need to adapt your strategy based on what you scout whereas in Piano, you need to play the exact same thing under any given condition. Forming macro cycles in a build will result in slips of macro when you need to adapt, which will make your gameplay flawed even in best condition. You need to consider strategical part and mechanics part of the game seperately and practice should be different for those two things. Then you need to combine them and form your gameplay.
As I mentioned in some previous responses, I think that we tend to focus on irrelevant differences between the two disciplines. The act of learning a new skill is fundamentally the same, regardless of how different they may be.
In the case of Starcraft and Piano, despite the strategic/emotional differences, there is no reason that learning the mechanics themselves should be any different from each other. I emphasize this mechanical learning - mastering the basics of the game in a closed environment instead of "trial by fire" in real games.
On October 08 2011 17:21 RyLai wrote:Here's the difference between practicing like it was music and as if it was a RTS, rhythm and multitasking.
It's VERY simple given the proper ques to simply macro perfectly, and tweak a build to be as efficient as possible (if your build analysis is good enough). Now, how would you do if someone attacked you at a random timing and you're forced to micro your ass off? Your production stops completely, and you're working with whatever you already have. How do you alleviate this? First, work on your macro to get the basics down so that you don't float 1k minerals or gas, and simply keep playing. Put yourself in these micro-intensive situations and force yourself to keep macro in the back of your head. If you watch NaDa play, he always checks his production between micro actions (it's rather amazing actually). In that case, you COULD get into a rhythm, but it's far more complex than anything you do in music because you have to include the mouse and mouse precision based on what micro is retired.
Improving macro is elementary. Simply ALWAYS make workers, never get supply blocked, don't que up units or workers, and spend your money as you get it. Once you get a solid build order, it becomes even simpler as you remember the simple timing ques that come with it. The issue is maintaining this rhythm as you're fighting for your life against an all in you weren't prepared for.
All you can really learn is to perform macro sequences (ex - move screen to SCV(s), box/select SCV(s), press b, press s, click location for Supply Depot; press 5, press s to make SCV) as quickly as possible. After that, there's the issue of chaining these mini sequences together as quickly as possible to eliminate the lag time between actions to allow yourself as much time as possible to do anything else you might have to do.
It is largely irrelevant to focus on small differences between the disciplines. Learning a skill is fundamentally the same, regardless of how different the skills may be. I could make the comparison between a sport and Starcraft, and my methodology would still hold true.
There's no reason ever to slow the game down to simply work on macro. The game isn't nearly fast enough that a person (even a beginner) couldn't do everything that they needed to in order to macro properly (not with MBS at least).
And focusing on doing NOTHING but macro mechanics (Larvae Injects, Chrono Boost, and MULE) to do them perfect has little to no value except maybe to impress the general timings in the back of your head, but even that is useless. If you check through your hotkeys often enough (or fast enough), you lose maybe 2 seconds at most per cycle. How often are you able to just sit there and wait for your macro mechanics in a real game? Never. That's why we cycle through our production buildings to see when they are available.
I couldn't disagree with you more here! Solid basic foundations are required to excel in any activity! Does one get better at basketball by playing many games? Of course not! One gets better by practicing basic dribbling and shooting over and over again.
The same analogy holds true for Starcraft. Our goal in learning macro skills is to practice basics until they become second nature. It is not enough to simply execute them - we don't even want to think about them! If we don't have to think about their execution in game, we'll have more time to reply to crisis management.
If you just think of the mechanics behind the game, the only way to improve is really in your mindset... The physical mechanics behind it are easy to master simply with blank practice (I use 4v4s to practice macro and builds), but the tough part is having the ability to focus on the right things at the right times - multitasking (also why I choose 4v4 since there are 4 people that can harass me with the most retarded shit ever). If you can get harassed, and still have smooth macro while microing your units around, that's when you know you have REALLY refined mechanics. And that ONLY comes through playing the game a lot.
If I harass you with a Cloaked Banshee, DTs, or Mutas, will you sit there, focus solely on your macro and think "well I can easily macro that stuff back up, so I'll box whatever units I have in the area and A-move to the Mutas"? Will you take your units, and do your best to clean up and/or fend off the enemy while also doing your best to keep your workers alive? Or will you do things properly and macro while retreating your workers and sending your army in and microing it to get rid of the enemy harassment?
As stated above, harass in general becomes a lot easier to deal with if your mechanical basics won't break down under pressure. Isolated practice is a great way to achieve this.
So yeah... Just play more games, but have a direction/goal you're aiming for with the games you play. It's beyond dumb to play games simply to "play to get better". You NEED a direction as you ALWAYS do in order to get better at anything. Like, if I wanted to get better at a repetition sport like tennis (somewhat comparable to SC), I can't just go out and hit thousands of balls. It would help, no doubt, but it doesn't fundamentally improve my shots any more than improving my timing. If I want my shot to actually get better, I need a goal like to hit deeper (closer to the baseline), closer to the sidelines, or with more spin. And with tennis as with SC, you need a PROPER goal to aim for. Hitting the ball harder/faster is the same as aiming to have 300-400 APM. It's meaningless if you can't do anything with it (control it). If you keep playing more, ball speed/APM comes naturally as you get better. And a lot comes down to simply how you think, which can only be worked on by going out there and just doing it.
Your tennis analogy supports my argument! We go out onto the tennis court and practice our stroke. Then we go out and practice where to hit our stroke. Then we go and practice how to hit our stroke. That is what I'm proposing - to isolate important mechanics (tennis shots) in practice as opposed to in games.
You seem to be mistaking my proposal. I'm simply proposing that people break down learning mechanics into subsets. These subsets can be as complex and detailed as you want, but the act of breaking them down and mastering them is fundamental to the learning process.
On October 08 2011 17:47 Djagulingu wrote: There is one big flow in your theory: In Starcraft, you need to adapt your strategy based on what you scout whereas in Piano, you need to play the exact same thing under any given condition. Forming macro cycles in a build will result in slips of macro when you need to adapt, which will make your gameplay flawed even in best condition. You need to consider strategical part and mechanics part of the game seperately and practice should be different for those two things. Then you need to combine them and form your gameplay.
I am a musician studying at university, I don't agree with you and think that the analogy continues even further. A professional musician over his life, will play A LOT of musical pieces, that can vary a lot in styles and there's is always a great deal of interpretation, much more than raw technique. You need to know how to play very slow without slowing down as well as blazingly fast, play very emotionnaly or brutaly, and that transfers to starcraft players. Practice of a match-up is beneficial to the other because you always macro the same way, it's your unit composition that changes. Strategic decisions can be compared to interpretation and control over the keyboard as it is what makes professionals a lot better than amateur. Pieces of music can be 10 times better if well interpreted or 10 times Worse if not well interpreted. And you can't compare team games to the work of a string quartet. Also, the same music piece is never played the same way twice, ever because there is ALWAYS a better way to play it. However, I don't think it ever happened that someone did a New interpretation of an old piece that made it popular, it would be a little silly.
I disagree with you. You've modeled your own version of SC2 training based on piano when you have no evidence that it actually works.
There is already a PROVEN working model for success in SC2 - at that is the korean pro-gaming houses. Although I don't know 100% what they do, it almost invariably involves mass gaming. Many of the successful pro-gamers for instance, practice until they hurt their wrists. Another aspect of korean pro-gaming houses is the coaching aspect and the sharing of strategies. However, all of this still comes in the "mass-gaming" backbone.
Although, you've raised some good points about practice in a specific technique, similarly to piano (e.g. scales, appegios). The equivalent in SC2 could be something like stutter-step, queen-injects, etc.
On October 09 2011 00:55 Azzur wrote: I disagree with you. You've modeled your own version of SC2 training based on piano when you have no evidence that it actually works.
There is already a PROVEN working model for success in SC2 - at that is the korean pro-gaming houses. Although I don't know 100% what they do, it almost invariably involves mass gaming. Many of the successful pro-gamers for instance, practice until they hurt their wrists. Another aspect of korean pro-gaming houses is the coaching aspect and the sharing of strategies. However, all of this still comes in the "mass-gaming" backbone.
Although, you've raised some good points about practice in a specific technique, similarly to piano (e.g. scales, appegios). The equivalent in SC2 could be something like stutter-step, queen-injects, etc.
You state that you disagree with my post, but then agree me with me in your last paragraph. Practicing specific techniques is exactly what I'm proposing here. Breaking down your mechanics into sub-sets is a great way to approach new builds and mechanics.
As for the "Korean Training Model," I argue that it is effective but not optimal. You seem to believe that because it works, it is the best possible model. Koreans mass game for 10 hours a day. I argue that the same could be done in less time if other methods were applied.
Also, the Korean practice model draws more from my post than you think. If you read anything about the recent Red Bull Lan, you'll notice that the Korean players often isolated specific strategic elements in practice. I simply propose the logical extension of this into mechanics themselves.
On October 08 2011 05:54 Hapahauli wrote: By understanding how a musician approaches a new piece, we can better understand how we can learn to approach learning Starcraft mechanics. For example, when a professional musician approaches a new piece of music, these are the steps usually taken:
1) Break up the piece into smaller, simpler sections. 2) Practice each section slowly with an emphasis on proper technique and efficiency. 3) Put all the smaller sections together at a slow tempo. 4) Gradually bring the piece up to proper speed. 5) Polish the finished product.
My piano teacher often tells me to play slower, but more refined. He also pays attention which finger I use to play any note, because using wrong fingers makes it harder to get good at the piece.
I myself noticed that playing music has little or nothing to do with natural talent, it is actually just practice. Mechanical practice over and over.
On October 08 2011 05:54 Hapahauli wrote: Now we're getting somewhere. The idea of focused practice has been mentioned by authorities such as Day[9], and I believe this a step in the right direction. However, I think this doesn't go far enough.
I think he is right with his advise to focus on just one aspect at a time. Too often I try to improve many things at once. If I focus on just one thing, I can improve it very fast at that thing.
Overall I am amazed how many things piano learning and Starcraft improving have in common. When I got a bit better at the piano, may be when I finally can play at least one of the easier Bach pieces, I write a posting about how the piano helped me in improving my approach to Starcraft.
Coming from a background in music (playing drums since 10 years), phyiscal activities such as dancing and martial arts (~5 years) and coaching things like speaking in front of 100+ audiances, tradional softskills etc. I'd like to add a few cents to this whole discussion.
Some posts here showed a pretty weak understanding of how learning and/or practicing in general works. =P
1) "The goal of music is to play at a set tempo while the goal of Starcraft is to play as fast as possible"
False. Every single physical activity (from martial arts and boxing to swimming, from running all the way to speaking in front of people, playing music and starcraft) has a rhythm.
Ryhthm is everywhere. At the lowest stages of a strong martial arts training you practice every step at once, you practice the timing of your actions. Boxers don't hit as fast as they can, they first memorize the correct technique of how to hit - which will then slowly be practised more till it becomes muscle-memory.
Starcraft is in fact a very rhythmic game. If you try to execute everything as fast as you can, you will end up learning mistakes. You will memorize wrong behavior. It is VERY easy to hit a punching bag quickly for a beginner - however if he works on hitting it quickly he will never achieve the speed of e.g. a WT practicioner who practiced chain hits starting with a very slow speed and perfect technique.
Steps like Check Minerals / Gas -> Check supply -> build workers -> build units -> build buildings scout -> move units -> Check Minerals / Gas -> etc. are a ryhthm.
Someone who checks Minerals/Gas, then builds workers, then scouts, then builds units then checks his minerals/gas, then builds buildings would be the example of an inefficient rhythm.
To achieve maximum speed in a game like starcraft you have to develop the most effective pattern to spend your time. - You learn such a pattern by consciously (!!) going through it step by step, again and again until it becomes second nature.
The simple fact that there is no "common knowledge" on how to "correctly" do stuff like this, or even how to simple as **** things like 1a2a3a4a (e.g. 1a3a2a4a is slightly faster because of less finger movement involved. Is it a tiny amount of time? Yes. Do people use it? No. Apparently small edges like this aren't needed.) shows us that Starcraft (and e-sports in general) are not developed enough yet to have working standards in certain aspects. - This is also why I would take habits "professionals" show us in their practice with a grain of salt.
tl;dr: Ryhthm > speed. Speed is the result of a well-practiced rhythm, not the starting point.
2) "Practice in a low-stress environment will fail you in a high-stress environment"
Wrong. Practice in a low-stress environment gives you all the skills needed to succeed in a high-stress environment.
Let's take public speaking for an example. If I want to teach someone who's rather shy but suddenly in a public position how to speak in front of 300 people I would not (costs aside) put him infront of 1000 people and let him "just speak" there. He would simply crack down under pressure and will have more stage-fright than before.
Instead, I'd take him to a group of people with a similar interest (same fears and thoughtprocesses) and let him speak in front of those 10 people. Then we would work on his way of speaking and then, once I'm fine with him, we'd record the thing and show him the video. Taddaaa, his skill and self-confidence is increased and he'll be way more comfortable in front of e.g. 100 people than before.
Another example would be the martial artist who practices first under a very controlled environment, once he got the basics down people will do stress-exercises with him - then he'll be ready for "real" self-defense.
Oh, wait, stress-exercise? - Yup, you read correctly. The ability to do well under pressure is a skill on its own. (Dingdingding!)
If you do great in 1n1's and on the ladder, you won't automatically beat the same people in a tournament setting (hi Infernal <3). Practicing how you do under pressure and high-stress is a skill that has to be learned individually (or by failing enough tournaments), how to do that would be too much for this short thingy though.
3) "But.. but... Koreans massgame, too!"
No. Not that way. You're comparing apples and oranges. (Or rice and potatoes, huehue)
Person A massgames in a controlled environment. He has someone watching him who ensures that he follows set patterns (see #1) which they worked out together beforehand. If there are certain weaknesses in his build, timing or micro you grab another dude from your team who has a similar issue and then let them clash heads until they can do the thing they sucked at better than before.
Person B plays 30 games per day.
Person A is your average Korean Progamer, Person B is the average western dude who asked "How should I improve my game?" and got the answer "Go play mass games!"
Whatever skill you're working on in life, simply doing it over and over again without a real plan or reflection will lead to failure. (Yes, that's something I learned in both Starcraft and picking up women. =D)
4) "But..but... you don't practice decision making that way!"
Strong decisionmaking is, once again, a result, not a point to start off.
Let's say you played 1-2 laddergames, you weren't happy with those games at all. Your build should work in theory our ryhthm sucked, your timing sucked and you made horribly decisions.
Let's say you... ...refined your build and stole it directly from a top korean pro of your choice. ...worked on your larvae injections/macro/mules/whatever till they are FUCKING BOSS. ...stutterstepped on micro maps till you could beat everyone with 2 marines in 2011.
NOW IS THE POINT TO ACTIVELY WORK ON YOUR DECISION MAKING.
Would you have won games earlier with a better decisionmaking? Yes. Would you have (attention plz!!) won games where you had correct decision making, but shitty mechanics? No.
There is no fucking point in a great plan if you can't execute it. Unless you're a coach. Then you get that privilege.
-------------------------------------------------
After this wall of text I'd like to add that I fully endorse the OP, I feel that a discussion like this is long overdue. Way too many "young" activities rely on people claming that "just doing a lot of it" is the holy grail - while that statement is pretty far from the truth.
Feel free to shout out any questions concerning the points I made, I'll keep checking this thread for a while. =)
Edit: What I meant by "working standards" in #1, refers to things like there is no "commonly accepted" way of which finger should hit which hotkey in which order for maximum efficiency. A thing like this would be not acceptable at all when it comes to typing or playing the piano. --> starcraft and e-sports aren't refined yet.
On October 09 2011 00:55 Azzur wrote: I disagree with you. You've modeled your own version of SC2 training based on piano when you have no evidence that it actually works.
There is already a PROVEN working model for success in SC2 - at that is the korean pro-gaming houses. Although I don't know 100% what they do, it almost invariably involves mass gaming. Many of the successful pro-gamers for instance, practice until they hurt their wrists. Another aspect of korean pro-gaming houses is the coaching aspect and the sharing of strategies. However, all of this still comes in the "mass-gaming" backbone.
Although, you've raised some good points about practice in a specific technique, similarly to piano (e.g. scales, appegios). The equivalent in SC2 could be something like stutter-step, queen-injects, etc.
You state that you disagree with my post, but then agree me with me in your last paragraph. Practicing specific techniques is exactly what I'm proposing here. Breaking down your mechanics into sub-sets is a great way to approach new builds and mechanics.
As for the "Korean Training Model," I argue that it is effective but not optimal. You seem to believe that because it works, it is the best possible model. Koreans mass game for 10 hours a day. I argue that the same could be done in less time if other methods were applied.
Also, the Korean practice model draws more from my post than you think. If you read anything about the recent Red Bull Lan, you'll notice that the Korean players often isolated specific strategic elements in practice. I simply propose the logical extension of this into mechanics themselves.
In my previous post, the last paragraph was the only thing I agreed with - and I'm also pretty sure that the koreans would do specific practice as well.
As for the premise of your entire post - you've come up with a theory and have linked it with another discipline (piano) with all the analogies - but have no evidence that it actually works. Maybe if you can convince some pro-team to adopt your method and to show good results then you can argue that your method is good.
In the end of the day, the "korean training model" has proven success. It works and it has created the best pro-gamers in both BW and in SC2. I'm skeptical that you can call it "effective but not optimal" when there has been no evidence that an alternative works.
The korean model doesn't draw much from your post. The only thing that they share is that they probably spend a small amount of time honing a specific technique (e.g. stutterstep). But otherwise, it is based on hard work mass gaming followed by coaching and discussion of strategies. But it the mass gaming that forms the bulk of the practice.
I did read it. It doesn't matter if music goes faster than SC2 (and how do you gauge that, how many APM/notes you hit?), again that's not the point or I'm missing something. The point is that any piece of music has its limit at 100% speed; any faster is too fast. Your performance does not sound better the faster you play it (not necessarily). However, in SC2, the faster you are, the better you are.
I do not necessarily agree with that last statement. Yes, there is evidence to support that claim, but there is also evidence that says you don't have to exceptionally fast at SC2 to perform well. This may just be the state of the game. Only time will tell I suppose.
To address the rest of your response, what if we compare SC2 to a Celtic jig, the kind that starts off slowly and builds in speed and then ends when the musicians can no longer physically keep up with the song. There is no max or min tempo, yet it is still music, no? The term, 'Music,' seems to be putting an imagined limit to the maximum speed that is acceptable to play at.
Many people are putting limits on music but none on Starcraft. I believe this is limiting the amount of valuable discussion we could be having.
Please reconsider your disagreement. If you are faster, you are better. That does not mean the same thing as "if you are better, you are faster". There is no disadvantage in being faster.
I am not familiar with such music. Though since it exists, then I believe most people like me are unaware of that style, and probably are talking about music -- like you say -- with limits. The limit of a tempo. If we are talking about Celtic jigs then I guess the priorities for practice are different eh? Though they would still, I imagine, prioritize correctness vs missing notes and playing it faster. Though it would be closer to SC2 I guess.
@Azzur - Thanks for taking the time to reply! I still disagree with your opinions, but it's great to have an intelligent debate in a thread.
Now on to my counter-argument...
On October 09 2011 02:23 Azzur wrote: ... As for the premise of your entire post - you've come up with a theory and have linked it with another discipline (piano) with all the analogies - but have no evidence that it actually works. Maybe if you can convince some pro-team to adopt your method and to show good results then you can argue that your method is good.
You seem to be confusing burden of proof. I've offered my analogy, and you've done nothing to argue against it other than saying "there's no evidence it actually works."
In addition, there is plenty of evidence that my suggestions actually work. The act of learning a new skill is fundamentally the same in Music, Sports, Starcraft, etc. However, the learning process is well established to be something along the lines of what I suggest in every field except for Starcraft!
So a question to you - exactly how is learning Starcraft different from learning music, sports, and the like?
In the end of the day, the "korean training model" has proven success. It works and it has created the best pro-gamers in both BW and in SC2. I'm skeptical that you can call it "effective but not optimal" when there has been no evidence that an alternative works.
This is the traditionalist/mythical attitude that I'm trying to dispel. You suggest that something is best based on tradition alone without considering well established alternatives in other fields.
The korean model doesn't draw much from your post. The only thing that they share is that they probably spend a small amount of time honing a specific technique (e.g. stutterstep). But otherwise, it is based on hard work mass gaming followed by coaching and discussion of strategies. But it the mass gaming that forms the bulk of the practice.
I think we agree more on this than you think. I make no claims on the percentage of practice time. I simply make claims on how we should learn something new. We seem to agree that Korean training uses elements of specific technique training in areas of Starcraft. I'm just suggesting that using them in mechanics is the logical extension. For all I know, they could very well be doing exactly this.
More importantly, it is not simply mass gaming, but directed mass gaming that forms the core of the Korean practice model. This is perfectly in line with the theory in my OP.
On October 08 2011 17:14 Syrupjuice wrote: Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I did read it. It doesn't matter if music goes faster than SC2 (and how do you gauge that, how many APM/notes you hit?), again that's not the point or I'm missing something. The point is that any piece of music has its limit at 100% speed; any faster is too fast. Your performance does not sound better the faster you play it (not necessarily). However, in SC2, the faster you are, the better you are.
I do not necessarily agree with that last statement. Yes, there is evidence to support that claim, but there is also evidence that says you don't have to exceptionally fast at SC2 to perform well. This may just be the state of the game. Only time will tell I suppose.
To address the rest of your response, what if we compare SC2 to a Celtic jig, the kind that starts off slowly and builds in speed and then ends when the musicians can no longer physically keep up with the song. There is no max or min tempo, yet it is still music, no? The term, 'Music,' seems to be putting an imagined limit to the maximum speed that is acceptable to play at.
Many people are putting limits on music but none on Starcraft. I believe this is limiting the amount of valuable discussion we could be having.
Please reconsider your disagreement. If you are faster, you are better. That does not mean the same thing as "if you are better, you are faster". There is no disadvantage in being faster.
I am not familiar with such music. Though since it exists, then I believe most people like me are unaware of that style, and probably are talking about music -- like you say -- with limits. The limit of a tempo. If we are talking about Celtic jigs then I guess the priorities for practice are different eh? Though they would still, I imagine, prioritize correctness vs missing notes and playing it faster. Though it would be closer to SC2 I guess.
I think you're missing his point. The discussion about speed limits is irrelevant to the discussion. They don't change the fundamental similarities of learning a new skill, whether that skill be Starcraft, Music, or Sports.
Although I'm not by any means a good player (and I'm not proof of the OP's ideas being true) I have practiced with the methods he suggests and have found myself doing much better keeping up with creep spread and queen injects, even in games when I'm under constant pressure.
Once again I think a lot of people are missing the point of the ideas in this thread - the OP, like everyone else here knows that decision making is a huge, perhaps the most important aspect of winning in SC2, and that these training techniques won't improve that. The point of doing training exercises is to make basic mechanic and macro concepts second-nature, so that we don't have to distract ourselves thinking about when to build more SCVs, do a round of injects, etc, when that drop in our natural or the DTs in our main need our attention.
While just about anyone, from low league players to the pros, could benefit somewhat from doing such exercises, eventually these people won't need to do this kind of basic exercise technique as much as their mechanics are already near perfect; this is where mass gaming comes in, IMO.
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.
This isn't true at all. Musicians do speed drills all the time with scales and such.
But music only goes so fast. There are never more notes to hit like there are moves to make in a game of Starcraft.
uhm music goes faster than sc2, I'm pretty good at both (decent at sc2)
That's not the point. In sc2 you can never be fast enough to play perfect. However in piano, you can. There is the difference of playing perfectly (piano) vs playing as fast as you can (SC2).
if you read what I quoted you'll understand
I did read it. It doesn't matter if music goes faster than SC2 (and how do you gauge that, how many APM/notes you hit?), again that's not the point or I'm missing something. The point is that any piece of music has its limit at 100% speed; any faster is too fast. Your performance does not sound better the faster you play it (not necessarily). However, in SC2, the faster you are, the better you
wait what. i was comparing piano to sc2 based on how fast each is played at. in this regard piano beats sc2 hands doen because the actions are memorized. you, however, are comparing the fact that piano playing sounds bad when you play it fast to the fact the sc2 there is no limit. well guess what idgaf if piano playing sounds bad you still play it faster than sc2... thats like saying an elephant is weaker than an ant because an ant can carry 50x its own body weight while the elehant cannot. too bad the elephant is still stronger than the ant.
On October 08 2011 05:54 Hapahauli wrote: OP's Note: While I make explicit references and criticisms of certain TL posts, it is not my intention to be insulting or "call someone out." I simply want to start a discussion on practice methods in Starcraft.
I: Introduction
Recently, qxc posted a blog on Starcraft Training DBZ Style, which was spotlighted on the TL front page. For those of you who haven't read it, qxc theorizes about a form of speed-training - increasing the speed of the game in a UMS map to improve one's mechanics.
As someone who has an extensive background in piano and music education, I'm very surprised to see a professional player take this attitude towards practicing Starcraft (my original response), and I wanted to start a discussion on practice myths and methods in Starcraft 2. I've always considered mechanical skills on a musical instrument and a computer keyboard to be fundamentally similar, yet qxc's post goes against a lot of standards in music education.
Technical skill in music and Starcraft both rely on having good muscle memory, yet the conventional wisdom of practicing music and Starcraft couldn't be more different. Some of these differences will be revealed below.
II: Practice in Music
By understanding how a musician approaches a new piece, we can better understand how we can learn to approach learning Starcraft mechanics. For example, when a professional musician approaches a new piece of music, these are the steps usually taken:
1) Break up the piece into smaller, simpler sections. 2) Practice each section slowly with an emphasis on proper technique and efficiency. 3) Put all the smaller sections together at a slow tempo. 4) Gradually bring the piece up to proper speed. 5) Polish the finished product.
While variations my exist amongst different musicians, the core concepts remain. There is an emphasis on slow, mechanical mastery before all else. You will rarely see a good musician start learning a piece by beginning to play it at full speed.
Yet many posts, including qxc's blog, emphasize the exact opposite. That somehow, playing full-speed games, or even artificially faster games, will improve your Starcraft skill.
III: Practice Myths in Starcraft
A quick TL search for a typical "help me improve" post reveals much about the conventional wisdom of Starcraft practice.
If macro is what you want to focus on, you want to focus on playing more games.
This is the most common advice I see, and to me, is also the most shocking. A lot of TL'ers think that by playing more games, you will eventually get better at the game. While there is some truth to it, I argue that this is nowhere near efficient.
Telling one of my beginner piano students to practice a piece by playing it at full speed multiple times would be horrible advice. They would barely be able to coordinate themselves properly, and if by some miracle they learn the piece, they would undoubtedly play it sloppily.
Yet this is exactly the advice I see being given to Starcraft beginners over and over again.
Something that helps me a lot with my macro is just to go 1v1 against the AI
Another bit of advice that surprises me. It still suggests that a beginner should repeatedly play games at full speed. Not only this, but it suggests that we play games against an unrealistic opponent. A computer is not a human, so what is the sense in playing against builds you will never see?
Play against the computer to concentrate on macro and injects.
Now we're getting somewhere. The idea of focused practice has been mentioned by authorities such as Day[9], and I believe this a step in the right direction. However, I think this doesn't go far enough.
IV: Practice Propositions
My ideal practice method would draw as many influences from music education as possible. As an example, what if we approached a new build-order in the same way that musicians approached new music?
1) Break down the build into "phases." For example, a beginning (up until you establish your main production structures), a middle (macroing out of your base production structures), and an end (your late-game plan and tech tree). 2) Establish your "macro cycles" for each phase. Hash out exactly what buttons you will be pressing in your typical macro cycle for each phase. 3) Practice this slowly until you are comfortable with the mechanics. 4) Gradually speed it up. 5) Polish against real human opponents.
In addition, just like a musician devotes a significant amount of practice time to mechanics/technique (scales, arpeggios, and the like), why not devote a bit of your time to practicing macro mechanics as a Starcraft player? For example, perhaps a Zerg player should devote ten minutes of their time at the beginning of every session to practice larvae-inject mechanics.
V: Questions and Discussion
So TeamLiquid, how do you practice Starcraft? I'd be especially interested in hearing the opinions of some high ranked/professional players.
Do you think there is any "practice wisdom" to be gained from music education?
As a professional trumpet player for many years, I'm quite surprised to see this claim Perhaps it's because you play the piano, and not a wind instrument. It simply doesn't do much good to play your scales at one speed only. Yes, you want to rehearse a piece at the proper speed, but when practicing your mechanics, sometimes the only way to raise your skill is to play it as fast as possible without error.
Despite this, it never makes sense to play something "faster" if it causes you to make mistakes or take shortcuts. This is where I find a flaw in qxc's post, and agree with you on your point. I think you are confusing technique with preparation, though when drawing analogies with music. I can't tell you how impressed I am when I meet a Trombone player who can play Donna Lee.
Starcraft is very different to playing music, if you play on a slower speed or something to practice instead of just playing properly all of your timings are going to be completely wrong. Also imagine the difference you'll feel when playing a slow speed then having to transition to the standard starcraft speed, that is something you would have to get used to and you'll be wasting time on that transition. Also regarding efficiency you will play more games if you play at a faster speed so will get more practice in. To add more to the efficiency point I don't think many people would be able to constantly put 100% effort into playing vs the computer too, I know I couldn't.
I've never tried this so I guess I cannot know for certain but I know that when I started I just went straight for playing vs real opponents, tried out all the different races while doing this, and tried out different strats vs real opponents too, and I'm almost sure that this was better for me than playing how you suggest.
And lastly, it's a freaking game! It should be fun, and to me practicing at a slow speed vs the computer does not sound fun!
Coming from a background in music (playing drums since 10 years), phyiscal activities such as dancing and martial arts (~5 years) and coaching things like speaking in front of 100+ audiances, tradional softskills etc. I'd like to add a few cents to this whole discussion.
Some posts here showed a pretty weak understanding of how learning and/or practicing in general works. =P
1) "The goal of music is to play at a set tempo while the goal of Starcraft is to play as fast as possible"
False. Every single physical activity (from martial arts and boxing to swimming, from running all the way to speaking in front of people, playing music and starcraft) has a rhythm.
Ryhthm is everywhere. At the lowest stages of a strong martial arts training you practice every step at once, you practice the timing of your actions. Boxers don't hit as fast as they can, they first memorize the correct technique of how to hit - which will then slowly be practised more till it becomes muscle-memory.
Starcraft is in fact a very rhythmic game. If you try to execute everything as fast as you can, you will end up learning mistakes. You will memorize wrong behavior. It is VERY easy to hit a punching bag quickly for a beginner - however if he works on hitting it quickly he will never achieve the speed of e.g. a WT practicioner who practiced chain hits starting with a very slow speed and perfect technique.
Steps like Check Minerals / Gas -> Check supply -> build workers -> build units -> build buildings scout -> move units -> Check Minerals / Gas -> etc. are a ryhthm.
Someone who checks Minerals/Gas, then builds workers, then scouts, then builds units then checks his minerals/gas, then builds buildings would be the example of an inefficient rhythm.
To achieve maximum speed in a game like starcraft you have to develop the most effective pattern to spend your time. - You learn such a pattern by consciously (!!) going through it step by step, again and again until it becomes second nature.
The simple fact that there is no "common knowledge" on how to "correctly" do stuff like this, or even how to simple as **** things like 1a2a3a4a (e.g. 1a3a2a4a is slightly faster because of less finger movement involved. Is it a tiny amount of time? Yes. Do people use it? No. Apparently small edges like this aren't needed.) shows us that Starcraft (and e-sports in general) are not developed enough yet to have working standards in certain aspects. - This is also why I would take habits "professionals" show us in their practice with a grain of salt.
tl;dr: Ryhthm > speed. Speed is the result of a well-practiced rhythm, not the starting point.
2) "Practice in a low-stress environment will fail you in a high-stress environment"
Wrong. Practice in a low-stress environment gives you all the skills needed to succeed in a high-stress environment.
Let's take public speaking for an example. If I want to teach someone who's rather shy but suddenly in a public position how to speak in front of 300 people I would not (costs aside) put him infront of 1000 people and let him "just speak" there. He would simply crack down under pressure and will have more stage-fright than before.
Instead, I'd take him to a group of people with a similar interest (same fears and thoughtprocesses) and let him speak in front of those 10 people. Then we would work on his way of speaking and then, once I'm fine with him, we'd record the thing and show him the video. Taddaaa, his skill and self-confidence is increased and he'll be way more comfortable in front of e.g. 100 people than before.
Another example would be the martial artist who practices first under a very controlled environment, once he got the basics down people will do stress-exercises with him - then he'll be ready for "real" self-defense.
Oh, wait, stress-exercise? - Yup, you read correctly. The ability to do well under pressure is a skill on its own. (Dingdingding!)
If you do great in 1n1's and on the ladder, you won't automatically beat the same people in a tournament setting (hi Infernal <3). Practicing how you do under pressure and high-stress is a skill that has to be learned individually (or by failing enough tournaments), how to do that would be too much for this short thingy though.
3) "But.. but... Koreans massgame, too!"
No. Not that way. You're comparing apples and oranges. (Or rice and potatoes, huehue)
Person A massgames in a controlled environment. He has someone watching him who ensures that he follows set patterns (see #1) which they worked out together beforehand. If there are certain weaknesses in his build, timing or micro you grab another dude from your team who has a similar issue and then let them clash heads until they can do the thing they sucked at better than before.
Person B plays 30 games per day.
Person A is your average Korean Progamer, Person B is the average western dude who asked "How should I improve my game?" and got the answer "Go play mass games!"
Whatever skill you're working on in life, simply doing it over and over again without a real plan or reflection will lead to failure. (Yes, that's something I learned in both Starcraft and picking up women. =D)
4) "But..but... you don't practice decision making that way!"
Strong decisionmaking is, once again, a result, not a point to start off.
Let's say you played 1-2 laddergames, you weren't happy with those games at all. Your build should work in theory our ryhthm sucked, your timing sucked and you made horribly decisions.
Let's say you... ...refined your build and stole it directly from a top korean pro of your choice. ...worked on your larvae injections/macro/mules/whatever till they are FUCKING BOSS. ...stutterstepped on micro maps till you could beat everyone with 2 marines in 2011.
NOW IS THE POINT TO ACTIVELY WORK ON YOUR DECISION MAKING.
Would you have won games earlier with a better decisionmaking? Yes. Would you have (attention plz!!) won games where you had correct decision making, but shitty mechanics? No.
There is no fucking point in a great plan if you can't execute it. Unless you're a coach. Then you get that privilege.
-------------------------------------------------
After this wall of text I'd like to add that I fully endorse the OP, I feel that a discussion like this is long overdue. Way too many "young" activities rely on people claming that "just doing a lot of it" is the holy grail - while that statement is pretty far from the truth.
Feel free to shout out any questions concerning the points I made, I'll keep checking this thread for a while. =)
Edit: What I meant by "working standards" in #1, refers to things like there is no "commonly accepted" way of which finger should hit which hotkey in which order for maximum efficiency. A thing like this would be not acceptable at all when it comes to typing or playing the piano. --> starcraft and e-sports aren't refined yet.
Interesting post . I’d say there aren’t many standards because it’s a competition - if you think you've discovered more efficient way of doing something you want to keep it to yourself. Progamers probably have their "SC2 notebooks" but I don't think they want to spend their time making "the ultimate SC2 notebook", especially when you consider the balance and all the possible future balance changes (I have some extreme ideas about SC2 :D).
I like the idea of keyboard rhythm. I'm extremely slow, have small hands, constricting PC space and so on so I tried to change my hotkeys so that I don't have to move the my wrist at all. The core is to move 1-5 to Q-T and 6-0 to 1-5. On the other hand, hotkeys of one group such as a production building might require some spacing, depending on how many fingers you need to use and how does it "feel". It might be better to have hotkeys in a way that you make logical circles. Then again, figuring this out depends on personal preference but might also lead to an advantage. It seems like a lot of work with very little personal gain once it becomes generally known so it has to be supported by money which leads me to the whole consumerism issue of making things in life more complicated than they are and putting pressure on the participants (sportswear, job positions accompanying a sport... and the impact of lack of thereof on the sportsperson).
It’s probably better to learn how to play without cutting corners, even if that means slowly, then start consciously cutting corners when and where it’s beneficial (microing 10 units while banking money isn’t a good trade). But I wouldn’t say you need a lot of APM to do that. It’s about playing consistently, without mistakes and with consistent decision-making and oftentimes with the better build order. While the actual APM might be lower the “weight” of the APM is important. You won’t smash though a bracket of several good players just by playing fast. With all the luck involved I feel like the core is to be prepared for as much as possible so that when you scout your reactions are not just faster but also very specific and appropriate. I can't think of a good way how to practise improvisation...
On October 09 2011 21:11 Ziktomini wrote:Starcraft is very different to playing music, if you play on a slower speed or something to practice instead of just playing properly all of your timings are going to be completely wrong. Also imagine the difference you'll feel when playing a slow speed then having to transition to the standard starcraft speed, that is something you would have to get used to and you'll be wasting time on that transition. Also regarding efficiency you will play more games if you play at a faster speed so will get more practice in. To add more to the efficiency point I don't think many people would be able to constantly put 100% effort into playing vs the computer too, I know I couldn't.
I've never tried this so I guess I cannot know for certain but I know that when I started I just went straight for playing vs real opponents, tried out all the different races while doing this, and tried out different strats vs real opponents too, and I'm almost sure that this was better for me than playing how you suggest.
And lastly, it's a freaking game! It should be fun, and to me practicing at a slow speed vs the computer does not sound fun!
I've addressed a lot of the concerns in your post in previous replies, and since a lot of these points keep popping up, I added a section addressing common counter-arguments in my OP.
Starcraft is very different to playing music...
You're focusing on irrelevant differences. Starcraft and music are fundamentally similar in that they involve the act of learning a new skill. I could make the analogy with almost any other field/skill/sport. The point is that the act of learning new skills is very similar and well established in fields other than Starcraft, yet people dismiss these methods out of Starcraft traditionalism and myth.
I've never tried this so I guess I cannot know for certain but I know that when I started I just went straight for playing vs real opponents, tried out all the different races while doing this, and tried out different strats vs real opponents too, and I'm almost sure that this was better for me than playing how you suggest.
Its great that mass gaming worked out for you, but what I suggest has been proven in other fields to work even better. I think its rather shortsighted to dismiss something without even trying it.
Plus, its not like I'm suggesting you should never ever play games. Rather, I only encourage you to take a new approach when learning a new build, or perhaps refining your mechanics.
And lastly, it's a freaking game! It should be fun, and to me practicing at a slow speed vs the computer does not sound fun!
Some of us enjoy getting better at games! Do we insult the football player running sprints up and down a field because he's taking a game seriously? Of course not!
I respect your attitudes and priorities to the game of Starcraft, but don't assume that everyone feels the same way.
On October 10 2011 14:17 aksfjh wrote: I agree with this, but it runs into a fundamental problem. How do you practice mid or late game decisions and execution without mass gaming?
I'm not suggesting that one completely abandon mass-gaming. Rather, I'm simply encouraging people to take a different attitude when learning a new build or improving one's macro technique. If you devote some of your practice time to slow, mechanical mastery, you'll learn mechanics faster and better, allowing you more time and in-game concentration to focus on strategic decisions.
Maybe you should put in a TL DR at the top, something like:
The point is that (keyword) mindless (keyword) mass gaming isn't an optimal use of time, rather you should break the game down and practice the smaller pieces
Great post btw, I agree completely, even as an amateur of both.
I definitively agree that mindless mass games are not the way to go. Whenever i start laddering i always look at the replays that i lost. Today i lost a game against a terran. i looked at the replay saw that i was floating minerals and i said to myself i could have invested this in robo tech and gotten collosus this way his ghost would be less effective vs my high templars. The next game was the same map and matchup, i didn't float my minerals as much and was able to invest in collo to win me the game.
The problem with slowing down game speed and focusing on different things is that it can take the fun out of it. lets face it how many of us are going to be programmers. I think mass-gaming with watching replays is the most fun way for noobs like us to ladder and improve.
What's wrong with mass gaming and then looking at your replays to see where you played wrong and then improve on it? Seems like a legitimate way to practice to me.
EDIT: To all those people who think playing on the "normal" or "slow" speed is a good idea: you're a moron. "Hey guys lets practice some basketball but theres no running, you have to walk!"
Edit2: adding more analogies for "slow" people to understand. "Hey guys lets play football but in wheel chairs!" "Hey guys lets play chess without the queens!" "Hey guys lets practice NASCAR racing but only drive at 20mph!" "Hey guys lets practice hockey without a goalie!"
When you remove a key element of the game, or slow it down, you're playing an entirely different game.
Crawl before you run only applies in certain situations, SC2 is not one of them.
^Has never played on a basketball team. Breaking down plays very slowly, where the coach literally walks each position through what they will do when the PG calls a play was commonplace. I'm not addressing whether or not your point is correct but you might not want to call someone a moron when your analogy is ridiculously moronic.
Practicing builds against the AI was how I improved significantly. It literally became secondary to build probes and pylons and to constantly be spending minerals. What I do is perhaps ridiculously over-the-top but I would watch Huk's replays. I then looked at his openings and copied down the food supply as well as the in-game time. I'd look at multiple replays of the same build, get an average for those times and start programming into me with a combination of 1v1s and practice against the AI.
Very helpful. I can't mass game as much as I want to and I do not enjoy it but it works.
Why post an edit when you can post an actual post? Rather chicken-shit.
Football players: defensive and offensive line practice against dummies, quarterbacks practice throwing without any harassment and widereceivers do run patterns all day in practice. This is called practicing a single thing so that it becomes routine so that you actually think about other things while executing it.
Same with anything else you've listed: chess players consume entire texts about single openings, responses to secondary moves, etc, etc, etc. One method that I observed was reducing the amount of time each person had to make a move so as to make them constantly be thinking so that when the game goes at the actual speed, that faster thought process is retained. NASCAR and F1 are literally the places where restrictor plates are involved lol so this is just about the dumbest one you could've thrown out there. And yeah, hockey:
You're truly an inspiration. While I do not use slow or normal, I am not going to bash someone for wanting to slow the game down so that they can look at the game clock, look at their supply and execute things at a speed they can manage until they get better at it. Hell, macro trainer starts off with normal and that can be a bitch for most people.
My best advice for you is to chill and think with an open mind.
BTW this reminds me of the typical film fencing scene when the teacher throws the student a weapon and shouts "defend yourself!" That's not how it works, you need to learn the basic attack and defence routines, then you practice in controlled environment (exchanging 3 attacks in pairs), learn to attack quickly while being able to stop your weapon, and so on. Only then is it safe to start an “actual” fight. I’m not making fun of the bronze league but those crazy matches, crazy compositions and weird timings, that’s like watching a fencing match of two people who know nothing about fencing – there is no technique, it makes little sense and can end pretty badly. On the other hand, two good players/fencers can be much more predictable until one of them shows better prowess/counters the routine he was able to anticipate. A master vs. newbie fight can end quickly if the master executes even the simplest routine, yet defending a newbie can be dangerous as they’re timings are off, they can surprise with something crazy. So making your play much more structural and refined makes it open to counterattacks from the more experienced but in most cases a well executed attack routine will defeat the people who “just play”.
Anyway, I'm more interested in the rhythmical aspect of it, what's the best mental and mechanical cycle, how to spread out/group up hotkeys and such . That's something very specific you can work with.
On October 10 2011 15:34 Mr.SoloDolo wrote: What's wrong with mass gaming and then looking at your replays to see where you played wrong and then improve on it? Seems like a legitimate way to practice to me.
EDIT: To all those people who think playing on the "normal" or "slow" speed is a good idea: you're a moron. "Hey guys lets practice some basketball but theres no running, you have to walk!"
Edit2: adding more analogies for "slow" people to understand. "Hey guys lets play football but in wheel chairs!" "Hey guys lets play chess without the queens!" "Hey guys lets practice NASCAR racing but only drive at 20mph!" "Hey guys lets practice hockey without a goalie!"
When you remove a key element of the game, or slow it down, you're playing an entirely different game.
Crawl before you run only applies in certain situations, SC2 is not one of them.
Those are awfully twisted analogies and completely miss the point of my argument. Your comparisons seem to believe that I advocate playing "slow" in actual competitions, which is wildly off base. I only advocate playing slow in practice.
But here, let me fix those analogies for you.
"Hey guys lets play in the NFL even though I can barely run a mile and weigh 130 pounds." "Hey guys lets play chess without knowing how the pieces move!" "Hey guys lets practice NASCAR racing even though we never took the time to learn how to drive!" "Hey guys, let's play full contact hockey even though I can't even stand straight on ice-skates!"
The point is, if you ever want to be able to do something at a sufficiently high level, you have to train the basics at some point. If you took these practice analogies to any professional athlete, they'd laugh at you and lecture you about the thousands of hours they spent in practice honing their skills.
By far the most effective way of training a new skill is to focus on slow, mechanical mastery. This is well established in all professional sports, and for some reason, isn't followed in Starcraft.
But all of this should have been evident if you actually read my OP. Clearly I assume too much sometimes.
There are similiraties in learning music / learning starcraft but you cannot close your eyes on some crucial differences that can change the practice efficiency. I'm talking about the replays. In music, teachers have a very important role because they can analyze the student's performance from another point of view, they have some sort of distance with the situation that help them spot the mistakes and various inaccuracies that the student can do. In SC2, you do not have any teacher, the only teacher you have is yourself. The replays must be used to compensate that absence. You can play your partition at real speed against real opponents, do atrocious mistakes without realising it, then you lose. When do you lose in music ? When do you know that you failed ? Bnet tells us that in a 100% accurate way. So when you lose, you can analyze your replay, see all the mistakes you didn't realise you made, think of a way to fix that then apply the lesson you gave yourself for the next games. Spotting all the similarities is very bad if you don't take in acount all the crucial differences between those 2 medias. You are your own teacher and Replays are the most efficient tool to improve in my opinion. It teaches far more than repetiting some moves out of context. Because context is everything in SC2. Starsense doesn't grow by itself, you have to play a lot to get better judgements and reactions on your plays. Just my 2 cents
On October 10 2011 23:09 Desert Fox wrote: You're speaking of dusting. Most people are not at that level yet where they should be worrying about starsense.
Oh I just realised the non sense of this thread : The OP talk about LEARNING starcraft and compares his approach to qxc approach to IMPROVE at starcraft. Yes, if you never played starcraft before, play some games vs AI and practice builds order over and over and learn to get to 200 food without supply blok, learn every unit and shortcuts of the game, watch some pro plays and BO then go hit the ladder. If you are Diamond-Master, Play a lot and analyse your replays.
On October 10 2011 15:34 Mr.SoloDolo wrote: What's wrong with mass gaming and then looking at your replays to see where you played wrong and then improve on it? Seems like a legitimate way to practice to me.
EDIT: To all those people who think playing on the "normal" or "slow" speed is a good idea: you're a moron. "Hey guys lets practice some basketball but theres no running, you have to walk!"
Edit2: adding more analogies for "slow" people to understand. "Hey guys lets play football but in wheel chairs!" "Hey guys lets play chess without the queens!" "Hey guys lets practice NASCAR racing but only drive at 20mph!" "Hey guys lets practice hockey without a goalie!"
When you remove a key element of the game, or slow it down, you're playing an entirely different game.
Crawl before you run only applies in certain situations, SC2 is not one of them.
Typical learner books on chess often have exercises that involve a subset of the pieces. For instance using a bishop, knight and a king vs a lonely king is actually quite hard. To be able to practice it you have to start out with a subset of the pieces, or you won't know how to do it when it occurs, which is bloody hard if you haven't tried to do it in practice.
The same goes for micro/macro tricks. Just learning how to macro using only hotkeys or learning how to micro is something that can be done a lot faster if you can focus on that one thing.
Let's say you want to learn marine+marauder+medivac+viking micro vs a zealot+stalker+sentry+colosuss-ball. You can either have a huge macro game that ends up in the ball vs ball 20% of the time and takes 30 minutes, or you can setup the game and redo the same battle over and over again until you can micro it.
I think there is truth to this the only problem though is i think that it WON'T BE FUN, the fun factor is often what makes people come back and play more. If you give a noob a few boring steps to get better he is probably not gonna go through with it and might even quit the game thinking that this is the only way to advance. If you could make that kind of training fun however it will be a huge success, unlikely as that may be.
On October 10 2011 23:09 Desert Fox wrote: You're speaking of dusting. Most people are not at that level yet where they should be worrying about starsense.
Oh I just realised the non sense of this thread : The OP talk about LEARNING starcraft and compares his approach to qxc approach to IMPROVE at starcraft. Yes, if you never played starcraft before, play some games vs AI and practice builds order over and over and learn to get to 200 food without supply blok, learn every unit and shortcuts of the game, watch some pro plays and BO then go hit the ladder. If you are Diamond-Master, Play a lot and analyse your replays.
Almost, but not quite.
I am indeed talking about learning Starcraft, however, I don't limit this to beginners. The learning process extends far beyond a Starcraft beginner; players of all skill levels have things to improve on and learn in their game.
Unless you have perfect mechanics (If you're not named Flash or Jaedong, you don't), slow mechanical practice is a great way to improve your game and will lead to much bigger gains in skill than simple mass-gaming. There definitely is a place for mass gaming in practice - it is an excellent way to practice decision making - but don't use it as a way to improve your mechanics. Balance is key.
I also argue that qxc's approach is a bad idea for improvement. For those without perfect mechanics, playing something artificially fast leads to learning bad habits. Qxc's post is only acceptable in the theoretical sense and assumes perfect mechanics/technique.
On October 10 2011 23:28 Tedde93 wrote: I think there is truth to this the only problem though is i think that it WON'T BE FUN, the fun factor is often what makes people come back and play more. If you give a noob a few boring steps to get better he is probably not gonna go through with it and might even quit the game thinking that this is the only way to advance. If you could make that kind of training fun however it will be a huge success, unlikely as that may be.
Nonsense! I know plenty beginners who mass-game, get frustrated that they keep losing, and ragequit. I'm simply suggesting that if you devote a small bit of your time to mechanical practice (even 5-10 minutes before every session!), you'll get better. Much better.
On October 10 2011 23:09 Desert Fox wrote: You're speaking of dusting. Most people are not at that level yet where they should be worrying about starsense.
Oh I just realised the non sense of this thread : The OP talk about LEARNING starcraft and compares his approach to qxc approach to IMPROVE at starcraft. Yes, if you never played starcraft before, play some games vs AI and practice builds order over and over and learn to get to 200 food without supply blok, learn every unit and shortcuts of the game, watch some pro plays and BO then go hit the ladder. If you are Diamond-Master, Play a lot and analyse your replays.
Almost, but not quite.
I am indeed talking about learning Starcraft, however, I don't limit this to beginners. The learning process extends far beyond a Starcraft beginner; players of all skill levels have things to improve on and learn in their game.
Unless you have perfect mechanics (If you're not named Flash or Jaedong, you don't), slow mechanical practice is a great way to improve your game and will lead to much bigger gains in skill than simple mass-gaming. There definitely is a place for mass gaming in practice - it is an excellent way to practice decision making - but don't use it as a way to improve your mechanics. Balance is key.
I also argue that qxc's approach is a bad idea for improvement. For those without perfect mechanics, playing something artificially fast leads to learning bad habits. Qxc's post is only acceptable in the theoretical sense and assumes perfect mechanics/technique.
On October 10 2011 23:28 Tedde93 wrote: I think there is truth to this the only problem though is i think that it WON'T BE FUN, the fun factor is often what makes people come back and play more. If you give a noob a few boring steps to get better he is probably not gonna go through with it and might even quit the game thinking that this is the only way to advance. If you could make that kind of training fun however it will be a huge success, unlikely as that may be.
Nonsense! I know plenty beginners who mass-game, get frustrated that they keep losing, and ragequit. I'm simply suggesting that if you devote a small bit of your time to mechanical practice (even 5-10 minutes before every session!), you'll get better. Much better.
Winning is very fun.
Yes but you won't win games since the amount of normal games you play is cut by a third to half if you spend 5-10 minutes before each game and the blizzard ladder system is made so you have an average of 50% win ratio.
On October 10 2011 23:09 Desert Fox wrote: You're speaking of dusting. Most people are not at that level yet where they should be worrying about starsense.
Oh I just realised the non sense of this thread : The OP talk about LEARNING starcraft and compares his approach to qxc approach to IMPROVE at starcraft. Yes, if you never played starcraft before, play some games vs AI and practice builds order over and over and learn to get to 200 food without supply blok, learn every unit and shortcuts of the game, watch some pro plays and BO then go hit the ladder. If you are Diamond-Master, Play a lot and analyse your replays.
Almost, but not quite.
I am indeed talking about learning Starcraft, however, I don't limit this to beginners. The learning process extends far beyond a Starcraft beginner; players of all skill levels have things to improve on and learn in their game.
Unless you have perfect mechanics (If you're not named Flash or Jaedong, you don't), slow mechanical practice is a great way to improve your game and will lead to much bigger gains in skill than simple mass-gaming. There definitely is a place for mass gaming in practice - it is an excellent way to practice decision making - but don't use it as a way to improve your mechanics. Balance is key.
I also argue that qxc's approach is a bad idea for improvement. For those without perfect mechanics, playing something artificially fast leads to learning bad habits. Qxc's post is only acceptable in the theoretical sense and assumes perfect mechanics/technique.
On October 10 2011 23:28 Tedde93 wrote: I think there is truth to this the only problem though is i think that it WON'T BE FUN, the fun factor is often what makes people come back and play more. If you give a noob a few boring steps to get better he is probably not gonna go through with it and might even quit the game thinking that this is the only way to advance. If you could make that kind of training fun however it will be a huge success, unlikely as that may be.
Nonsense! I know plenty beginners who mass-game, get frustrated that they keep losing, and ragequit. I'm simply suggesting that if you devote a small bit of your time to mechanical practice (even 5-10 minutes before every session!), you'll get better. Much better.
Winning is very fun.
Yes but you won't win games since the amount of normal games you play is cut by a third to half if you spend 5-10 minutes before each game and the blizzard ladder system is made so you have an average of 50% win ratio.
Just so you know, I'm suggesting 5-10 minutes before every session, not every game. Also, what if we continuously improve? Our ladder record will be above 50% for sure. Lastly, there are other criteria of victory beyond the ladder, such as playing vs. friends and such.
Well if you want to play on slow go ahead, it's your time, waste it however you want. You have no evidence it's better than training on "faster", other than an analogy to learning music.
QXC's training method and your training method both have the same amount of empirical evidence: none.
I'm not going to bother arguing with you if you honestly believe playing on slow is more effective. Why am I not going to bother? Because if you believe something without any evidence you're an illogical person and you can't use reason with illogical people.
On October 10 2011 23:28 Tedde93 wrote: I think there is truth to this the only problem though is i think that it WON'T BE FUN, the fun factor is often what makes people come back and play more. If you give a noob a few boring steps to get better he is probably not gonna go through with it and might even quit the game thinking that this is the only way to advance. If you could make that kind of training fun however it will be a huge success, unlikely as that may be.
this is a pretty horrible mindset. improving and bettering oneself is what many people consider to be fun. people get enjoyment out of knowing that they are getting better at something because of their hard work and determination. if they quit just because they are bored, they aren't the types of people who are likely to improve anyway. "rome wasn't build in a day."
it's not about having fun doing the practice. sure, that would be a bonus, but the fun comes from winning. winning feels the absolute best if you feel like you earned it, wouldn't you say?
On October 10 2011 23:28 Tedde93 wrote: I think there is truth to this the only problem though is i think that it WON'T BE FUN, the fun factor is often what makes people come back and play more. If you give a noob a few boring steps to get better he is probably not gonna go through with it and might even quit the game thinking that this is the only way to advance. If you could make that kind of training fun however it will be a huge success, unlikely as that may be.
this is a pretty horrible mindset. improving and bettering oneself is what many people consider to be fun. people get enjoyment out of knowing that they are getting better at something because of their hard work and determination. if they quit just because they are bored, they aren't the types of people who are likely to improve anyway. "rome wasn't build in a day."
it's not about having fun doing the practice. sure, that would be a bonus, but the fun comes from winning. winning feels the absolute best if you feel like you earned it, wouldn't you say?
Mindsets are just mindsets man, kinda like the stuff betty white says.
Completely ignoring the strategic aspect of SC2, this thread does have many good points. Having been classically trained in piano for 12 years I have to admit there have been times where Ive felt the similarities of my SC2 mechanical practices to my days of driving my parents crazy with the cacophony that was being generated on the piano growing up.
So looking at it from purely a mechanical sense, his points on segmenting the games into different phases is in the right direction. I think I would describe it more like segmenting the game into snapshot scenarios. You're probably wondering what does that mean? Here's an example, instead of playing games on the ladder where any thing in the entire spectrum of strategy can happen from game to game, practice with a partner or even a map trainer certain scenarios. This is more focused training. Say in ZvZ, practice ling bane exchanges over and over until you get this "rhythm" of injecting and moving and detonating down. Or it's getting the unsiege and then sieging tanks while running/splitting marines back to tank line motion fluid and fast. Or feedbacking ghost/medivacs while blink microing stalkers. It's this specific kind of focused mechanical training that creates the motor memory which makes it second nature.
So drawing back to the music analogy for you piano folks, it's like doing rote exercises of Hanon or Czerny. These are snippets of music designed to train your hand to play certain runs fluidly and in control. The key though is that they are meant to be played as fast as possible under control. Eventually the muscles in your hand will react instantly (without hesitation or fatigue) and can be applied to any piece of music. These exercises are more analogous to SC2 than playing a piece of music because of the removal of tempo or dynamic limitations (to QXC's point).
There are so many threads talking about strats all the time, but in the end, the mechanical mastery is really what separates the pros from the average GM player. Add in strategic mastery and then you have a top pro.
On October 11 2011 09:36 Mr.SoloDolo wrote: Well if you want to play on slow go ahead, it's your time, waste it however you want. You have no evidence it's better than training on "faster", other than an analogy to learning music.
You confuse burden of proof. I offered my analogy to music (and sports), yet you dismiss it on completely unstated grounds. As state explicitly in my OP:
"Learning Starcraft and music are fundamentally the same because they involve learning a new skill. This learning process is common and well-established in many other fields (sports, music, etc.), but for some reason, hasn't carried over to Starcraft."
Is this analogy insufficient? How so? I am open to all rational criticism, however, I can't sufficiently reply if you don't provide an actual argument.
QXC's training method and your training method both have the same amount of empirical evidence: none.
I offer evidence from other fields via. analogy. If you would like some reading material (read: "empirical evidence"), I point you to the following resources:
This of course assumes my music analogy, and all other analogies concerning learning processes, hold true. You are more than welcome to try and discredit them, but they are rather well-accepted and well-founded in academia.
I'm not going to bother arguing with you if you honestly believe playing on slow is more effective. Why am I not going to bother? Because if you believe something without any evidence you're an illogical person and you can't use reason with illogical people.
Mr.SoloDolo, you seem like a well-spoken individual, and I do believe that we can have a rational debate on this subject. However, I do find it a bit ironic that you're using ad hominem attacks while accusing me of being illogical.
It's a cool post and all, and I agree, but unfortunately I feel like it only carries so far. "perfect macro" or near perfect macro as well can only go so far: 10-15 minutes into the game. Forgive me for not reading all 8 pages, but I feel like most people are arguing/discussing the validity of the practice regiment itself, not it's applications. Just to make it clear, I think the beginning stages of learning how to play should be lots and lots of games against the computer at fast then faster speed. I myself placed low gold, then proceeded to played nothing but 1v1 computer games for weeks, and came back top plat before I hit another block.
Maybe you would agree, but I feel like the time saved or "worth it" factor isn't as great here as it is in music, or the simple fact that we're playing sc2. We're playing against someone else, not ourselves. A music player ALWAYS knows exactly how the piece should sound. It's very straight forward compared to sc2, where the variety of strategies and tactics make the game spiral out of control very fast. It becomes very reactive play, and you simply can't practice that way against a computer. Even if you could simulate 1 strategy or opening, the things that can happen in a game exponentially increase as the game progresses, and it just makes more sense to mass games.
I still playing on adjusted settings no matter what would be awesome. I just can't imagine how grueling it would be to play 100 games with a practice partner on slow speed and have to go through that early game every single time.
To me, this "DBZ style training" is targeted practice, which you do condone. It's targeted towards speed and just speed, and only to a certain extent. I'm not sure about TL players, but the vast majority of SC2 players just don't click fast enough to even learn anything past what they've already learned.
I do agree with the rest of your post, but I really don't think you should dismiss qxc's idea. There's a LOT of people who have problems getting above a certain level of APM because that's what they're comfortable with, when they're not supposed to be comfortable with it. Speeding up the game seems like the perfect solution, since it'll make them very uncomfortable with their current APM and that's how it should be.
On October 10 2011 15:34 Mr.SoloDolo wrote: What's wrong with mass gaming and then looking at your replays to see where you played wrong and then improve on it? Seems like a legitimate way to practice to me.
EDIT: To all those people who think playing on the "normal" or "slow" speed is a good idea: you're a moron. "Hey guys lets practice some basketball but theres no running, you have to walk!"
Edit2: adding more analogies for "slow" people to understand. "Hey guys lets play football but in wheel chairs!" "Hey guys lets play chess without the queens!" "Hey guys lets practice NASCAR racing but only drive at 20mph!" "Hey guys lets practice hockey without a goalie!"
When you remove a key element of the game, or slow it down, you're playing an entirely different game.
Crawl before you run only applies in certain situations, SC2 is not one of them.
The first analogy was fine, but apparently coaches do walk players through plays like that to let all players know where they are meant to be at certain times I guess. Likewise NASCAR I guess...if the drivers were learning the track would drive slower at least for other kinds of driving races I believe drivers do warm up laps/practice laps at slower speeds rather than going full throttle straight away. This is fine since we are talking about practice.
The other analogies don't work because rather than affecting the speed they put a handicap onto the player to make the game harder. That kind of practice also seems fine as it forces the player/team to focus on certain aspects of the game to compensate for their deficiency and think about the game in a slightly different way. In the case of no goalie, better defending.
Practicing a new build/whatever at normal speed rather than faster might be completely valid if only to get a sense of it. No one seems to be saying practice at normal speed exclusively and then go to ladder or some tournament and rock it. Rather just begin slow and build up into faster after proper execution has been achieved at normal. Sounds perfectly reasonable and might explain why a new player can play 50 practice games on normal speed with rocks as a guard before doing placement matches.
To the OP I agree with the idea of breaking down play into smaller chunks and focus on proper execution but might disagree with the playing at a slower tempo and then to gradual speed for some elements of play like the macro mechanics mules/chrono/injects as these require the player to develop an in game sense of time which playing at slower speed could mess with unless we all purchase a metronome.
Actually, after checking out a few online metronomes, I might use something like + Show Spoiler +
On October 08 2011 10:39 ghol wrote: Great post, first of all. Secondly, to those who continue to harp on "playing for fun", why does this topic concern you? If you want to play for fun then do so, and leave the people who are interested in developing their SC2 skill efficiently to discuss various strategies for doing so.
Now insofar as the OP claims that the advice to "play more macro games" to really polish your macro is unhelpful advice for people who have macro woes, he is absolutely correct. As anybody who has studied the development of expertise (or has achieved expertise in a competitive/highly developed field) likely knows, deliberate practice of specific sub-skills is paramount to the attainment of the solid base of technical proficiency that is necessary for expert performance. That is, continual and attentive drilling of basic skills in a controlled environment (read: NOT the activity in its totality as it would be performed in competition) is far and away the most effective way to teach beginners a new skill-set, for intermediates to shore up weaknesses in their game and make measurable improvement, and for experts to retain the sharpness and crispness that makes them as good as they are.
I enjoy the musical analogy, but I think there is an even better one given the competitive nature of SC2. I myself have been training Muay Thai (a form of kickboxing, for those unawares) nigh on 6 years now, and the analogy seems strong. How do expert trainers in martial arts teach their students? Do they throw them into sparring every hour of every single session and say "use your punches more" if their punches are lacking speed/power/timing/accuracy? Do they greet their students and tell them to start sparring and "work on their speed"? No, and with good reason. This is the proposed equivalent of the mass-gaming-only approach. If one just "plays a lot" or "fights a lot", you will inevitably get better, but the atrocious mistakes you are constantly making unawares will become habitual over time with this sort of approach. Your sense of how to engage with a live opponent will certainly improve dramatically in this way, and so will your ability to "think on the fly", but this benefit could just as easily be attained through a more deliberate, sensible regimen that is focused primarily on the attainment of solid fundamentals before throwing one into the flames, as it were. The flames will come in training, obviously, but they ought to be kept at bay until the player has some notion of what they should and should not be doing, and what they need to focus on, whether this or that is good/bad execution of some action, etc, etc.
Professional boxers still drill the jab and the cross every single training session. The majority of their training is typically not sparring with live opponents. Rather, it is a far more controlled and focused drilling of various sub-skills such as different combinations of punches, footwork, head movement, and so forth. There are few if any long-lived, well-developed competitive activities that are not approached in this fashion. Music, football, basketball, boxing, MMA, golf, wrestling, Muay Thai, and even activities like chess are trained in this fashion because, quite simply, it is far and away the most effective approach for improving quickly and avoiding the pitfalls of habituating bad/inefficient technique.
Why has it not seeped in SC2, then? Well, primarily because eSports is very young in the grand scheme of things, and this sort of wisdom has yet to work its way in except perhaps in small portions of the professional community. What is and is not efficient/appropriate technique has not yet been deeply explored and laid out by long decades of competition and thought on the subject. This will change with time, and more and more the training that a would-be professional gamer, or just plain old professional gamer receives will come to resemble in many respects the same broad kind of training structure that so many other, more developed skill-oriented activities already have.
Mass gaming has its place, undoubtedly. Just as a fighter who never spars is never going to be very good a SC2 gamer that never actually plays competitive 1v1 is not going to be very good either, regardless of much deliberate practice of sub-skills they engage in. However, focusing on mass gaming only, at any level of skill is a mistake. Once you stop drilling the fundamentals, even as a professional, progress will be slowed, halted, or even somewhat reversed on the many sub-skills that are now only receiving attention in-game. The key is balancing actual practice with the sort of precise, controlled practice that will shore up and make efficient different portions of the competitor's play.
Interestingly, the only place in the SC2 world where this sort of thing is occurring to any appreciable extent is Korea. Koreans have a system left over from Brood War that employs coaches who can watch over players as they play, point out certain things that they need to work on (and thus spur the focused practice of specific sub-skills that would have eluded somebody who simply "plays a lot") and so on. This practice can be as simple as playing a custom game against an AI that sits around and never attacks while focusing on some aspect of play, or it can involve specific builds or strategies with an informed practice partner. I don't think the system in Korea is at the level of a highly developed sport as of yet, but it is far better than what most foreigners have access to. This could well be a factor in the Korean superiority on average amongst the professionals.
In summary, I think the OP is largely correct in that there is a much better way to improve effectively and quickly than what is often pandered on the strategy forums. The literature on the development of expertise points in this direction as well; just doing the activity a lot is not enough when a field becomes developed and competitive enough.
Thanks if you managed to read this entire post!
Awesome post, Ghol. I would like to add something to this analogy as well. So, my name, as one can guess, is a reference to the martial art of Jiu Jitsu. While I have also trained in Kick Boxing, Aikido, and a small amount of Muay Thai (very small, infact), my focus has been on training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for the past three years.
Our training sessions go similar to this. - Stretch out, plyometrics, ect for about 15-20 minutes. - Drill Technique and Mechanics (I use those words specifically) with a partner/partners. - Sparring (live rolling).
Let's break each point down. At the same time, I will show how each point can be translated to SC2 (at least how I see it) The Warm Up In Jiu-Jitsu, muscles need to be warmed up and loosened before the drilling takes place. This can be as simple as jumping jacks to yoga - anything to focus and ready the body, but also the mind. In SC2, I believe that this warm-up phase is also important. A quick game to get your mindset straight and your hands to recall positioning and movements, I believe, is as essential as playing a game. Sure, you can skip it, just like skipping the stretch phase before a football game. But this warm-up can get you ready for what lies ahead.
The Drill Before we even drill a new movement, we go back and do a Jiu-Jitsu style kata, call Shrimps. While this isn't required knowledge of what a Shrimp is in regards to SC2, let's just say it could be the equvilent to a macro cycle. In Jits class, this is the majority of our mat time. We take one, maybe two specific movements, and work on them. We break each movement down, into seperate sections, and work on each until we can do it while having a conversation with another person. Technical mastery of each movement is required before you are promoted to the next belt class. In SC2, drilling these mechanics and techniques are something that need to be done. Jumping into a game where you are being cannon rushed every other match doesn't teach you how to macro well. Then, the next game where you have a 30+ minute game, you don't know what to do, or how to do it properly, because your mechanics are flawed.
The Spar In class, the last portion is taking what we learned, in that class, and previous, and applying it. Or taking one part of our game, that we want to work on, and improving it. Over and over. In a live match. Where counters are forced, where techniques are pushed. Gee, that almost sounds like a SC2 game, doesn't it?
Using this model, you can have a practice partner (or partners) can help you in both circumstances. After drilling your technique and mechanics, you apply it in a real game situation, having different scenario's forced on you from your partner, to give you real-game stress. Try it, than go hit the ladder. You might be surprised.
On October 10 2011 23:09 Desert Fox wrote: You're speaking of dusting. Most people are not at that level yet where they should be worrying about starsense.
Oh I just realised the non sense of this thread : The OP talk about LEARNING starcraft and compares his approach to qxc approach to IMPROVE at starcraft. Yes, if you never played starcraft before, play some games vs AI and practice builds order over and over and learn to get to 200 food without supply blok, learn every unit and shortcuts of the game, watch some pro plays and BO then go hit the ladder. If you are Diamond-Master, Play a lot and analyse your replays.
Almost, but not quite.
I am indeed talking about learning Starcraft, however, I don't limit this to beginners. The learning process extends far beyond a Starcraft beginner; players of all skill levels have things to improve on and learn in their game.
Unless you have perfect mechanics (If you're not named Flash or Jaedong, you don't), slow mechanical practice is a great way to improve your game and will lead to much bigger gains in skill than simple mass-gaming. There definitely is a place for mass gaming in practice - it is an excellent way to practice decision making - but don't use it as a way to improve your mechanics. Balance is key.
I also argue that qxc's approach is a bad idea for improvement. For those without perfect mechanics, playing something artificially fast leads to learning bad habits. Qxc's post is only acceptable in the theoretical sense and assumes perfect mechanics/technique.
On October 10 2011 23:28 Tedde93 wrote: I think there is truth to this the only problem though is i think that it WON'T BE FUN, the fun factor is often what makes people come back and play more. If you give a noob a few boring steps to get better he is probably not gonna go through with it and might even quit the game thinking that this is the only way to advance. If you could make that kind of training fun however it will be a huge success, unlikely as that may be.
Nonsense! I know plenty beginners who mass-game, get frustrated that they keep losing, and ragequit. I'm simply suggesting that if you devote a small bit of your time to mechanical practice (even 5-10 minutes before every session!), you'll get better. Much better.
Winning is very fun.
Yes but you won't win games since the amount of normal games you play is cut by a third to half if you spend 5-10 minutes before each game and the blizzard ladder system is made so you have an average of 50% win ratio.
Just so you know, I'm suggesting 5-10 minutes before every session, not every game. Also, what if we continuously improve? Our ladder record will be above 50% for sure. Lastly, there are other criteria of victory beyond the ladder, such as playing vs. friends and such.
I don't really see what you could achieve in 5-10 min a day (I play at most a session a day, maybe not true for others) and besides that playing/winning against friends is almost only fun if you are at equal skill level.
I've never tried this so I guess I cannot know for certain but I know that when I started I just went straight for playing vs real opponents, tried out all the different races while doing this, and tried out different strats vs real opponents too, and I'm almost sure that this was better for me than playing how you suggest.
Its great that mass gaming worked out for you, but what I suggest has been proven in other fields to work even better. I think its rather shortsighted to dismiss something without even trying it.
Plus, its not like I'm suggesting you should never ever play games. Rather, I only encourage you to take a new approach when learning a new build, or perhaps refining your mechanics.
I just cannot agree with you & your method 100%. Look at High Intensity Training & Getting out of your comfort zone in other fields where you train stuff (i.e. weight lifting). It's basically the exact opposite to what you suggest: "Fuck precision only speed matters - spam those APM".
There's even a nice thread about it in the BW Forum. There's also the Using Biology to increase APM Thread ("People who spam APM and drive their hand-speed to the limits will have a better APM long term compared to those who stick to the hand speed their "comfortable" with.").
So the best way to actually improve is problably a combination of those two. Using your method 1 day for precision and do some high intensity spam the other day for pure speed & muscle strength. Sticking to either one seems to be inferior.
I'm a pretty competitive hockey goalie, and I totally agree. All the facets of my game, I break down into individual subsets each training session: skating, recoveries, reaction time and so on and so forth. Only once I feel I've gotten one certain subset improved enough, do I start putting them all together into something like a rebound drill, or something, even. Let alone breakaways or a full game situation.
I think, in many ways, Starcraft 2 and hockey goaltending kinda share some similar stuff: both are very cerebral, and both involve a great deal of small skills that can effect the overall whole. I always inwardly cringe when someone says "All you need is to play some more games!" -- I mean, practise doesn't make perfect. Perfect practise does. If all you needed was more games, then that bronze player with over 1500 league wins should be hitting Master's league soon....
For everyone interested more in the subject of learning, I would recommend the book: The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle. It is not only about learning / training, but motivation and coaching too, but it is very applicable to this thread.
He describes what learning actually biologically means (or maybe I should say as what it is understood as of ~now). That is, that while using a certain skill the nerve fibres in your brain connected to the body parts necessary for that skill are fired. If these get fired more often the brain system starts to make those fibres more efficient by better isolating them (with a sort of fat called myelin). So repetition is very good to learn skills!
This, I notice, could be seen as an argument for mass gaming and vs. what the OP stated, but it really is not. That is because "playing starcraft" is much too broad a "skill" to be trained separately, much like a whole musical piece to stick with the analogy of the OP. It consists of too many other skills / parts. "Playing starcraft" can not be trained on it's own, but has to be broken down into smaller parts, which then should be mass trained. (Training a certain part of musical piece 10 times just doesn't cut it, you have to play it hundreds and hundreds, or if you want to become really good, thousands and thousands of times.)
So I wanted to give a little piece of advise if anyone would be interested in that, the book really helped me a lot to understand how learning a skill works. Thought this might be interesting for some here, too.
On October 11 2011 09:36 Mr.SoloDolo wrote: Well if you want to play on slow go ahead, it's your time, waste it however you want. You have no evidence it's better than training on "faster", other than an analogy to learning music.
QXC's training method and your training method both have the same amount of empirical evidence: none.
I'm not going to bother arguing with you if you honestly believe playing on slow is more effective. Why am I not going to bother? Because if you believe something without any evidence you're an illogical person and you can't use reason with illogical people.
Hapahauli has pointed out various research and studies that at least suggest that playing on slow /is/ a promising approach. Perhaps he's wrong, but you're not doing anything to advance the discussion. There is actually a lot of empirical evidence for the training method in other contexts, and whether or not it applies in the context of Starcraft is arguable, but all I can see suggests that it should. Even in competitive motor sports, people train in slower, more easily controllable vehicles first, and move up through the leagues later; speed is clearly paramount in those disciplines.
Yes, cost is a major, if not the dominant reason for this, but I argue that it is also the most effective approach for learning. Pop an amateur in a F1 car and you'll never teach him to drive /really/ well; you'll be happy if he survives long enough to learn how to get around the course hale. Start him in smaller vehicle to hone his racing skills, and he'll truly be able to excel once he's ready for faster vehicles. Perhaps this does indeed not carry over to SC2, but as many pointed out, playing at faster speeds may just teach you to cut corners in ways that won't improve your standard-speed play. Even proponents of the "play faster" theory are clearly saying that this isn't meant for people who haven't already mastered the game to some degree.
The statement that "if you believe something without any evidence you're an illogical person" is pretty ill-informed and has nothing to do with reason; it's just an attempt to derail the thread without providing any constructive contribution.
I've never tried this so I guess I cannot know for certain but I know that when I started I just went straight for playing vs real opponents, tried out all the different races while doing this, and tried out different strats vs real opponents too, and I'm almost sure that this was better for me than playing how you suggest.
Its great that mass gaming worked out for you, but what I suggest has been proven in other fields to work even better. I think its rather shortsighted to dismiss something without even trying it.
Plus, its not like I'm suggesting you should never ever play games. Rather, I only encourage you to take a new approach when learning a new build, or perhaps refining your mechanics.
I just cannot agree with you & your method 100%. Look at High Intensity Training & Getting out of your comfort zone in other fields where you train stuff (i.e. weight lifting). It's basically the exact opposite to what you suggest: "Fuck precision only speed matters - spam those APM".
There's even a nice thread about it in the BW Forum. There's also the Using Biology to increase APM Thread ("People who spam APM and drive their hand-speed to the limits will have a better APM long term compared to those who stick to the hand speed their "comfortable" with.").
So the best way to actually improve is problably a combination of those two. Using your method 1 day for precision and do some high intensity spam the other day for pure speed & muscle strength. Sticking to either one seems to be inferior.
You're confusing physical and cerebral skills; the brain is a very peculiar muscle. Pushing yourself hard *is* good, but the leap from physical overexertion to cognitive overload is far from obvious -- there's no reason to assume that heavier weights or faster running speed have the same effect on muscles an faster playing speed has on the brain. Music alone should be enough to show how the analogy can break down. Starcraft is not limited by VO2max, muscle output, or whatever; it's limited by cognitive factors.
If it is indeed just your physical ability to move the fingers rapidly that holds you back, I'll agree with you that spamming looks like a good way to improve max APM. I suspect for most people this isn't the limiting factor (and this thread is about general practice).
Note where we disagree: I'm not saying that you're wrong about improving APM; I'm saying that improving APM is one small componant of improving your overall skill as a player, and that 'increase game speed' is not an efficient way to improve your skill set as a whole. If you claim that scouting, decision-making (tech choices, when to attack/defend), positioning, etc., also are best trained by just increasing game speed -- that's where I disagree.
On October 11 2011 19:02 Rohan wrote: I'm a pretty competitive hockey goalie, and I totally agree. All the facets of my game, I break down into individual subsets each training session: skating, recoveries, reaction time and so on and so forth. Only once I feel I've gotten one certain subset improved enough, do I start putting them all together into something like a rebound drill, or something, even. Let alone breakaways or a full game situation.
I think, in many ways, Starcraft 2 and hockey goaltending kinda share some similar stuff: both are very cerebral, and both involve a great deal of small skills that can effect the overall whole. I always inwardly cringe when someone says "All you need is to play some more games!" -- I mean, practise doesn't make perfect. Perfect practise does. If all you needed was more games, then that bronze player with over 1500 league wins should be hitting Master's league soon....
I agree.
On October 11 2011 19:52 Junichi wrote: [...]
This, I notice, could be seen as an argument for mass gaming and vs. what the OP stated, but it really is not. That is because "playing starcraft" is much too broad a "skill" to be trained separately, much like a whole musical piece to stick with the analogy of the OP. It consists of too many other skills / parts.
[...]
Really great OP + thread.
Yeah, what you said is pretty much the point I was making throughout my responses. Playing starcraft is important to practice, as it brings everything together and does represent the final benchmark you're evaluating yourself against. But for most people -- who have specific areas of weaknesses to improve on --, just playing the game (ladder) isn't the best way to actually improve their performance that benchmark.
I love this post, I skimmed through it the first time (will read attentively when I get home). I feel like people want to improve too fast so they skip all the fine details ;o Also I think it's good to think of yourself as a good player but always improving :D rather than "oh I suck " Better to be motivated.
"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.
I played piano for 10+ years. I don't see how piano/music/basketball practice has anything to do with Starcraft. Starcraft 1/2 has nowhere near the mechanical requirements of most music/sports. Team practices or rehearsals are comparable to SC. Drills are not.
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.
As an addendum to this post, an excellent feature for SCII would be the ability to restart a game from a certain point (say the 10 min mark) if both players agree to. That would be awesome for practicing late game macro mechanics when things usually start to break down.
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 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.
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.
I mostly agree with OP, it is the sort of thing I've been saying for a while.
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).
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.
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.
Coming from a guitarist, this is pretty much the best advice you can get. Not only in Starcraft but in mostly other cases where you start from scratch, and further. 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.
There have been some awesome replies! I'm not sure I can get to all of them, but I'll address as many of them as I can:
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.
I play the drums myself and I've been thinking about the similarities between practicing drums and sc as well. The basic stuff in both of these seems to be one of the hardest things to master.
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!
Just to add in my perspective as a competitive collegiate ballroom dancer:
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.
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.
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
Serious thread is serious. I've only read the first page but I'm sure the rest of the thread is just as juicy! I think you've has a very clever insight OP and it makes complete sense to improve by methodical practice of sub-components of over all play. Ever since I got into starcraft2 I've definitely been someone to try my hardest to get better at it. I understand how some people do 'just want to play' and have no intention of committing any consistent effort to improving, fair enough. For me though I sort of fall between the cracks, I don't have any intention of becoming a pro but I still am someone that is very interested in and prepared to spend a lot of time improving my game play by practising the fundamentals.
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
Interesting read, I'll have to go over all of the comments later on when I actually have time.
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.
For practice, and I'm not even lying here, try to go play some BW. Your multitasking will get a LOT better and you will find yourself using more control groups to use your army more efficiently. It actually really helped me.
To the OP: what do you think about the practice methods showed by day9 in daily #360? I plan to spend an entire week at least practicing like that so do you think it's good?
Great responses! I especially like Vod.kaholic's ballroom analogy =)
On October 14 2011 19:30 Crusnik wrote: Interesting read, I'll have to go over all of the comments later on when I actually have time.
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.
Looking at replays is always a great to identify problems - completely agree with you there. However, I do think that some people mistake watching replays (identifying problems) with actual practice (fixing problems). Its very important to focus on both when trying to improve your game.
On October 14 2011 19:43 ApocAlypsE007 wrote: To the OP: what do you think about the practice methods showed by day9 in daily #360? I plan to spend an entire week at least practicing like that so do you think it's good?
I watched a portion of it, and I really liked some of his multi-tasking drills. He's essentially suggesting what I'm proposing - isolating specific mechanics and techniques in dedicated practice.
The music analogy is very nice, and you make good points, but it doesn't necessarily detract from practicing some at high speeds. Yes, the musician or player should begin by slowly cementing the fundamentals and ensuring accuracy, but there is a use for sped up practice. Even musicians will sometimes play a song at a slightly faster tempo, so that the normal tempo will seem easier. The song should be slowly studied in detail at first, but a faster tempo will increase the dexterity and fluidity of the fingers. This something that is used when practicing violin. Also, Starcraft also isn't purely mechanical. Starcraft is also has a very mental aspect. Thus, there are analogies which can be drawn from games such as chess and go. In both games, if you are able to read faster, then you will be able to read out the game further. In go, a pro once said that the fastest way to improve at levels below the very top is to just play blitz games. Blitz games will work on fast decision making and also allow the player to see more situations. Yes, slow meticulous practice has it's place to cement and form solid fundamentals, but fast practice helps in the strategic aspect by forcing the brain to work faster. Also, after a certain solidity is achieved, the sped up training will make the fingers more agile and fluid at regular tempos.
I hope qxc updates us on how his training idea works out. This is fascinating stuff. :-)
And I would like to second the points r.Evo made, especially on rhythm.
Rhythm seems like an important sense that we develop as we play more games, and playing at a different speed will throw off our sense of rhythm in the game when we switch back to regular speeds. For example, it may throw off our ability to stutter step micro well, or we may waste more APM checking on macro.
It will be interesting to see how difficult it is to recover from this mis-timing, and whether the benefits of the speed training outweigh it, so I hope qxc keeps this in mind when he evaluates the effectiveness of his training idea.
Great post, and it was cool reading through it to realize that it was pretty much how I practiced for all my things subconsciously, i.e breaking things down, focusing on smaller aspects of the whole at slower paces until I had them nailed down before moving on.
Maybe the learning process is something that's ingrained in the human mind, because it feels fairly obvious that's how to become good at something?
That said, mass gaming has an appeal I believe, but it comes in two stages. The first one is at the absolute beginnings to get rid of ladder fear and get a feel for the game itself, which I guess could be compared to listening to how the piece plays, or playing through it while reading notes once to see where the bumps and issues are, and the other one is after sorting out the things you specifically need to practice on, to see what new parts are lacking, and what else you could be working on.
I'm not sure about QXCs method of forcing a faster game mode on the other hand. It reminds me of using weighted ankle and wrist weights while running/fighting. I'm not sure if new research has been made, but the old ones I read were stating that once you took them off for the real things, competition or whatever, your body readjusted for the normal weights again, and the old practice methods with the weights just felt wrong.
I think an alternative to QXCs method where you speed up the game to increase the speed of your body, is simply you thinking of more things you can do inside the current games speed, to increase the speed of your body.
For instance, if you're running at x APM at normal game speed and want to be faster, think of what else you could be doing at the given time on top of your normal routine, that could be everything from individually splitting your marines up and constantly scouting with 3 different units while doing everything else. That'll put more strain on your ability to multitask and force you to play faster than you're comfortable doing, until the point where you get used to that and start playing at a faster pace baseline. Of course the method to pull that off is the method you're explaining, of breaking it down to smaller pieces and doing it slowly until you feel comfortable.
OP: I agree with you completely, and another way to explain it might be like this:
Starcraft, while not a life skill, has the same potential to teach life skills and as such is directly comparable to learning music. These life skills could be seen as dedication, multi-tasking, focus under pressure, etc. But that is not the point; because both in Music and in Starcraft there are certain fundamental skills that are required in order to become "great". While actually playing ladder games or competition is akin to free forming a guitar battle, or music concert, the fundamental skills both players use are the same.
These fundamental skills can be practiced through trial and error, or through deep analysis of problems. This is not just relevant to problems. It is relevant to all areas, even your in-game strengths. Let us consider the practicing music analogy: When learning to play an instrument you must first learn where to position fingers, how to achieve the required note length, how to achieve desired pitch. In Starcraft you must learn: How to maximize your resources and income, how to position units, which units counter which, etc. Now this focused practicing is not the only part; remember that most musicians do not only focus on individual parts. They warm-up: alike playing a few ladder games first. They coll down and play something fun afterwards: again, playing a few ladder games. Both the warm up an the cool down is important. It helps you maintain interest, but also allows for the application and real situation improvement.
This is where the debate seems to be, how much of this is "laddering" is necessary? Well in my eyes as the level of fundamental skill increases the amount of time spent on the ladder should also increase, for one simple reason: You are improving to the point where focused practice has achieved its potential. Now let us consider a great pianist: Mozart. He did not begin by writing music, he actually did have to learn the basics of Piano. Now that learning curve for him was very short, however the same is true in Starcraft. Looking at Pro Players, such as HuK or Bomber, they didn't become great overnight. They learned these fundamental skills and then could combine them into the freeflowing concert of a pro/championship game.
I practice the micro and macro games out there. I also try to simply sit down and write down important timing windows throughout the game in a replay.
If I want to try a new build order I play vs an easy computer to simply get the build order down. I do this a few times so that I know how to do it in ideal situations. These situations won't be 100% but it's not like I'll be all inned or early pressured 100% either.
I think whitera is the one that said this but have a steady tempo in your games by doing 2 macro games and then 1 cheese. It's important to know how to execute and defend against both.
I'll have to agree with the op Practice basic mechanics until they become automatic and worry about stringing it all together after you've attained mastery of the basics. Unfortunately most of us don't have the time or patience to tirelessly practice the basics. I read somewhere that it takes around 10,000 hours to master a skill. That's roughly 6000 games
On October 18 2011 04:05 gatorling wrote: I'll have to agree with the op Practice basic mechanics until they become automatic and worry about stringing it all together after you've attained mastery of the basics. Unfortunately most of us don't have the time or patience to tirelessly practice the basics. I read somewhere that it takes around 10,000 hours to master a skill. That's roughly 6000 games
Your games last over 1.67 hours in real time and over 2 hours in game time each?
I tried a little of that nonstop practice and it didn't really work out for me. I ended up losing a few and going on tilt hard. I play in high diamond and there's just too much stuff that you can take from a loss to mass game effectively. On top of that mass gaming is a practiced skill in itself. Your body and mind have to be used to mass gaming to get the most out of it.
I've found that small gaming sessions and heavily analyzing losses has helped me the most. Maybe 2-3 games at a time while I focus on playing faster has been what I've been doing lately. I definitely think qxc is on to something about playing as fast as possible.
I teach private music lessons professionally and currently have close to fifty students in my studio taking weekly lessons.
The OP is exactly spot-on. Reading through TL these past months, I wondered why no one had pointed out that deliberate, purposeful practice is necessary for meaningful improvement at SC2 (or any skill) over the course of time. After reading through the responses, I feel as though those who are encountering this information for the first time will experience a specific, psychological response (one that I encounter in my 6th-12th grade students regularly):
-They first seek confirmation that what is being said is true.
Those on TL will likely look at what the pro's have said in response (see Section VII of OP). In the case of my students, the fact that I can play and sound as good as I do is evidence enough that what I am saying has merit. TL readers, lacking a "physical example/teacher" in front of them demonstrating that the method works, will likely have more skepticism of the process.
Skepticism has its place; we do, after all, live in a society of instant-gratification (McDonalds, Walmart, et al). As children we are told we must work hard if we want to succeed at life, but few teachers properly teach their kids how to self-teach, that is, get good at anything in the world you want to get good at. Usually, if someone is good at something, we attribute it to talent rather than hard work. I posit to you skeptics that talent is myth; given average biological/mental capabilities, you too can become an expert at anything--including Starcraft 2. But first, you must admit that there is a process to must follow to become an expert, and be willing to walk that path.
-After acceptance, they ask what actions they should take.
Once a reader accepts that the OP is true, they will naturally ask what they should do to improve. As Hapahauli noted, you must have the drive to improve at the game to improve at the game. If you merely want to have fun, keep doing your own thing. If you want to get better, learn how to learn from the experts.
Now, the OP seems geared towards convincing the reader that the presented theory is true, and does an excellent job at that. But where to proceed? After all, the typical reader does not have access to an organized team, coach, or teacher who can answer the multitude of questions that stem from learning how to practice purposefully.
Here's some advice if you want to get started:
Read: Bounce by Matthew Syed
Very beginner-friendly introduction to the type of thinking and practicing espoused in the original post. I refer my younger students here when first teaching them how to practice properly.
If you are not the type to read long works, then I suggest you visit here instead:
The above link takes you to a free masterclass lesson with one of Julliard's music/sport psychologists--the material is of course applicable to Starcraft 2 as well. I've been following Dr. Kageyama's material for some time; it is the most precise, action-oriented writing I've yet encountered on how to best practice (and perform under pressure) when engaging in any skill. If you have any doubts, he developed it with Olympic sport psychologist Dr. Don Greene, one of the top names in the industry (the works with actors, musicians, etc. who make it into major symphonies, win Oscar/Emmy awards, and so forth).
I've integrated Dr. Kageyama's material to help my own development as well as my student's--and it works. Check it out.
Most of all, TL'ers, you must understand something--real skill is developed via baby steps, over long periods of time. Do practice correctly, you must begin by establishing the correct habits. Do you know why you can rarely keep a New Year's Resolution? Do much change at once. If you want to get in the habit of running at 6 am three times a week, start small: begin by waking up each morning at 6 am and put on your shoes, then go about your day (quite a struggle for us nocturnal types!). Three weeks later, wake at 6 am, get dressed, and walk to the end of the block. Then come home. Repeat for three weeks. Then start running a short distance.
Do you see? Baby-steps form habits. If you try to implement big changes in your habits, you will fail. You must slowly modify how you go about things. If you are someone who typically just plays games non-stop, continue to do so, but with one exception: take 20 minutes to work on one skill, such as build orders against AI, or using a micro trainer. Then go back to what you normally do. Make this a habit. Then expand your "focused" practice several weeks later. It will stick. You will get much better. So simple.
Take note... SC2 is young; even IMMVP or IMNestea have yet to become masters of the game, as they simply have not had enough time to do so (as other posters have stated, that takes roughly 10,000 hours of purposeful practice, or 3 hours every day for 10 straight years). You know of those child prodigies, the five-year-olds who convincingly play a Chopin Mazurka on talk shows to an adoring audience? They still put in the same amount of work, but in a compressed time period. If skill amounts to entertainment, then the best SC2 games are still several years away.
If you dream of playing like IMMVP or IMNestea--or more realistically, just want to be better, try out the above steps. Read what other experts have written here. Watch Day[9] lessons on mechanics, if you prefer visual media. Information is power, but more importantly, you must learn how to wield that power.
Happy practicing! :D
P.S. Feel free to contact me if you want to hear more, have questions, or even want to talk over the phone. Happy to be of service to the community.
I'm reading some of this stuff and I agree, there aren't enough interesting and intelligent threads. THIS is a great start. I hope I can contribute to the topic, or collect a thread of threads that don't say "Mass game is the answer!" Too often even players with the best intentions fall into the trap of not being able to access good information.
Edit: OP, great work on creating intelligent conversation! I too would choose to address posters idiocy as an example, but I'm finding that this thread as a whole is a bit difficult to read, perhaps vigilance by deleting most idiocy and PMing may be most effective and save us all time.
Amazing thread. I am going to implement this methodology in my practice immdediately. I have been stuck about a diamond level of play for a long time, and been unmotivated to practice because its frustrating and I don't see myself measurably improve. This kind of practicing eliviates stress, it focuses your practice, it provides measurable benchmarks for improvement, and it is far and away more efficient and more effective way to go about mastering anything. Thank you so much for pointing this out; it should be obvious but for whatever reason, in the constant pursuit to "play faster" I never considered the possibility of playing slower first.
On October 08 2011 05:54 Hapahauli wrote: There is a clear emphasis on breaking up the learning process into smaller fragments and prioritizing slow, mechanical mastery. You will never see a competent musician start learning a piece by beginning to play it at full speed.
I agree with everything you say, but I wanted to point out that I'm an extremely talented musician (tenor, alto, baritone, bass saxophone, cello, won "best saxophone soloist" in the state all four years of high school) and I start learning a piece by first playing once through, in its entirety, at double speed just because it makes me laugh. Nothing is funnier than classical music at a Benny-Hill tempo.
Though before that, I try to listen to it before playing anything.
Damnit, now I want to pull out my cello and try learning "through the fire and flames." There goes my night. Thanks. You jerk.
And on the starcraft topic, QXC is 100% correct. I'm going to compare Starcraft to sixteenth and thirty second-th note runs. As you mechanically are capable of playing the piece, the way you prepare for possible errors is to train pure muscle memory. if I'm playing a sixteenth note-primary solo (coletrane for example) at an 80 tempo, I'll learn it at 40, then 60, then 80. But then I'll push it to 100. And 120. 140. 160. 200.
If I can't play a piece (within reason) at a 200 tempo, I don't consider myself proficient at it. A problem many people encounter is that by only working with normal speed and below is that your body attunes itself to the speed you're most used to. If you train at "faster" all the time (or 120bpm on a piece written for 120) when the time comes for a wrench to be thrown in the works, you won't have the reaction time to deal with it. But if your brain is used to 180bpm or "fastest" then suddenly "faster" or 120 feels like freaking bullet time. Play a game of starcraft at "normal" speed and tell me it doesn't feel like the easiest thing in the world. Your brain is capable of reading three lines of text at once, and scanning an entire page of text in three seconds or less, solving a rubicks cube in under 10 seconds, etc. Starcraft is just another form of speed chess.
(this is all assuming you have basic mechanics and fundamentals down.)
I would like to contribute some educational theory as to why, while training, we break complicated tasks down into smaller components to achieve mechanical mastery.
Now, when you look at a Starcraft II game played at a high level, it is extraordinarily complicated. Let's look at some of the stuff that goes on in the first few minutes of a game:
*Keeping peon production constant. *Putting peons on closer mineral patches for optimal mining. *Scouting with a peon in a manner in which that unit is kept moving at all times. *Building production buildings, not missing supply buildings/units, researching necessary upgrades. *Timing expansions and maynarding peons to them. *Setting building waypoints. *Microing units against scouts/early aggression. *(Zerg) Injecting larvae constantly and spreading the creep highway. *(Terran) Calling down MULES for additional minerals. *(Protoss) Chrono Boosting structures and upgrades for maximum productivity.
How can we possibly perfect all of these timings and actions? The answer is in our internal neural networks. According to connectionist theory, the human brain is composed of a complex system of neural networks, in which pieces of knowledge are connected between these networks, and become associated with each other.
When we are first learning how to do something, we learn it as a controlled process. For fun, let's take a game example: Final Fantasy VIII's gunblade system. Our main character Squall wields a gunblade, and to maximize damage, you have to hit R1 immediately as he strikes. The first couple hundred times we do this, we think about the timing, pay attention to the sound effects, watch him carefully, and hit R1 when we feel it is appropriate.
As we practice this action, it becomes what is called an automated process. In connectionist terminology, the association between two actions (selecting a physical attack and his gunblade hitting the mob) has become so strengthened in our neural network that we do it automatically. It would even be remarkably difficult not to activate his gunblade in this attack. As a matter of fact, on several occasions in my play through of Final Fantasy VIII, Squall had a confusion spell cast on him, attacked his own teammate, and I had already learned the process of activating his gunblade to such automaticity that I hit R1, inflicting additional unwanted damage on my own teammate. Obviously, most of the time knowing something to the point of automaticity is a good thing, but this is beside the point. Concentrated repetition made me learn this action. Practice made perfect.
This is why we should practice Starcraft II games in smaller segments. As we focus on one task, we can change a controlled process into an automatic one. This automatic process will be integrated into our main gameplay, and improve our performance better than any amount of random ladder games could.
I would expand past what the OP is talking about for this, though. Does anybody remember in Starcraft: Brood War, during B.Net attack, we saw Firebathero reset the rally points of 15 barracks in something like two seconds? He basically hit F2 (to position his camera to the barracks), selected the first one, hit F3 (to position his camera to the desired rally point), right clicked, then repeated with F2->left click->F3->right click for each individual barracks. I'm willing to bet that he did not learn how to do this in normal games, no matter how numerous they were. He sat there in a custom game for hours practicing this sequence, and then incorporated it into his main play. While Starcraft II is a little bit easier mechanically, I feel the same thing can be done for other tasks.
On November 13 2011 19:58 RosaParksStoleMySeat wrote: I would like to contribute some educational theory as to why, while training, we break complicated tasks down into smaller components to achieve mechanical mastery.
Now, when you look at a Starcraft II game played at a high level, it is extraordinarily complicated. Let's look at some of the stuff that goes on in the first few minutes of a game:
*Keeping peon production constant. *Putting peons on closer mineral patches for optimal mining. *Scouting with a peon in a manner in which that unit is kept moving at all times. *Building production buildings, not missing supply buildings/units, researching necessary upgrades. *Timing expansions and maynarding peons to them. *Setting building waypoints. *Microing units against scouts/early aggression. *(Zerg) Injecting larvae constantly and spreading the creep highway. *(Terran) Calling down MULES for additional minerals. *(Protoss) Chrono Boosting structures and upgrades for maximum productivity.
How can we possibly perfect all of these timings and actions? The answer is in our internal neural networks. According to connectionist theory, the human brain is composed of a complex system of neural networks, in which pieces of knowledge are connected between these networks, and become associated with each other.
When we are first learning how to do something, we learn it as a controlled process. For fun, let's take a game example: Final Fantasy VIII's gunblade system. Our main character Squall wields a gunblade, and to maximize damage, you have to hit R1 immediately as he strikes. The first couple hundred times we do this, we think about the timing, pay attention to the sound effects, watch him carefully, and hit R1 when we feel it is appropriate.
As we practice this action, it becomes what is called an automated process. In connectionist terminology, the association between two actions (selecting a physical attack and his gunblade hitting the mob) has become so strengthened in our neural network that we do it automatically. It would even be remarkably difficult not to activate his gunblade in this attack. As a matter of fact, on several occasions in my play through of Final Fantasy VIII, Squall had a confusion spell cast on him, attacked his own teammate, and I had already learned the process of activating his gunblade to such automaticity that I hit R1, inflicting additional unwanted damage on my own teammate. Obviously, most of the time knowing something to the point of automaticity is a good thing, but this is beside the point. Concentrated repetition made me learn this action. Practice made perfect.
This is why we should practice Starcraft II games in smaller segments. As we focus on one task, we can change a controlled process into an automatic one. This automatic process will be integrated into our main gameplay, and improve our performance better than any amount of random ladder games could.
I would expand past what the OP is talking about for this, though. Does anybody remember in Starcraft: Brood War, during B.Net attack, we saw Firebathero reset the rally points of 15 barracks in something like two seconds? He basically hit F2 (to position his camera to the barracks), selected the first one, hit F3 (to position his camera to the desired rally point), right clicked, then repeated with F2->left click->F3->right click for each individual barracks. I'm willing to bet that he did not learn how to do this in normal games, no matter how numerous they were. He sat there in a custom game for hours practicing this sequence, and then incorporated it into his main play. While Starcraft II is a little bit easier mechanically, I feel the same thing can be done for other tasks.
I wish team liquid had a rep system. That is a very good post. I hope it gets added to the OP.
I completely agree with this kind of training, especially with a new build. It feels tedious at times to learn a new build, and when I have seen a build that looks interesting and jump into a ladder game and try it, I fail, even if I have written down what to do.
What helps me learn new builds is starting up a custom game and practicing that build over and over, and comparing it the the pro that i learned it from, as OP said
I think playing games against AI/no opponent is actually a really good way to practise your first 10 minutes. Load up a replay of your last ladder game and practise the build against the AI and the difference between macro on ladder and against an AI is ridiculous. I did a unit count about 2 weeks (and my macro is pretty solid, iimssm) and I was down a FULL orbital, a medivac, 2 tanks and ~5 marines. I played my build like 20 times against the AI, and now it's so much tighter. It's definitely improved my play. To say even pros couldn't benefit from this, is a total lie. When watching pro streams, it's really evident whose build orders have gaps and whose don't (idrA).
Oh wow, I thought my OP was dead, and here I find a couple of really cool posts in the last few days!
On November 13 2011 19:58 RosaParksStoleMySeat wrote: I would like to contribute some educational theory as to why, while training, we break complicated tasks down into smaller components to achieve mechanical mastery.
Now, when you look at a Starcraft II game played at a high level, it is extraordinarily complicated. Let's look at some of the stuff that goes on in the first few minutes of a game:
*Keeping peon production constant. *Putting peons on closer mineral patches for optimal mining. *Scouting with a peon in a manner in which that unit is kept moving at all times. *Building production buildings, not missing supply buildings/units, researching necessary upgrades. *Timing expansions and maynarding peons to them. *Setting building waypoints. *Microing units against scouts/early aggression. *(Zerg) Injecting larvae constantly and spreading the creep highway. *(Terran) Calling down MULES for additional minerals. *(Protoss) Chrono Boosting structures and upgrades for maximum productivity.
How can we possibly perfect all of these timings and actions? The answer is in our internal neural networks. According to connectionist theory, the human brain is composed of a complex system of neural networks, in which pieces of knowledge are connected between these networks, and become associated with each other.
When we are first learning how to do something, we learn it as a controlled process. For fun, let's take a game example: Final Fantasy VIII's gunblade system. Our main character Squall wields a gunblade, and to maximize damage, you have to hit R1 immediately as he strikes. The first couple hundred times we do this, we think about the timing, pay attention to the sound effects, watch him carefully, and hit R1 when we feel it is appropriate.
As we practice this action, it becomes what is called an automated process. In connectionist terminology, the association between two actions (selecting a physical attack and his gunblade hitting the mob) has become so strengthened in our neural network that we do it automatically. It would even be remarkably difficult not to activate his gunblade in this attack. As a matter of fact, on several occasions in my play through of Final Fantasy VIII, Squall had a confusion spell cast on him, attacked his own teammate, and I had already learned the process of activating his gunblade to such automaticity that I hit R1, inflicting additional unwanted damage on my own teammate. Obviously, most of the time knowing something to the point of automaticity is a good thing, but this is beside the point. Concentrated repetition made me learn this action. Practice made perfect.
This is why we should practice Starcraft II games in smaller segments. As we focus on one task, we can change a controlled process into an automatic one. This automatic process will be integrated into our main gameplay, and improve our performance better than any amount of random ladder games could.
I would expand past what the OP is talking about for this, though. Does anybody remember in Starcraft: Brood War, during B.Net attack, we saw Firebathero reset the rally points of 15 barracks in something like two seconds? He basically hit F2 (to position his camera to the barracks), selected the first one, hit F3 (to position his camera to the desired rally point), right clicked, then repeated with F2->left click->F3->right click for each individual barracks. I'm willing to bet that he did not learn how to do this in normal games, no matter how numerous they were. He sat there in a custom game for hours practicing this sequence, and then incorporated it into his main play. While Starcraft II is a little bit easier mechanically, I feel the same thing can be done for other tasks.
(Bolded for emphasis)
Spot on - I agree with you completely.
Effective learning processes tackle small segments at a time, and build up on them gradually. The FBH example is very telling of how this applies to starcraft. You have to tackle and master the small tasks first. Only then can you build upon the foundation, adding additional macro and micro tasks.
On November 13 2011 19:28 Honeybadger wrote: I agree with everything you say, but I wanted to point out that I'm an extremely talented musician (tenor, alto, baritone, bass saxophone, cello, won "best saxophone soloist" in the state all four years of high school) and I start learning a piece by first playing once through, in its entirety, at double speed just because it makes me laugh. Nothing is funnier than classical music at a Benny-Hill tempo.
Though before that, I try to listen to it before playing anything.
Damnit, now I want to pull out my cello and try learning "through the fire and flames." There goes my night. Thanks. You jerk.
And on the starcraft topic, QXC is 100% correct. I'm going to compare Starcraft to sixteenth and thirty second-th note runs. As you mechanically are capable of playing the piece, the way you prepare for possible errors is to train pure muscle memory. if I'm playing a sixteenth note-primary solo (coletrane for example) at an 80 tempo, I'll learn it at 40, then 60, then 80. But then I'll push it to 100. And 120. 140. 160. 200.
If I can't play a piece (within reason) at a 200 tempo, I don't consider myself proficient at it. A problem many people encounter is that by only working with normal speed and below is that your body attunes itself to the speed you're most used to. If you train at "faster" all the time (or 120bpm on a piece written for 120) when the time comes for a wrench to be thrown in the works, you won't have the reaction time to deal with it. But if your brain is used to 180bpm or "fastest" then suddenly "faster" or 120 feels like freaking bullet time. Play a game of starcraft at "normal" speed and tell me it doesn't feel like the easiest thing in the world. Your brain is capable of reading three lines of text at once, and scanning an entire page of text in three seconds or less, solving a rubicks cube in under 10 seconds, etc. Starcraft is just another form of speed chess.
(this is all assuming you have basic mechanics and fundamentals down.)
I congratulate you on your awards and accomplishments on Saxaphone, but there's a huge difference between a high-school award and professional standards.
You don't need proper practice methods to win state higschool awards in music - talent alone usually suffices. However, if you want to be a professional, or win major national competitions, you need to practice properly. There's simply no way you can achieve the necessary stability in tempo or mechanics without practicing slowly. You need to build a slow, mechanical foundation to build your memory off of.
As for practicing above tempo for musicians, I find it absurd. You kill your sense of tempo and stability by practicing above too fast. I've had students who've done this in the past, and we spend our entire lessons doing slow metronome work fixing the mechanical stability they lost. If you practiced slowly and built up to normal tempo, you wouldn't have to worry about not thinking fast enough, since you did all your mechanical work in a slow controlled environment.
As for a Starcraft Analogy - You can get into Platinum league with Platinum practice methods. If you are content at stopping there, good for you. However, you need better practice methods to get into Master's league, and slow, mechanical mastery is the fastest and most effective way to improve.
EPT
But I know that I'll never take a day to hash out one build and practice it over and over like a pro does. Obviously there are exceptions, but I think for most people, SC2 isn't smoething they want to turn into different drills or exercises and practice the different peices individually. They want to play.
