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Looking at your replays in SC2Gears, you basically don't use control groups which is your biggest flaw. Having a solid foundation in SC2 is everything, you need to use proper mechanics with a good hotkey setup if you want to actually improve. Your APM was lower than almost all your opponents. Looking at the Action Distribution chart of each of your replays, approximately 20% of your actions are Selections, ~5% are Hotkeys, 15-20% are Train, and 50% are Right Clicks.
Ideally, you want 15% of your actions to be Selections, 50% Hotkeys, <5% Train, and 15-20% Right Clicks. (These numbers are based on replays of MC, Mvp, and other pros). You need to use hotkeys WAY more.
In your 30 minute PvT on Antiga Shipyard, you had a total of 11 Hotkey Assigns and 87 Hotkey Selects, you average ~3 Hotkey actions per minute, and it's only that high because of how much you spam 1 in the first 5 min. To put that in perspective, DongRaeGu, Mvp, MC, and other pros average over 160 Hotkey actions per MINUTE. You pretty much aren't even playing with your keyboard hand, you're relying on your eyes and mouse hand; over 80% of your total actions are mouse clicks.
Everytime you warp in units, you should select them and add them to a control group using Shift+# (Shift+1). You should do the same with your production buildings; right after you start a Gateway or Robo, click it and press Shift+#. You should be cycling through each control group, no matter where your camera is. And I don't mean blindly spamming, when you tap through control groups, move your eyes to the bottom of the screen to check the status of whatever is selected, check the minimap too. Doubletap a control group or use the minimap to move your screen. I can't stress how bad it is to play without using control groups for your army.
Highly suggest you watch and focus on these Day9 Dailies, especially the first two:
#360 - Mental Checklist Exercises
#252 - Secrets of APM, Hotkeys, and Mouse Movement
#257 - Refining Mechanics
#261 - Mechanics 2
#341 - Reprioritizing your To Do list
Without using designated control groups every game, you don't acquire the muscle memory and unconscious memory necessary to improve. Instead of instantly reacting and being able to macro without thinking, you're constantly having to watch and think about everything that's going on; you don't improve and likely can't get past Platinum playing like this. I wouldn't even ladder if I were you, I'd work solely on breaking bad habits and forcing yourself to learn proper mechanics. I suggest you change your control group layout since you don't have any engraved hotkeys you use every game (except 1 Nexus and 2 Gate but I recommend changing that). It's important to be able to efficiently cycle through production facilities and you need a minimum of 2 army hotkeys.
Here's a control group setup I'd suggest:
1 Zealot, Sentry, Immortal, [Colossus]
2 Stalker
3 High Templar or Phoenix or Obs or Warp Prism
4 Nexus
5 Gateway
6 Robo
7 Stargate
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lysergic, you do have to remember that MC, mvp, and many other pros have such a high percentage of hotkey usage because they tap hotkeys constantly. While tapping may be good practice for a professional level to get everything down exactly on time, I dont think it is something that is really necessary, and it does increase strain on your keyboard hand. Personally, I dont tap because of that fact.
I agree that he should always use hotkeys way more (i am 15-20% on average), but 50% will only ever be achieved through spam tapping.
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On January 15 2012 04:49 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 17:05 CP-Jun wrote: find this amusing. Don't ever think that you know about the game at high levels if you are in Gold. I have to say I think it's more complex than that, at least for a gold player who puts serious time into trying to understand high level players' replays. A good analogy might be the difference between being able to read a language and being able to speak a language. While many nuances might be lost on the gold league replay viewer, they can certainly learn a lot about near-optimal timings and build orders by looking at replays. What takes practice and experience is knowing how to turn that knowledge into a well-executed game -- having solid enough mechanics, understanding scouting, and being able to make good decisions while playing. It's very true that all the details of how to execute at a very high level will be opaque to a gold league player, but things like how large one's economy should be at a given time and what build orders to use to achieve that can be very accessible to players at any level who watch the replays and pay attention. I think the person you quoted wasn't saying, necessarily, that he knew how to execute EVERYTHING, but that he found it difficult to apply patterns he saw in scouting and decision making (which he referred to as the "meta game") in his own games because his opponents were doing things with weaknesses he didn't have the experience to discern immediately, or didn't have the raw macro to simply overwhelm.
Somebody who understands the game but has poor execution should be around mid-high masters. For a gold player, thinking he understands the game stifles his progress. That's really (imo) the biggest reason why players stagnate: they become convinced that they don't have much to learn.
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I progressed from no competitive RTS experience from bronze to diamond in the beta within 50 games, and was masters in season one and since. The fact is most people quickly reach the level of play they are generally capable of, within 100 games or so, and will either stagnate or crawl upward very slowly if they're extremely dedicated. If you are in gold after hundreds of games, you shouldn't ever expect to play SC2 at a competitive level for example, even if you gradually crawl to diamond.
This is because SC2 is a mental game. How fast and how well you think under pressure dictates your maximum potential. Almost no one has a physical (APM) limitation. You will play faster if you can think of more things you should be doing at any given point without been mentally overwhelmed. Improving your knowledge base through playing games, watching replays/vidoes and repetition only brings you closer to your potential, it wont increase it.
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The blizzard matchmaking system will lead your win/loss ratio to approach 50:50 by putting you against harder opponents when you win.
Go for a winning streak. You'll notice once you hit plat or diamond how incredibly easy the gold/silver players are suddenly. You'll have to compete with yourself to do that though since the opposition might not push you hard enough.
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On January 15 2012 12:20 lysergic wrote:
Here's a control group setup I'd suggest:
1 Zealot, Sentry, Immortal, [Colossus]
2 Stalker
3 High Templar or Phoenix or Obs or Warp Prism
4 Nexus
5 Gateway
6 Robo
7 Stargate
Isn't it better to not bind gateways, since the warpgates already have a default hotkey (W)?
Maybe hotkey the gateways to 5 until you get the Warpgate Tech, and then remap 5 to Robo.
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On January 14 2012 12:42 xlava wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 12:24 Mr Showtime wrote:On January 13 2012 14:58 Zrana wrote:
I'm in a clan with players from bronze to masters, and from what i've noticed the general picture of 1v1 win numbers to league is at this time (very roughly):
Masters 1000+
Diamond 600+
Plat 300+
Gold 100+
Silver less than 100
Bronze is either less than 20 or more than 200 ^^
Don't use this as a measurement. It's actually terrible. Good god. Definitely don't use that chart. Most people who actually think about the game can hit masters in like 300 games -_-
And DEFINITELY don't use this as a standard either. Good lord, I think you were somehow able to take this in the wrong direction. There is no standard number of games to reach a certain level of play. Others factors such as: time spread of games played, time spent analyzing replays, time spent in customs perfecting builds, time spent on same race, and making efficient use of VOD/replay watching need to be considered as well.
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Hmmm, I think it really depends on how much you try and improve and figuring out why you are losing every time you do lose so you don't repeat it, at least this is much more possible in leagues other than GM where there isn't so much variety in strategies used.
Personally, I did play Brood War the first year it was out, but no other RTS game since then. I placed into gold league the first season and was up to top diamond within about 100 wins or so. I was actively trying to get faster with everything I was doing and trying hard to learn from every mistake by going over my losing games and taking notes. Once I was top diamond I didn't really play for a few seasons, then I decided it was finally time to play again and get into masters which I did in about 50 more wins.
I am also very very good in pretty much every FPS game I play however I don't feel my experience with those has helped my SC2 skills very much.
I have a few friends that I play with that are engineers and have masters degrees in some pretty crazy things and are all in silver or gold. I have gone through about 7 years of college myself but what I'm getting at is it's gotta have something to do with each person's brain and how well it works with this type of game. Just because you are absolutely brilliant in something else doesn't mean you will just annihilate in SC2!
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On January 15 2012 12:20 lysergic wrote:Looking at your replays in SC2Gears, you basically don't use control groups which is your biggest flaw. Having a solid foundation in SC2 is everything, you need to use proper mechanics with a good hotkey setup if you want to actually improve. Your APM was lower than almost all your opponents. Looking at the Action Distribution chart of each of your replays, approximately 20% of your actions are Selections, ~5% are Hotkeys, 15-20% are Train, and 50% are Right Clicks. Ideally, you want 15% of your actions to be Selections, 50% Hotkeys, <5% Train, and 15-20% Right Clicks. (These numbers are based on replays of MC, Mvp, and other pros). You need to use hotkeys WAY more. In your 30 minute PvT on Antiga Shipyard, you had a total of 11 Hotkey Assigns and 87 Hotkey Selects, you average ~3 Hotkey actions per minute, and it's only that high because of how much you spam 1 in the first 5 min. To put that in perspective, DongRaeGu, Mvp, MC, and other pros average over 160 Hotkey actions per MINUTE. You pretty much aren't even playing with your keyboard hand, you're relying on your eyes and mouse hand; over 80% of your total actions are mouse clicks. Everytime you warp in units, you should select them and add them to a control group using Shift+# (Shift+1). You should do the same with your production buildings; right after you start a Gateway or Robo, click it and press Shift+#. You should be cycling through each control group, no matter where your camera is. And I don't mean blindly spamming, when you tap through control groups, move your eyes to the bottom of the screen to check the status of whatever is selected, check the minimap too. Doubletap a control group or use the minimap to move your screen. I can't stress how bad it is to play without using control groups for your army. Highly suggest you watch and focus on these Day9 Dailies, especially the first two: #360 - Mental Checklist Exercises
#252 - Secrets of APM, Hotkeys, and Mouse Movement#257 - Refining Mechanics#261 - Mechanics 2#341 - Reprioritizing your To Do listWithout using designated control groups every game, you don't acquire the muscle memory and unconscious memory necessary to improve. Instead of instantly reacting and being able to macro without thinking, you're constantly having to watch and think about everything that's going on; you don't improve and likely can't get past Platinum playing like this. I wouldn't even ladder if I were you, I'd work solely on breaking bad habits and forcing yourself to learn proper mechanics. I suggest you change your control group layout since you don't have any engraved hotkeys you use every game (except 1 Nexus and 2 Gate but I recommend changing that). It's important to be able to efficiently cycle through production facilities and you need a minimum of 2 army hotkeys. Here's a control group setup I'd suggest: 1 Zealot, Sentry, Immortal, [Colossus] 2 Stalker 3 High Templar or Phoenix or Obs or Warp Prism 4 Nexus 5 Gateway 6 Robo 7 Stargate
Its weird that u say this because i dont click anything really, i used to raid competitively on WoW and was quite good at it so Im used to using hotkeys, i think the reason it seems this way is because most of my games dont last longer than 10-15 min because its all in vs all in defense 24/7 in gold league. but i usually have my army separated into multiple hotkeys when I have enough different important units to distribute. usually when its just zealots and stalkers and sentries (no blink) i just hotkey them all as 1 group because theres only 1 spell to use.
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You hit a plateau, you need to analyze your games and figure out what exactly is holding you back.
I moved from Bronze -> Gold within a week of buying the game, I didn't play in Beta and I had no real prior RTS experience. The plateau in Gold was pretty simple to get by once I realized what I was doing wrong.
- Are you making enough harvesters? Everyone knows you "should" be saturating your bases effectively, but putting it into practice in another matter.
- You say you know the builds and counters, are you putting them into practice? Going 12 pool into 1-base Broodlords against Terran probably wasn't the best build, but that's what I was doing in Season 1 gold.
- Are you playing enough? You need to log games until your game sense develops beyond a gold level. I don't care how much you know, if you aren't logging several games daily you'l find it difficult to continue to rise.
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to be upfront, you probably don't know as much as you think you know. you sound way over confident for a gold league player. I'll look out for your stream though and see if i can pitch in any advice.
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On January 15 2012 12:57 AndAgain wrote:
Somebody who understands the game but has poor execution should be around mid-high masters.
There's a huge spectrum of poor execution out there. There are mechanical and decision-making execution problems in gold league that dwarf anything you'd ever see in master league.
Anyway, the point of my post was to distinguish between the things a gold level player might be able to learn from high level replays (like build orders and benchmarks for how fast they should be able to build an army) and the things they probably won't be able to learn from them that easily (like scouting, good decision-making, or just proficient micro.)
It's a very valid point (referring to the OP) that a gold league player who's trying to learn fiddly details of scouting from high-level replays is probably wasting his time, because they're facing builds that don't make any sense. Thing is, there's enough room to beat those builds just by improving the basics, and in that sense the OP is right that executing better (specifically by macroing better) might be all they need to do.
On the other hand, I personally have recently had a macro breakthrough that came from realizing I had my priorities wrong in a pretty fundamental way, and I'd characterize that as an understanding rather than an execution problem. The lesson is that it's not necessarily possible for someone at my level (currently low plat) to know into which category one's problems fall until one fixes them.
(I play Zerg. The issue that I realized was holding back my macro was that I wasn't taking enough care to use larvae from injects immediately after they spawn, thus missing out on large numbers of larvae that would spawn automatically otherwise. Correcting this has led to an immediate, significant improvement)
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On January 15 2012 14:41 BLacKOuTz wrote:
most of my games dont last longer than 10-15 min because its all in vs all in defense 24/7 in gold league.
I can tell you right now that truly proficient macro will allow you to continue building econ and still overwhelm what constitutes an all-in in gold league. I say this because I'm barely out of gold league and even in a test map where I'm completely alone I am still well behind the rate of macro that a master league player could achieve.
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On January 15 2012 16:14 ThomasHobbes wrote:
Going 12 pool into 1-base Broodlords against Terran probably wasn't the best build, but that's what I was doing in Season 1 gold.
You're absolutely right about the OP needing to figure out what's going wrong, but I'd point out that the quality of play in gold league has improved a fair amount since season 1, in the sense that macro is still the issue but at least what people do in the games and in what order might seem more familiar to a higher-level player.
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On January 15 2012 14:41 BLacKOuTz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 12:20 lysergic wrote:Looking at your replays in SC2Gears, you basically don't use control groups which is your biggest flaw. Having a solid foundation in SC2 is everything, you need to use proper mechanics with a good hotkey setup if you want to actually improve. Your APM was lower than almost all your opponents. Looking at the Action Distribution chart of each of your replays, approximately 20% of your actions are Selections, ~5% are Hotkeys, 15-20% are Train, and 50% are Right Clicks. Ideally, you want 15% of your actions to be Selections, 50% Hotkeys, <5% Train, and 15-20% Right Clicks. (These numbers are based on replays of MC, Mvp, and other pros). You need to use hotkeys WAY more. In your 30 minute PvT on Antiga Shipyard, you had a total of 11 Hotkey Assigns and 87 Hotkey Selects, you average ~3 Hotkey actions per minute, and it's only that high because of how much you spam 1 in the first 5 min. To put that in perspective, DongRaeGu, Mvp, MC, and other pros average over 160 Hotkey actions per MINUTE. You pretty much aren't even playing with your keyboard hand, you're relying on your eyes and mouse hand; over 80% of your total actions are mouse clicks. Everytime you warp in units, you should select them and add them to a control group using Shift+# (Shift+1). You should do the same with your production buildings; right after you start a Gateway or Robo, click it and press Shift+#. You should be cycling through each control group, no matter where your camera is. And I don't mean blindly spamming, when you tap through control groups, move your eyes to the bottom of the screen to check the status of whatever is selected, check the minimap too. Doubletap a control group or use the minimap to move your screen. I can't stress how bad it is to play without using control groups for your army. Highly suggest you watch and focus on these Day9 Dailies, especially the first two: #360 - Mental Checklist Exercises
#252 - Secrets of APM, Hotkeys, and Mouse Movement#257 - Refining Mechanics#261 - Mechanics 2#341 - Reprioritizing your To Do listWithout using designated control groups every game, you don't acquire the muscle memory and unconscious memory necessary to improve. Instead of instantly reacting and being able to macro without thinking, you're constantly having to watch and think about everything that's going on; you don't improve and likely can't get past Platinum playing like this. I wouldn't even ladder if I were you, I'd work solely on breaking bad habits and forcing yourself to learn proper mechanics. I suggest you change your control group layout since you don't have any engraved hotkeys you use every game (except 1 Nexus and 2 Gate but I recommend changing that). It's important to be able to efficiently cycle through production facilities and you need a minimum of 2 army hotkeys. Here's a control group setup I'd suggest: 1 Zealot, Sentry, Immortal, [Colossus] 2 Stalker 3 High Templar or Phoenix or Obs or Warp Prism 4 Nexus 5 Gateway 6 Robo 7 Stargate Its weird that u say this because i dont click anything really, i used to raid competitively on WoW and was quite good at it so Im used to using hotkeys, i think the reason it seems this way is because most of my games dont last longer than 10-15 min because its all in vs all in defense 24/7 in gold league. but i usually have my army separated into multiple hotkeys when I have enough different important units to distribute. usually when its just zealots and stalkers and sentries (no blink) i just hotkey them all as 1 group because theres only 1 spell to use.
Just give up on this Blackoutz guy, honestly.
Lysergic posted a very detailed reply trying to help you, and instead of showing gratitude you dismiss his very constructive post making terrible excuses for yourself? He doesn't say anything, nothing is "it seems", he spoke FACT because your terribly inept replays speak for themselves. Listen to better players who actually are trying to help you, instead of making excuses for yourself. Seriously no, you're not used to hotkeys, stop lying to yourself to maintain your ego because you (currently) have zero skill.
Even by the way you view the game and more specifically, your league, displays just how full of bigotry you are with a massively inflated ego, as if somehow you're above Gold when you actually are not even close. I quote you, "...most of my games dont last longer than 10-15 min because its all in vs all in defense 24/7 in gold league."
Get a reality check, appreciate all the wonderful help that has been given in this thread and learn to have some humility.
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I switched from competitive halo to sc2 in around season one. i too played sc2 casually. you have to play the game the right way. because of the countless hours of streams and tournaments i watched ive learned alot about the metagame. this goes for anybody trying to improve: don't try to be too cute, forget creativity and innovating and play for the win. i'm mid masters now with a lot more to improve on. staying in good mechanical shape is very demanding. also it is hard to be a terran atm. yes bias.
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On January 15 2012 16:38 HardMacro wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 14:41 BLacKOuTz wrote:On January 15 2012 12:20 lysergic wrote:Looking at your replays in SC2Gears, you basically don't use control groups which is your biggest flaw. Having a solid foundation in SC2 is everything, you need to use proper mechanics with a good hotkey setup if you want to actually improve. Your APM was lower than almost all your opponents. Looking at the Action Distribution chart of each of your replays, approximately 20% of your actions are Selections, ~5% are Hotkeys, 15-20% are Train, and 50% are Right Clicks. Ideally, you want 15% of your actions to be Selections, 50% Hotkeys, <5% Train, and 15-20% Right Clicks. (These numbers are based on replays of MC, Mvp, and other pros). You need to use hotkeys WAY more. In your 30 minute PvT on Antiga Shipyard, you had a total of 11 Hotkey Assigns and 87 Hotkey Selects, you average ~3 Hotkey actions per minute, and it's only that high because of how much you spam 1 in the first 5 min. To put that in perspective, DongRaeGu, Mvp, MC, and other pros average over 160 Hotkey actions per MINUTE. You pretty much aren't even playing with your keyboard hand, you're relying on your eyes and mouse hand; over 80% of your total actions are mouse clicks. Everytime you warp in units, you should select them and add them to a control group using Shift+# (Shift+1). You should do the same with your production buildings; right after you start a Gateway or Robo, click it and press Shift+#. You should be cycling through each control group, no matter where your camera is. And I don't mean blindly spamming, when you tap through control groups, move your eyes to the bottom of the screen to check the status of whatever is selected, check the minimap too. Doubletap a control group or use the minimap to move your screen. I can't stress how bad it is to play without using control groups for your army. Highly suggest you watch and focus on these Day9 Dailies, especially the first two: #360 - Mental Checklist Exercises
#252 - Secrets of APM, Hotkeys, and Mouse Movement#257 - Refining Mechanics#261 - Mechanics 2#341 - Reprioritizing your To Do listWithout using designated control groups every game, you don't acquire the muscle memory and unconscious memory necessary to improve. Instead of instantly reacting and being able to macro without thinking, you're constantly having to watch and think about everything that's going on; you don't improve and likely can't get past Platinum playing like this. I wouldn't even ladder if I were you, I'd work solely on breaking bad habits and forcing yourself to learn proper mechanics. I suggest you change your control group layout since you don't have any engraved hotkeys you use every game (except 1 Nexus and 2 Gate but I recommend changing that). It's important to be able to efficiently cycle through production facilities and you need a minimum of 2 army hotkeys. Here's a control group setup I'd suggest: 1 Zealot, Sentry, Immortal, [Colossus] 2 Stalker 3 High Templar or Phoenix or Obs or Warp Prism 4 Nexus 5 Gateway 6 Robo 7 Stargate Its weird that u say this because i dont click anything really, i used to raid competitively on WoW and was quite good at it so Im used to using hotkeys, i think the reason it seems this way is because most of my games dont last longer than 10-15 min because its all in vs all in defense 24/7 in gold league. but i usually have my army separated into multiple hotkeys when I have enough different important units to distribute. usually when its just zealots and stalkers and sentries (no blink) i just hotkey them all as 1 group because theres only 1 spell to use. Just give up on this Blackoutz guy, honestly. Lysergic posted a very detailed reply trying to help you, and instead of showing gratitude you dismiss his very constructive post making terrible excuses for yourself? He doesn't say anything, nothing is "it seems", he spoke FACT because your terribly inept replays speak for themselves. Listen to better players who actually are trying to help you, instead of making excuses for yourself. Seriously no, you're not used to hotkeys, stop lying to yourself to maintain your ego because you (currently) have zero skill. Even by the way you view the game and more specifically, your league, displays just how full of bigotry you are with a massively inflated ego, as if somehow you're above Gold when you actually are not even close. I quote you, "...most of my games dont last longer than 10-15 min because its all in vs all in defense 24/7 in gold league." Get a reality check, appreciate all the wonderful help that has been given in this thread and learn to have some humility.
This is a little harsh, but it has a note of truth.
OP - You need to re-evaluate your play and how you conceive of yourself as a player. Up until diamond - low masters, I thought of myself as a pretty decent player. Not good in the sense of being anywhere near pro-level, but decent.
I was wrong. My knowledge of the game was terrible, my wins were often predicated on gimmicks (i.e. doing something weird and winning because it was weird), and my builds tended to fall apart after I got a second base.
Don't ever think "I use my hotkeys well", you don't. Don't think "I'm micro'ing my units effectively", you probably aren't, you need to study a build, just one, and hone it until you've gotten every move down out till about 40 supply. Focus on macro-mechanic slipups, you should be constantly (read : constantly) flicking between your hotkeys, trying to figure out what to do.
You complained about gold being all-in / all-in defense, great, figure out how to hold all-ins and defend them consistently. All'ins are not difficult to stop if you understand what you have to defend, what units to make, and how to use them. If you truly know this information, it's a problem of mechanics, something you can only develop by constant play and practice.
Lysergic - I don't mean to deride Gold players, so your comment is well-taken. It surprises me how far even Bronze has come since the initial launch.
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I was gonna give you benefit of the doubt, so I watched your replays. I know some gold players who were stuck due to decision making errors and not knowing any builds and never having detection, but that's cleary not your case.
Not only do you know almost nothing about the game. You also have an attitude which is a huge detriment to improving. Just because you've beaten a couple platinum players on ladder doesn't mean that you're not totally shit at the game.
Just a few flaws I noticed from 2 replays that I watched:
No constant probe production(You cut probes really often at random times.)
Floating money and thus delaying tech, buildings and units for no reason
Really bad engagements
Staying on 1 base for too long
Lack of scouting
Not understanding how blink works(blinking halfway to their base on antiga and stranding stalkers on ledge multiple times)
Not knowing when to pull back
Not getting upgrades in a timely manner
Not having your army in position.(For example, losing all you probes and nexus to a drop when you only have 1 base to defend WTF???????)
Making Nexus and not mining from it.
Making 5 gateways and robo off 1 base and still floating 1.4k min 800gas or something(WTF HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?)
I hope this gives you some ideas of mistakes in your play.
I'm not trying to be hypercritical. I'm just trying to help you realize a flaw in your attitude. I'm a high diamond random player, and I know that I'm a totally shitty player. I get supply blocked, forget probes, not have enough production, forcefield like shit, don't scout well, wing all of my builds and thus have no efficiency, sometimes I'll forget detection and lose to stupid stuff, but I realize that I'm bad. That's why I can improve.
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Halo is not a real game.
Sc2 is a real game.
Accept your humanity. You are not alone.
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EPT
