Normal Sc2 progression rate? - Page 11

On January 15 2012 16:59 ThomasHobbes wrote:
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.

On January 13 2012 15:37 sickoota wrote:
This is just my own experience, so take from it what you will. I started sc2 with zero previous competitive RTS experience as well as zero competitve gaming experience in general. My only preparation was watching some husky videos, and later day[9]. It took me about 10 games to get out of bronze doing the simplest 3-rax build learned from husky's youtube channel with attention to making sure to hit supply depots and stuff I. It took me about 50 games of just doing this build + amoving over and over to get to gold, at which point i race switched to toss. I hit masters at around 200 games played, and have pretty much stagnated as a very average master's player ever since then as I don't play all that often. I'm really mystified as to how anyone can put any amount of thought + practice into this game and not be atleast diamond very quickly. I have friends who are platinum players who play literally once every 6 months and are still able to win in platinum easily doing extremely half-assed builds + amove. If you watch competitive tournaments with casters like artosis or day[9] you should just be able to apply what you learn + focus on mechanics and hit master's without too much effort in my opinion. My theory is that those who stagnate in the lower leagues despite putting in alot of effort must either be fundamentally mistaken about basic RTS theory (attack right after they expand or right before +1 finishes and dont know why its bad) or have put zero effort into the mechanical aspect of the game (which is really not all that hard).
TLDR Just focus on mechanics and apply a tiny bit of critical thinking and there's no reason for it to take more than 200 games to hit masters (this number will probably be greater for zerg as they are more mechanically demanding and the larvae mechanic makes just surviving the early game take alot of experience).

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.

...