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Top 8 Masters here.
First let's be honest -- your mechanics just flat out aren't great. In the replays I watched, you're floating a metric ton of resources. Maybe not quite gold level macro, but I would put it in plat-ish based on spending alone. So let's insert the "Macro better and do nothing else different and hit Masters" disclaimer right here. I hate being that guy, but it's 100% true. Any high Diamond/low Masters player would beat you in any game that goes past the 10 minute mark just based on having more stuff. So I highly suggest going into a vs. AI game and just get used to keeping your money low while not thinking about anything else. If you can't do it with no pressure on you, you have no chance of doing it in a real game situation.
Secondly, I can tell you've watched a lot of high level streams and games -- not specifically practiced the builds (see: macro better), but you're aware of how the game works at those levels, and you've stolen builds that work pretty well at those levels. That's a great place to start. Now, you have to do the actual hard part -- be able to adjust your build based on what you scout. Specifically I refer to your PvT vs. CrazyAssassi (though your scouting in all of the games left a lot to be desired.) The guy was doing a 3rax all-in off of 1 base. You really had no clue about it until the 7:30 mark (3rax all-in hits no later than 7:00 if it's macro'd properly, and banshees hit at a similar timing), and were just executing the build you wanted to do regardless of what information you had. If he went banshee, you were going to lose a ton of probes before that 2nd observer comes out. Since he went 3rax, you're pretty much dead without perfect forcefields and/or a crazy fast immortal or two. You had neither, and therefore you were dead.
It's one thing to steal those builds and copy them verbatim -- anyone can really do that reasonably. Taking them and using them for what they're designed for is a whole different ballgame. In that game, you needed to be poking at the front constantly, checking his unit numbers, seeing if an add-on went on that barracks, seeing if the expansion was taken. What you did dies to pretty much any type of early pressure -- as you saw. If you see the massive amount of barracks units forming up (or even just a tech lab at the choke with no expansion coming), you can chrono out an observer first in case of banshee play and to do some tech scouting, then an immortal, get some sentries up, and stop whichever type of cheese is coming (handful of stalkers and a ton of zealots for vs. rax play, or more stalkers and a 2nd obs to stop banshees) and just outmacro him because you've *scouted* that he's still just on one base.
Also minor point -- your micro needs work too, but save this til last. I watched the first PvP and it made my heart hurt to see immortals firing on 3 zealots while 5 stalkers flanked you.
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tl;dr version:
1) Macro better, macro harder. Watch replays instead of just streams. Figure out the exact timings buildings are built and units are warped in. Make notes. Practice the builds in vs. AI until you can get them down to a similar timing.
2) Scout better. Don't blindly build what you want and expect it to work. If you scout something that tells you you need to adjust your build, adjust your build. But for the love of all that's holy, scout!
3) After Macro and scouting are fixed, work on your micro. If macro is 85% of what you need to improve on, scouting is 14% and micro is like 1%. Micro looks fancy, but the other fundamentals will win you more games in the long run.
Good luck!
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Edit: All of this and I forgot to answer the original question.  People get better at different rates, but you'll get better as long as you keep plugging away, and you keep trying to improve the right things. Yelling imbalance never helps. Trying to figure out exact counters to everything is usually futile as well, as any reasonable individual can figure out what units counter what, especially one who watches a lot of pros play. Improving macro, scouting, and unit positioning/control are all important to becoming a better player. I suggest the Day[9] Dailies on mechanics and macro to get started, but the bull-headed approach of stealing a build and copying it until you have it perfect and using it over and over until you find out where it's weak and make adjustments on the fly also works. ^_^ That's where most of us started out.
As for my personal experience, I played a lot of SC1, AoE2, and RA2, but hadn't touched RTS's in about 5-6 years when SC2 came out. The fundamentals don't change much -- I've hit the highest league as each was released, except GM ofc....but still working on that now that I have the time.
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On January 13 2012 14:34 how wrote:
You said that for your last season you were 110 and 100, which means that gold league is the right place for you at the moment, generally, to get placed into the next league you woul need to win about 3 out of every 5 games (more or less/to my understanding.) As for getting better, I would suggest looking to the pros/guides on what you should be doing, otherwise you may get bad habits stuck in your mind that take a long time to flush out if you want to become better, i.e. not hitting every inject may not matter in bronze->diamond league, but good good luck getting into masters if your queen ever reaches a 100 energy before the 15min mark (or nexus/OC depending on which race you play.)
unless he is 110-100 and is already playing mainly against platinum 
i think you do fine, to get better at a faster rate you simply have to play more games!
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On January 14 2012 08:49 ArcticFox wrote:Top 8 Masters here. First let's be honest -- your mechanics just flat out aren't great. In the replays I watched, you're floating a metric ton of resources. Maybe not quite gold level macro, but I would put it in plat-ish based on spending alone. So let's insert the "Macro better and do nothing else different and hit Masters" disclaimer right here. I hate being that guy, but it's 100% true. Any high Diamond/low Masters player would beat you in any game that goes past the 10 minute mark just based on having more stuff. So I highly suggest going into a vs. AI game and just get used to keeping your money low while not thinking about anything else. If you can't do it with no pressure on you, you have no chance of doing it in a real game situation. Secondly, I can tell you've watched a lot of high level streams and games -- not specifically practiced the builds (see: macro better), but you're aware of how the game works at those levels, and you've stolen builds that work pretty well at those levels. That's a great place to start. Now, you have to do the actual hard part -- be able to adjust your build based on what you scout. Specifically I refer to your PvT vs. CrazyAssassi (though your scouting in all of the games left a lot to be desired.) The guy was doing a 3rax all-in off of 1 base. You really had no clue about it until the 7:30 mark (3rax all-in hits no later than 7:00 if it's macro'd properly, and banshees hit at a similar timing), and were just executing the build you wanted to do regardless of what information you had. If he went banshee, you were going to lose a ton of probes before that 2nd observer comes out. Since he went 3rax, you're pretty much dead without perfect forcefields and/or a crazy fast immortal or two. You had neither, and therefore you were dead. It's one thing to steal those builds and copy them verbatim -- anyone can really do that reasonably. Taking them and using them for what they're designed for is a whole different ballgame. In that game, you needed to be poking at the front constantly, checking his unit numbers, seeing if an add-on went on that barracks, seeing if the expansion was taken. What you did dies to pretty much any type of early pressure -- as you saw. If you see the massive amount of barracks units forming up (or even just a tech lab at the choke with no expansion coming), you can chrono out an observer first in case of banshee play and to do some tech scouting, then an immortal, get some sentries up, and stop whichever type of cheese is coming (handful of stalkers and a ton of zealots for vs. rax play, or more stalkers and a 2nd obs to stop banshees) and just outmacro him because you've *scouted* that he's still just on one base. Also minor point -- your micro needs work too, but save this til last. I watched the first PvP and it made my heart hurt to see immortals firing on 3 zealots while 5 stalkers flanked you. ---------------------------------------- tl;dr version: 1) Macro better, macro harder. Watch replays instead of just streams. Figure out the exact timings buildings are built and units are warped in. Make notes. Practice the builds in vs. AI until you can get them down to a similar timing. 2) Scout better. Don't blindly build what you want and expect it to work. If you scout something that tells you you need to adjust your build, adjust your build. But for the love of all that's holy, scout! 3) After Macro and scouting are fixed, work on your micro. If macro is 85% of what you need to improve on, scouting is 14% and micro is like 1%. Micro looks fancy, but the other fundamentals will win you more games in the long run. Good luck! --------------------------------------------- Edit: All of this and I forgot to answer the original question. People get better at different rates, but you'll get better as long as you keep plugging away, and you keep trying to improve the right things. Yelling imbalance never helps. Trying to figure out exact counters to everything is usually futile as well, as any reasonable individual can figure out what units counter what, especially one who watches a lot of pros play. Improving macro, scouting, and unit positioning/control are all important to becoming a better player. I suggest the Day[9] Dailies on mechanics and macro to get started, but the bull-headed approach of stealing a build and copying it until you have it perfect and using it over and over until you find out where it's weak and make adjustments on the fly also works. ^_^ That's where most of us started out. As for my personal experience, I played a lot of SC1, AoE2, and RA2, but hadn't touched RTS's in about 5-6 years when SC2 came out. The fundamentals don't change much -- I've hit the highest league as each was released, except GM ofc....but still working on that now that I have the time.
I see what ur saying. I remember my build that game was to get an obs to see what he was doing, but my nexus finished b4 i could cancel it and i just didnt have the money to get the units i needed, and ive also only done that build 10 ish times. But thanks for the input, just from only reading it it has been helpful.
And to the post before this one, i do play alot of plat players so i think im right in between the 2 leagues. Ill probably get plat from season 6 placement if not b4 then. Hopefully!
Also as a HUGE note. I think my macro isnt up to par because since i started going hard in Sc2, ive played toss for 4 days.
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Northern Ireland25116 Posts
Macroing well is important, but I think reading the strategy forums is the most important thing I've done besides that. On these here forums people explain the decisions they make in games, or things that you should be looking out for.
The problem with merely watching streams is that, often you can see what a great player is doing, but unless he is a lovely gent like Grubby he won't be explaining WHY he is doing it. Thus if you go in and blindly copy what looks like a great build, it can turn out horribly.
Little things in play can make a massive difference as well, for example I used to macro like a (relative) machine against Zergs, and just get overwhelmed in games. The reason for this was I was religiously hitting warpins, spending chronos and getting my tech, but never establishing map presence. Zerg would hit optimal saturation on their 3 or more bases and just eventually trade so that I kept on losing.
A friend pointed out my relative inactivity in terms of moving around the map, and I took this on board, starting with a 1 zealot/stalker poke at the start of games, moving out with small sentry/zealot force and planting a pylon in view of their overlords, SMALL things like that. This relatively tiny change at the time (I would literally do those 2 pokes and that was pretty much it) would see Zergs come off droning a surprising degree. This in turn would set up my midgame and lategame much stronger to the point that I was actually winning a ton of PvZ where previously I was getting stomped.
TLDR : Macro is number 1, after that it's understanding WHY you should do things and the general concepts behind things to progress.
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I was exactly in your shoes OP. I was in gold for S3 and S4 and I thought I would never get promoted. I would play platinum players and then hit a 6 game losing streak and start playing silvers. It was frustating as hell. Then, I just committed to playing a lot - like 1-2 hours a day and by the start of S5, I made platinum. That was a pretty rewarding feeling. But yeah, if you play enough [with the mindset to improve], you'll improve without noticing it tbh. sorta like growing. You won't realize the fact you've grown in height until someone who hasn't seen you for a while says "oh wow, you've grown." But just look over replays and grind out games and just look to improve and have fun. And when I watch streams, I ignore timings and stuff like that cuz at plat, no one is consistent enough to rely on those anyway lol but I look at small tactics like picking up your units w/ graviton beam to save them from zerglings. Just small stuff. Streams are entertainment for me anyway.
gl hf!
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Everyone has a different learning rate but again, once you get your mechanics down, it is much easier to progress from there. Also, the learning curve is much steeper than any existing console game.
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Completely agree with ArcticFox's Post:
+ Show Spoiler +On January 14 2012 08:49 ArcticFox wrote:Top 8 Masters here. First let's be honest -- your mechanics just flat out aren't great. In the replays I watched, you're floating a metric ton of resources. Maybe not quite gold level macro, but I would put it in plat-ish based on spending alone. So let's insert the "Macro better and do nothing else different and hit Masters" disclaimer right here. I hate being that guy, but it's 100% true. Any high Diamond/low Masters player would beat you in any game that goes past the 10 minute mark just based on having more stuff. So I highly suggest going into a vs. AI game and just get used to keeping your money low while not thinking about anything else. If you can't do it with no pressure on you, you have no chance of doing it in a real game situation. Secondly, I can tell you've watched a lot of high level streams and games -- not specifically practiced the builds (see: macro better), but you're aware of how the game works at those levels, and you've stolen builds that work pretty well at those levels. That's a great place to start. Now, you have to do the actual hard part -- be able to adjust your build based on what you scout. Specifically I refer to your PvT vs. CrazyAssassi (though your scouting in all of the games left a lot to be desired.) The guy was doing a 3rax all-in off of 1 base. You really had no clue about it until the 7:30 mark (3rax all-in hits no later than 7:00 if it's macro'd properly, and banshees hit at a similar timing), and were just executing the build you wanted to do regardless of what information you had. If he went banshee, you were going to lose a ton of probes before that 2nd observer comes out. Since he went 3rax, you're pretty much dead without perfect forcefields and/or a crazy fast immortal or two. You had neither, and therefore you were dead. It's one thing to steal those builds and copy them verbatim -- anyone can really do that reasonably. Taking them and using them for what they're designed for is a whole different ballgame. In that game, you needed to be poking at the front constantly, checking his unit numbers, seeing if an add-on went on that barracks, seeing if the expansion was taken. What you did dies to pretty much any type of early pressure -- as you saw. If you see the massive amount of barracks units forming up (or even just a tech lab at the choke with no expansion coming), you can chrono out an observer first in case of banshee play and to do some tech scouting, then an immortal, get some sentries up, and stop whichever type of cheese is coming (handful of stalkers and a ton of zealots for vs. rax play, or more stalkers and a 2nd obs to stop banshees) and just outmacro him because you've *scouted* that he's still just on one base. Also minor point -- your micro needs work too, but save this til last. I watched the first PvP and it made my heart hurt to see immortals firing on 3 zealots while 5 stalkers flanked you. ---------------------------------------- tl;dr version: 1) Macro better, macro harder. Watch replays instead of just streams. Figure out the exact timings buildings are built and units are warped in. Make notes. Practice the builds in vs. AI until you can get them down to a similar timing. 2) Scout better. Don't blindly build what you want and expect it to work. If you scout something that tells you you need to adjust your build, adjust your build. But for the love of all that's holy, scout! 3) After Macro and scouting are fixed, work on your micro. If macro is 85% of what you need to improve on, scouting is 14% and micro is like 1%. Micro looks fancy, but the other fundamentals will win you more games in the long run. Good luck! --------------------------------------------- Edit: All of this and I forgot to answer the original question. People get better at different rates, but you'll get better as long as you keep plugging away, and you keep trying to improve the right things. Yelling imbalance never helps. Trying to figure out exact counters to everything is usually futile as well, as any reasonable individual can figure out what units counter what, especially one who watches a lot of pros play. Improving macro, scouting, and unit positioning/control are all important to becoming a better player. I suggest the Day[9] Dailies on mechanics and macro to get started, but the bull-headed approach of stealing a build and copying it until you have it perfect and using it over and over until you find out where it's weak and make adjustments on the fly also works. ^_^ That's where most of us started out. As for my personal experience, I played a lot of SC1, AoE2, and RA2, but hadn't touched RTS's in about 5-6 years when SC2 came out. The fundamentals don't change much -- I've hit the highest league as each was released, except GM ofc....but still working on that now that I have the time.
However I would especially emphasize the Day[9] Dailies on mechanics...even the Day[9] audio podcasts were incredibly useful. Just listetning to those and really focusing on implementing them launched me from D- to D on ICCUP (Think silver to platinum).
I also would not worry about the number of games it takes. Everyone learns differently, and often times it's some oversight or something you don't fundamentally understand that will make you stagnate for a bit. For example, nobody would disagree macro and mechanics are important, but understanding how important and what aspects of macro or mechanics to focus on will change as you improve.
If you want to know, I played warcraft 3 seriously so that was about 800 games. Then I switched to Brood War and that was about 300 games to go from D-(silver) to C-(masters). But in those 300 games I really tried each week to work on one specific aspect of my play. Be it improving/utilizing hotkeys to macro more efficiently, or doing a build vs AI while having a conversation/reading a book to work on multitasking.
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I feel you'd have a better chance of getting into competitive RTS than something like CS tho coming from a console background..
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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.
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On January 14 2012 12:24 Mr Showtime wrote:Show nested quote +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 -_-
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I think your natural talent will take you to a given league over a short period of time, and from then on you have the potential to gradually get better if you sincerely try to improve your game more and work hard on your mechanics. The one thing I've consistently noticed is that the people that are in diamond and above, especially in masters spend far more time theorycrafting, practicing build orders and trying to elevate their play than weaker players, which is probably a good reason why they are masters and other players are not.
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On January 14 2012 06:23 ishyishy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 01:23 ishyishy wrote:You should be a LOT higher than gold. In my first 3 weeks of playing (maybe 1-2 hours per day) I got to diamond top 8. The last RTS I played was Red Alert 2 when that first came out! lol Unless you are just starting or dont play a lot, I dont see any reason why anyone would be below diamond by now. This is the kind of game that is easy to play, but hard to master. Being diamond is not mastering the game Since then, I've only played 1-2 games a day (if that) and im mid-masters. ook,I didnt say I was good because of what league I am in. I just have a hard time understanding why people cannot get past a lower-ish league. Like, why are people stuck in silver or gold for months on end? If you are actually playing the game, i find that to be hard to believe.
Ive been stuck in silver/gold since last yearish. I probably play 10 1v1's a week sometimes more sometimes less. I do enjoy watching the pro scene though.
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On January 14 2012 11:28 mahi29 wrote:
I was exactly in your shoes OP. I was in gold for S3 and S4 and I thought I would never get promoted. I would play platinum players and then hit a 6 game losing streak and start playing silvers. It was frustating as hell. Then, I just committed to playing a lot - like 1-2 hours a day and by the start of S5, I made platinum. That was a pretty rewarding feeling. But yeah, if you play enough [with the mindset to improve], you'll improve without noticing it tbh. sorta like growing. You won't realize the fact you've grown in height until someone who hasn't seen you for a while says "oh wow, you've grown." But just look over replays and grind out games and just look to improve and have fun. And when I watch streams, I ignore timings and stuff like that cuz at plat, no one is consistent enough to rely on those anyway lol but I look at small tactics like picking up your units w/ graviton beam to save them from zerglings. Just small stuff. Streams are entertainment for me anyway.
gl hf!
To everyone that says Im on some sort of high horse when i said im more equipped at understanding higher levels of play, the bold this guy said is exactly what I mean. Obviously my mechanics are gold lvl and im not the best at executing strategies, but im in no way saying im better than i think i am. When a 4 gate hits u at 8 min instead of 5:45 (this is just an example) and it hits with 5 warps ins instead of pushing with 1, that kind of shit can win sometimes. Cause after 5:45 u think ur safe for a bit. This is usually what i lose to. its not that my macro is horrible (id say its at a plat/diamond lvl) its just sometimes people win because they do something that makes no sense. I still win more games than I lose, but i cant go on significant winning streaks because of Cannon rushes, 6 rax all in, 7 pools, and players hitting timings that make no sense. but im learning to deal with and scout better to find this. This is also why I play much better against higher lvl players. I still lose but when i do its cause i actually got out played, its not cause of random luck etc. The scouting part alone should help fix this though.
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On January 14 2012 15:42 BLacKOuTz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 11:28 mahi29 wrote:
I was exactly in your shoes OP. I was in gold for S3 and S4 and I thought I would never get promoted. I would play platinum players and then hit a 6 game losing streak and start playing silvers. It was frustating as hell. Then, I just committed to playing a lot - like 1-2 hours a day and by the start of S5, I made platinum. That was a pretty rewarding feeling. But yeah, if you play enough [with the mindset to improve], you'll improve without noticing it tbh. sorta like growing. You won't realize the fact you've grown in height until someone who hasn't seen you for a while says "oh wow, you've grown." But just look over replays and grind out games and just look to improve and have fun. And when I watch streams, I ignore timings and stuff like that cuz at plat, no one is consistent enough to rely on those anyway lol but I look at small tactics like picking up your units w/ graviton beam to save them from zerglings. Just small stuff. Streams are entertainment for me anyway.
gl hf! To everyone that says Im on some sort of high horse when i said im more equipped at understanding higher levels of play, the bold this guy said is exactly what I mean. Obviously my mechanics are gold lvl and im not the best at executing strategies, but im in no way saying im better than i think i am. When a 4 gate hits u at 8 min instead of 5:45 (this is just an example) and it hits with 5 warps ins instead of pushing with 1, that kind of shit can win sometimes. Cause after 5:45 u think ur safe for a bit. This is usually what i lose to. its not that my macro is horrible (id say its at a plat/diamond lvl) its just sometimes people win because they do something that makes no sense. I still win more games than I lose, but i cant go on significant winning streaks because of Cannon rushes, 6 rax all in, 7 pools, and players hitting timings that make no sense. but im learning to deal with and scout better to find this. This is also why I play much better against higher lvl players. I still lose but when i do its cause i actually got out played, its not cause of random luck etc. The scouting part alone should help fix this though.
Your attitude is totally wrong and is greatly detrimental to your rate of improvement. You can't look at a loss and dismiss it as "it's a terrible build, it makes no sense". You lost because you lost. A capable player can easily hold the stuff that you're having trouble with.
I hit a lot of weird timings and proxies (some of which are virtually impossible to scout in time, the map is simply too big), and if I lose, I watch the replay and focus on how to figure out the attack from what I do see and holding it so I'll lose less often to it in the future.
If you hit something that you think is dumb, then your smart play should prevail if you're playing well.
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I believe it may be too soon to tell if you have any potential in the genre. It is very possible for people to start in diamond/master league right away though and that natural talent is a good sign of having proffessional potential. I know however that ColMinigun started in bronze league and is now successful, so it's not a set in stone rule. If you keep progressing quickly then I would stay stick with it, but it's important to know a lost cause when you see it, and I'm leaning towards the latter.
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On January 14 2012 15:42 BLacKOuTz wrote:
When a 4 gate hits u at 8 min instead of 5:45 (this is just an example) and it hits with 5 warps ins instead of pushing with 1, that kind of shit can win sometimes. Cause after 5:45 u think ur safe for a bit.
This is actually a GREAT example of how some people get stuck in lower leagues.
Now, I don't play the TvP match up, so I may be wrong here, but as a Zerg, if I don't see a toss expo by 6 minutes, alarms and sirens are blaring in my head until I scout what the hell the P is doing, and I make all necessary defenses until I know what's going on. Attacking with a 4-gate at 8 minutes only wins against weaker players, and it works because they feel safe when an attack is late, and don't bother to find out where the hell their opponent's expansion is, or what the hell their opponent is doing that could be taking so long.
So actually, timings are JUST as important in lower leagues as they are at the top. When you know the most effective timings, (I would say expansion timings are probably the most useful in lower leagues) and things start happening late, it's an immediate notification that you need to scout, and prepare to defend until you KNOW, for SURE, that you're actually safe.
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On January 14 2012 15:58 chenchen wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 15:42 BLacKOuTz wrote:On January 14 2012 11:28 mahi29 wrote:
I was exactly in your shoes OP. I was in gold for S3 and S4 and I thought I would never get promoted. I would play platinum players and then hit a 6 game losing streak and start playing silvers. It was frustating as hell. Then, I just committed to playing a lot - like 1-2 hours a day and by the start of S5, I made platinum. That was a pretty rewarding feeling. But yeah, if you play enough [with the mindset to improve], you'll improve without noticing it tbh. sorta like growing. You won't realize the fact you've grown in height until someone who hasn't seen you for a while says "oh wow, you've grown." But just look over replays and grind out games and just look to improve and have fun. And when I watch streams, I ignore timings and stuff like that cuz at plat, no one is consistent enough to rely on those anyway lol but I look at small tactics like picking up your units w/ graviton beam to save them from zerglings. Just small stuff. Streams are entertainment for me anyway.
gl hf! To everyone that says Im on some sort of high horse when i said im more equipped at understanding higher levels of play, the bold this guy said is exactly what I mean. Obviously my mechanics are gold lvl and im not the best at executing strategies, but im in no way saying im better than i think i am. When a 4 gate hits u at 8 min instead of 5:45 (this is just an example) and it hits with 5 warps ins instead of pushing with 1, that kind of shit can win sometimes. Cause after 5:45 u think ur safe for a bit. This is usually what i lose to. its not that my macro is horrible (id say its at a plat/diamond lvl) its just sometimes people win because they do something that makes no sense. I still win more games than I lose, but i cant go on significant winning streaks because of Cannon rushes, 6 rax all in, 7 pools, and players hitting timings that make no sense. but im learning to deal with and scout better to find this. This is also why I play much better against higher lvl players. I still lose but when i do its cause i actually got out played, its not cause of random luck etc. The scouting part alone should help fix this though. Your attitude is totally wrong and is greatly detrimental to your rate of improvement. You can't look at a loss and dismiss it as "it's a terrible build, it makes no sense". You lost because you lost. A capable player can easily hold the stuff that you're having trouble with. I hit a lot of weird timings and proxies (some of which are virtually impossible to scout in time, the map is simply too big), and if I lose, I watch the replay and focus on how to figure out the attack from what I do see and holding it so I'll lose less often to it in the future. If you hit something that you think is dumb, then your smart play should prevail if you're playing well.
I know what u mean, and im not saying like "I am SO much better than gold players! they win cause im better!" Im just saying that due to so many weird things that happen at this level it causes me to play scared, which makes my macro pretty terrible in crisis situations. But since i posted this thread ive seen a huge improvement in my play just from the advice given here. I just wanted to clarify to the people saying that im dumb for thinking im better than i actually am that that is not what im saying at all, its just a small thing that i have a problem with.
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On January 14 2012 16:14 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 15:42 BLacKOuTz wrote:
When a 4 gate hits u at 8 min instead of 5:45 (this is just an example) and it hits with 5 warps ins instead of pushing with 1, that kind of shit can win sometimes. Cause after 5:45 u think ur safe for a bit. This is actually a GREAT example of how some people get stuck in lower leagues. Now, I don't play the TvP match up, so I may be wrong here, but as a Zerg, if I don't see a toss expo by 6 minutes, alarms and sirens are blaring in my head until I scout what the hell the P is doing, and I make all necessary defenses until I know what's going on. Attacking with a 4-gate at 8 minutes only wins against weaker players, and it works because they feel safe when an attack is late, and don't bother to find out where the hell their opponent's expansion is, or what the hell their opponent is doing that could be taking so long. So actually, timings are JUST as important in lower leagues as they are at the top. When you know the most effective timings, (I would say expansion timings are probably the most useful in lower leagues) and things start happening late, it's an immediate notification that you need to scout, and prepare to defend until you KNOW, for SURE, that you're actually safe.
Exactly, and what will happen is i will not see an expo, so i will cut probes and build units (especially against terran cause u cant scout until u have an obs) and then ill finally get the check their expo again when i have an obs, and they just got one REALLLLY late cause they, well, suck. And then im behind cause i didnt expand as well. Also tell tell signs of expansions are things like 2-3 bunkers on ur natural ramp on Shakuras. Ive lost to terrans who did that, but did not expand behind those bunkers and just 1 base all in'd me. I mean....cmon....
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@OP - I used to play Halo as well, I got into the game when it first came out. I played competitively, but I probably never got as involved as you did (I've never been to MLG though I've always intended to go at some point).
Anyway, I started out as silver in sc2 back in about November 2010 and it took me about a month to get to diamond. I had been a casual RTS player (sc bw included) for a long time before that, but not until sc2 did I ever get into it really. I got frustrated in sc2 for a while because of cheeses and the fact that I always felt like I was down in units. But once I watched day9's first "newbie tuesday" daily, it fixed my macro problems and then I went on to diamond really, really fast. I think in your shoes, just being a competitive gamer is going to help to rank up, it'll just take you some time to get used to the game.
At your level right now, just remember - the other guy probably has terrible macro. All you need to do is have more stuff and you will win. Macro like a beast, and you'll be pushing through platinum in no time  good luck.
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On January 14 2012 16:27 CakeSauc3 wrote:@OP - I used to play Halo as well, I got into the game when it first came out. I played competitively, but I probably never got as involved as you did (I've never been to MLG though I've always intended to go at some point). Anyway, I started out as silver in sc2 back in about November 2010 and it took me about a month to get to diamond. I had been a casual RTS player (sc bw included) for a long time before that, but not until sc2 did I ever get into it really. I got frustrated in sc2 for a while because of cheeses and the fact that I always felt like I was down in units. But once I watched day9's first "newbie tuesday" daily, it fixed my macro problems and then I went on to diamond really, really fast. I think in your shoes, just being a competitive gamer is going to help to rank up, it'll just take you some time to get used to the game. At your level right now, just remember - the other guy probably has terrible macro. All you need to do is have more stuff and you will win. Macro like a beast, and you'll be pushing through platinum in no time good luck.
Yeah the fact ive excelled at FpS so easily in the past is why this is so frustrating. But Sc2 is literally the first RTS ive ever touched on PC. Also i think ive watched about 200 of Day 9's dailys, and taken quite alot from it. The advice u gave at the end is what many people have been saying and ive just simply bee doing that and winning 70 % of my games now. So i think i was just focusing on the wrong things.
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EPT
