EPTto solve: best way > Hit injects
second best way > Make more hatches
Make more queens > spread creep
Low level play: the "learning curve". - Page 4
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mooseman1710
United States153 Posts
to solve: best way > Hit injects second best way > Make more hatches Make more queens > spread creep | ||
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Mesha
Bosnia-Herzegovina439 Posts
On December 15 2011 23:04 HyTex wrote: Day[9] is a worthless resource. You can learn more from studying the pro replay he talks about in each Daily than you can listening to his verbose rambling. This is the first time in my life i don't feel alone about the Day9Daily crap. Everybody likes that and shit but i would rather watch my room's wall than daily. I love him as a caster and master of ceremony but his show and his head in the frame for that long... ooo man it's a fucking torture. ..."let's pause... what is he thinking...you might think he is thinking about this but he is thinking about this...lets look at the resources...25 minerals..can i build ..." I just don't understand that so many people like that show. Day9 is great caster and master of ceremony but his show is just bad. My opinion. | ||
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Klondikebar
United States2227 Posts
On December 15 2011 23:04 HyTex wrote: Day[9] is a worthless resource. You can learn more from studying the pro replay he talks about in each Daily than you can listening to his verbose rambling. Two hours to break down a replay? It should take you 45 minutes to an hour for a thorough, multiple play-through assessment at most. Low level players cannot appreciate most of what he talks about anyway; they can more efficiently spend their time grinding mechanics or watching their own replays. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you don't appreciate Day9 as a resource then you have nothing useful to say about Starcraft 2. You don't have to like his show. But calling him "worthless" is indicative of a gross misunderstanding of this game and how to go about improving at it. He has earned his place as the god of knowledge in the Starcraft 2 pantheon. Everyone can learn from him. | ||
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DarK[A]
United States217 Posts
On December 15 2011 05:26 GhostKorean wrote: As bronze your goal should be 1. Never stop producing scvs 2. Keep your money as low as possible It's alright if you stay on one base the whole game in bronze you'll still win if you spend all your money on one base with good mineral saturation As for the cheese, learn a build order and do it over and over to get it as refined as possible. Do things like scouting at the same food every single game to get used to every single timing. Micro should not be a focus at all. Instead, just send your units to attack and go back to make more units even vs a 2gate proxy. Learn reactions to different cheese builds through experience, and since you're doing the same build over and over your reaction to the cheese should be mechanically performed every game I don't get it. I was placed in Gold after buying the game and doing my placement matches, but one of the matches involved someone leaving 15 seconds in. My MMR ended up slipping down to Bronze players while I remained in Gold. I'd say about half the players I get matched with don't have a clear direction with their builds (or remain on one base) and I crush them pretty easily (working on the quickly part). The other half, though... have clear build orders and micro very well. I don't know if I'm just running into a TON of smurf accounts or what... but most people generalize that getting out of bronze is keeping your money low and a-moving your units to your opponents base. A ZvP I played the other day, I lost because his phoenix harass (which I scouted and had spores up for) was micro'd very well and I ended up losing two queens and a good number of drones. I was able to re-expand but by that time he had his death ball fully operational and tore through all of my units easily and forced the gg. A ZvT I played the other day took me an hour and 8 minutes to win. His tank positioning and base defense rendered my muta/ling/bling almost useless. I contained him to three bases most of the game, and meanwhile expanded all over my half of the map, spreading creep as I went. I was on 7 or 8 bases when finally after a few small trades in the middle of the map, he moved out to take out my expos and I had a sizable Destiny-style spine wall at my nat and third so I took my rebuilt army and base traded essentially, was able to take out his buildings before he could get to mine. To break through his defenses in retrospect I should have gone greater spire much earlier and taken a force of broods, corruptors and queens to push through his defense. But that's hardly a-moving and would have been pretty micro intensive. In all of my games I hit my timings on my 14/14 pretty on point, and for most of the game I'm waiting on money to become available unless I'm saving up for something. /rant | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On December 16 2011 00:08 Sippycup wrote: EDIT: On second thought, maybe it's due to me just building units as a reactionary measure when I notice some kind of push is coming. I think things will be totally different when I'm playing on ladder again. Does that mean I'm focusing TOO much on my economy mid game? Economy is the most important thing, but of course as Zerg the trick is knowing when to switch to making stuff. Here are some thoughts about everything BUT economy: Speaking from somewhere around the gold/platinum threshold I can tell you a couple things that have very much reduced my fear in the early game. All this assumes that you're keeping your money low (say, under 500): First, IF you nail larva injects, expand fast enough, and have good enough map vision to see exactly when your opponent moves out of his base and with what, on larger maps you can pretty much do nothing but drone up until the opponent moves out, then spam units. The trick to this is that you must get your income high enough that you can spam units and not run dry on income when you have to -- what you don't want is to have a low income and not be able to use all the larva you've piled up. You also usually wouldn't want to save minerals up for this, since spending those minerals on drones or tech up front will put you in a better position than not. This works best when your opponent is being aggressive and attacking early with a relatively small force. Second: If you see that your opponent is just hanging back with a massive army, which from my bronze league memories is pretty common, you can feel comfortable switching from econ to unit production once you feel you can swiftly make enough to match them. I'd like to do this no earlier than having two bases saturated and a third coming up, then mix in units while getting the third saturated. Third: Know the earliest possible timings that you would need anti-air or detection in case someone tries to surprise you with a DT, banshee, or void ray rush. Most of these can't come much earlier than 7 to 7:30. I always try to drop an evolution chamber by about six minutes and grab an early upgrade of some kind, usually melee +1 for terran or ranged +1 for protoss, because having the evo chamber down lets me drop spine crawlers if I should scout anything that makes me think one of those rushes might be coming, and the upgrade makes sure that it serves a purpose if that doesn't happen. Also, poking at their front provides good information -- if they have no army at 7 minutes, or just zealots or marines but they grabbed their gas, it's a good sign one of those might be happening. Fourth: If you are stuck defending and are out of larva but have money, spine crawlers. Drop them the MOMENT you see the opponent move out, because they may not finish in time to matter on smaller maps, and you may need to use what army you have to hold back an attack while they come up. Spending a lot on spine crawlers is often unnecessary, though, so save it for when you need it and don't go nuts. A spine crawler behind each mineral line and a couple at the natural's choke can really shut down the terrans who blindly go reactor hellion. Finally: Once you're on three saturated bases and have a macro hatch as well, just try maxing out and attacking. A good deal of the time when I do this, I find the other guy has a lot less than I do, and I wonder what he's been doing all game. | ||
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Najda
United States3765 Posts
On December 16 2011 00:43 Mesha wrote: This is the first time in my life i don't feel alone about the Day9Daily crap. Everybody likes that and shit but i would rather watch my room's wall than daily. I love him as a caster and master of ceremony but his show and his head in the frame for that long... ooo man it's a fucking torture. ..."let's pause... what is he thinking...you might think he is thinking about this but he is thinking about this...lets look at the resources...25 minerals..can i build ..." I just don't understand that so many people like that show. Day9 is great caster and master of ceremony but his show is just bad. My opinion. I think there are a few dailies that are really worth the hour to go sit and watch them. If you are new to the game and don't already have a foundation, the daily is a good way to build the foundation (Most of the Newby Tuesdays, the one on how to analyze a replay, and how to refine a build). That being said, most of the dailies are just fluff and you would get better if you just spent that hour practicing instead of watching the daily. @OP If you spend your time focusing on improving, and not focusing on winning, then you will improve much faster. Make the goal of every game to just live as long as possible (especially if you're zerg), and then winning will just come naturally. Learn a safe style and keep playing until you can fix all the holes in your play. If you are zerg, I would suggest something like Spanishiwa's style of mass queens + drones + a few spinecrawlers, especially for ZvP | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On December 16 2011 00:55 DarK[A] wrote: but most people generalize that getting out of bronze is keeping your money low and a-moving your units to your opponents base. It's more true for Terran and Protoss. Terran and Protoss have very strong basic unit compositions and a requirement to produce units continuously all-game that mean that if they're building an appropriate number and type of production buildings and keeping them busy, and if they have stronger mechanics than their opponent, then they'll at least have an army with which they can do something at all times. Zerg's individual units are weaker, anti-air is either very limited (in the form of the queen or spore crawlers) or requires a lair upgrade (hydralisks), and there are some very hard counters vs. their common compositions (like colossi vs. ground units.) Zerg has a very strong answer to just about everything, but it requires more attention to see what your opponent is doing and adapt. Fortunately, the nature of Zerg production is such that a complete upending of one's unit composition is a lot less expensive than for the other races. If you pitted me against any bronze player who wasn't someone who deliberately tanked their rating to get there, I'll win nearly every game by keeping my money low and a-moving, but that doesn't mean I won't also be watching them and picking a unit composition to crush what they're doing. Interestingly, when Destiny, on his stream, played on a smurf account for a day or so to prove that unit composition and strategy isn't the issue in lower leagues, he chose a mass queen build to do this. Queens are kind of the exception to the Zerg's unit weaknesses, in that they can be very hard to kill, have a strong attack vs. ground and air, and can heal each other. His demonstration wasn't too convincing to me, because making only queens sidesteps the problems that one runs into with standard Zerg builds IF one has excellent creep spread and transfuse micro. And of course saying "no strategy" doesn't mean that Destiny can turn off the part of his brain that figures out where and when to attack -- that's probably pretty automatic. In all of my games I hit my timings on my 14/14 pretty on point, and for most of the game I'm waiting on money to become available unless I'm saving up for something. If this is true, you're not expanding enough or you're not building enough drones. Three fully saturated bases should be enough income to make keeping up seem difficult. | ||
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Pokebunny
United States10654 Posts
On December 16 2011 00:36 Mesha wrote: Just to clarify, i wasn't bragging, i was just making a plastic picture for the guy we are trying to help giving him example with what he can be high diamond. And it's not all ins, its good builds, builds have expo and every thing but somehow my play style is blind to everything beyond 10th minute  . ... That's completely the opposite, that means you have terrible mechanics, you're just able to follow a build. Your macro is actually probably terrible and that's the main portion on mechanics. | ||
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DarK[A]
United States217 Posts
On December 16 2011 01:16 Lysenko wrote: It's more true for Terran and Protoss. Terran and Protoss have very strong basic unit compositions and a requirement to produce units continuously all-game that mean that if they're building an appropriate number and type of production buildings and keeping them busy, and if they have stronger mechanics than their opponent, then they'll at least have an army with which they can do something at all times. Zerg's individual units are weaker, anti-air is either very limited (in the form of the queen or spore crawlers) or requires a lair upgrade (hydralisks), and there are some very hard counters vs. their common compositions (like colossi vs. ground units.) Zerg has a very strong answer to just about everything, but it requires more attention to see what your opponent is doing and adapt. Fortunately, the nature of Zerg production is such that a complete upending of one's unit composition is a lot less expensive than for the other races. If you pitted me against any bronze player who wasn't someone who deliberately tanked their rating to get there, I'll win nearly every game by keeping my money low and a-moving, but that doesn't mean I won't also be watching them and picking a unit composition to crush what they're doing. Interestingly, when Destiny, on his stream, played on a smurf account for a day or so to prove that unit composition and strategy isn't the issue in lower leagues, he chose a mass queen build to do this. Queens are kind of the exception to the Zerg's unit weaknesses, in that they can be very hard to kill, have a strong attack vs. ground and air, and can heal each other. His demonstration wasn't too convincing to me, because making only queens sidesteps the problems that one runs into with standard Zerg builds IF one has excellent creep spread and transfuse micro. And of course saying "no strategy" doesn't mean that Destiny can turn off the part of his brain that figures out where and when to attack -- that's probably pretty automatic. If this is true, you're not expanding enough or you're not building enough drones. Three fully saturated bases should be enough income to make keeping up seem difficult. I worded that pretty poorly. By the time I'm on 3+ bases I'm having a lot of trouble finding things to spend money on. I mean early timings in the build. | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On December 16 2011 01:23 DarK[A] wrote: I worded that pretty poorly. By the time I'm on 3+ bases I'm having a lot of trouble finding things to spend money on. I mean early timings in the build. Once you're maxed out, of course, it's OK to let money pile up, though teching up can be a good choice. If you're having trouble finding things to spend money on before you're maxed, you probably are either missing larva injects or not building extra hatches early enough. I try to get a first expo up around 20-25 supply unless my opponent is rushing me, then a macro hatch maybe around 40 and a third by about 60. Ideally, you'll be making larva faster than you can spend your money, and you'll be having trouble moving your fingers fast enough to spend the money you are making. | ||
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coko
United Kingdom570 Posts
On December 16 2011 01:32 Lysenko wrote: Once you're maxed out, of course, it's OK to let money pile up, though teching up can be a good choice. If you're having trouble finding things to spend money on before you're maxed, you probably are either missing larva injects or not building extra hatches early enough. I try to get a first expo up around 20-25 supply unless my opponent is rushing me, then a macro hatch maybe around 40 and a third by about 60. Ideally, you'll be making larva faster than you can spend your money, and you'll be having trouble moving your fingers fast enough to spend the money you are making. Tech. That amount of people I see as zerg sit on Lair tech, not even doing upgrades on their units ... | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On December 16 2011 01:34 coko wrote: Tech. That amount of people I see as zerg sit on Lair tech, not even doing upgrades on their units ... Yeah, I used to be a lot worse about that than I am now. If you fall behind far enough on your upgrades, it may not matter what you're doing, you'll still lose. | ||
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DarK[A]
United States217 Posts
On December 16 2011 01:34 coko wrote: Tech. That amount of people I see as zerg sit on Lair tech, not even doing upgrades on their units ... Yeah I typically have upgrades constantly going, sometimes with 2 evo chambers. In response to the other post, I usually expand on 21 food unless I have early aggression from my opponent that I'm dealing with. I definitely don't throw down as many macro hatches as I should, though. | ||
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Hexxed
United States202 Posts
On December 15 2011 05:58 Kamikiri wrote: Diamond/GM Level is a silly thing to say first of all, but you remind me of my friend who came from competitive cod and thought he was going to be the best at starcraft 2 and was stuck in bronze after 300 games without knowing how to improve. Basically what it comes down to is you need to work on mechanics, you say you don't know how to improve anymore? You are in Bronze League man that is like insanely easy to say whats wrong or know what you are doing wrong unless you completely have 0 understanding on how this game works which can not be true since you watch so much starcraft 2. You need to focus on your mechanics and improving your mechanics(Macro mostly). Than you need to work on having somewhat of a build order which is not a huge deal until you get to the higher leagues. Its also important for you to know that no matter how you lose, it is not because of balance, and if you ever blame balance you will improve very slowly at this game. If you truly can not for the life of you figure out what you did wrong when you lose, you need to check out the thread on teamliquid that shows you how to analyze your replays + Show Spoiler + A good mindset to improve, focusing on what to improve and always blaming your self for losing is very important. A few things I noticed about your post was that you slightly seem to think balance may be a tad bit of an issue such as the part with "only one of the games lost was to protoss cheese" Perhaps I am wrong by the way I interpreted it but even games such as that can teach you a whole lot. If you have any questions or need help in general you can message me on TL. Analyzing your replays is one of the greatest ways to improve. A lot of things become obvious when you watch through your opponents vision or through both. You cannot just grind out games and expect to improve. You have to be making conscious efforts on certain aspects that you know for a fact to be bad. I cannot say what you are doing wrong, but I imagine it is that you are stuck in the same gear, and you aren't really shifting out of it. | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On December 16 2011 01:46 Hexxed wrote: Analyzing your replays is one of the greatest ways to improve. A lot of things become obvious when you watch through your opponents vision or through both Absolutely true, though I find that many people who feel they're stuck may just not know what to look for when looking at their own replays. Hopefully some of the specific comments in this thread will give the OP some ideas. | ||
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Sippycup
United States12 Posts
Here's a match I just wrapped up. Enjoy. http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=246285 | ||
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Jombozeus
China1014 Posts
On December 15 2011 05:42 Ruscour wrote: Not true, I've beaten GMs as Diamond and I know a friend who has as well 50-0 is a bit of a stretchI'm midhigh masters and I have trouble taking a game out of 50 against a top masters player. From low to high masters is like bronze to masters all over again in terms of skill difference. | ||
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DarK[A]
United States217 Posts
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SovSov
United States755 Posts
this game is honestly easy compared to other games to get "good" at, it is only at the top level where it becomes a challenge. | ||
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Xaga
United States163 Posts
On December 16 2011 02:42 Sippycup wrote: Ok, so as requested I've gone ahead and got a replay up and running and loaded to gamereplays.org. Here's a match I just wrapped up. Enjoy. http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=246285 Alright so.. a few big things I noticed that you weren't doing/ problems I noticed with your gameplay: 1) Scouting. Yes, you scouted him early with a Drone, that's fine and good. But you're Zerg! You have the fastest units in the game (Zerglings) as well as the earliest flying units in the game (Overlords). You should have a few Overlords and Zerglings positioned in strategic places around the map (Overlords over water/high ground near enemies base, Zerglings at Xel'Naga watch towers and a couple patrolling expansions nearby your enemies base). And don't forget Overseers once you get Lair. I checked the replay, and even though you had the army advantage nearly the entire game, you almost never had much more map vision than your opponent.. You should see exactly when he decides to leave his base and is moving in for an attack, so you have enough time to prepare (make attacking units). -- 2) Afraid to attack. I noticed 2 times in the game where you crushed his army completely, then delayed the counter-attack by several minutes. The first around 31 minutes, his army was gone at 31:20 yet you waited to attack him til 34:40. If you destroy a big army like that, your opponent isn't going to have much left at home if you attack right away. Plus you have Zerglings to reinforce, which only take a few seconds to get across the map after they spawn. The second was around 38 minutes... You crushed his very small army, and didn't attack until 42 minutes. Not only does this give him time to rebuild his army, it drags the game on longer.. leaving more time for you to make mistakes and for your opponent to damage your economy. -- 3) Too passive. You should either be expanding aggressively or harassing/attacking your opponent aggressively. The better choice for a particular game will become more clear the more you play and get used to scouting and are able to recognize what your opponent is doing. In this particular game, you didn't actually attempt to attack his base until around 17 minutes.. And it was a very unsuccessful attack. You actually forgot about your Mutas for that attack... Which could have helped at least a little. -- 4) Spread your creep! This one is very plain and simple; you didn't spread creep at any point in the game! Creep serves a couple purposes for Zerg. It's good for scouting (anywhere you have creep tumors, you have vision on the map). It also gives your units a significant speed boost, which means your melee units spend less time running towards tanks and dying. -- Of course there are plenty of little things and I'm sure a few more big things that you could have done better, but these are just a few that I noticed that, if improved, can help you become a better player. Let me know if you have any questions. Good luck! | ||
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