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On January 13 2012 14:42 BLacKOuTz wrote:
I think alot of my problem is I know the meta game for high levels of play but as Idra has said before, sometimes people win just because they accidently did something amazing that NO ONE ever does. Like losing to 6 rax all ins on Tal darim when they dont scout and guess right first try, and not scouting a 4 gate and building a marauder only army and rolling through it. (Both happened today). No one good would ever build 10 marauders and nothing else without scouting.
I find this amusing. Don't ever think that you know about the game at high levels if you are in Gold. Anything amazing that worked on you (hence you lost) won't work 99% in high levels. What IdrA has said is more to do with doing build orders that doesn't make sense to catch an opponent player off guard but won't work twice things.
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I'll plug my blog post, as it is on this topic.
As to your question, from what I understand your amount of games is fine for gold league.
From Bronze to mid-master I would say you can get by with macro and a-move. I am living evidence.
Then it gets REALLY fun because you start solving problems with your own twist to it.
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On January 14 2012 17:10 Thaniri wrote:
I'll plug my blog post, as it is on this topic.
As to your question, from what I understand your amount of games is fine for gold league.
From Bronze to mid-master I would say you can get by with macro and a-move. I am living evidence.
Then it gets REALLY fun because you start solving problems with your own twist to it.
What race are you playing?
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On January 14 2012 17:34 Cramsy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 17:10 Thaniri wrote:
I'll plug my blog post, as it is on this topic.
As to your question, from what I understand your amount of games is fine for gold league.
From Bronze to mid-master I would say you can get by with macro and a-move. I am living evidence.
Then it gets REALLY fun because you start solving problems with your own twist to it. What race are you playing?
Really? It could only be Protoss.
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Honestly, you will suck balls for about a year when you start playing rts, because you simply can't keep track of all the shit happening. After a year once you have the mechanics you will begin to understand strategies and employ build orders that adapt to what you scout.
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i had played sc/bw until about 2003 and was B4 on wgtour ladder. i bought sc2 in april of 2011 and by the end of season 2(about a 1 1/2 months) i had made masters leauge. i really ground out a lot of games that first season though i think my record was 400-300. it just takes time if you have no rts background .
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I wouldn't even ladder until you have key's memorized. The worst thing you can do to yourself is pick up bad habbits and theres no better way to do that start off a rocky foundation.
If you are a bit of a ladder phobe like myself, then I would do a lot of vs computer matches till you are completely fluent in hitting 1-10 keys + ctrl. Saving map locations with f# keys. Have all units/structures and assigned key. Etc, etc etc.
Then learn build orders while playing the computer. Get them down to seconds from the pro's. You can go to any grandmaster (I suggest the korean pro smurfs on NA) and just write down their beginning build orders. What the MU is and the times of key building usuage. Practice that over and over vs CPU till you are within the exact time range of the PRO.
Example: (If protoss) Cyber : 2:40, WG : 3:30. Etc.
If you look at a lot of the PRO's matches, they have it down so well, that every time they do the same build order, it's litterally exactly the same in time.
I did this for a month. Never played one ladder match and went from gold to low masters when I finally felt I was comfortable enough with the habits to play real games.
(edit) : Oh yea, watch lot's of pro streams when you have time. This will give you an idea of how games play, since you aren't doing much ladder while practicing vs cpu.
lol, forgot to mention that 'green tea' custom CPU in custom games is prob your best bet for vs cpu. You can assign it builds/conditions/etc. It's a lot more challenging that blizzards cpu and will give you 'semi' realistic gameplay.
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On January 14 2012 17:43 Netsky wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 17:34 Cramsy wrote:On January 14 2012 17:10 Thaniri wrote:
I'll plug my blog post, as it is on this topic.
As to your question, from what I understand your amount of games is fine for gold league.
From Bronze to mid-master I would say you can get by with macro and a-move. I am living evidence.
Then it gets REALLY fun because you start solving problems with your own twist to it. What race are you playing? Really? It could only be Protoss.
Oh look someone who tries to hide his frustration of losing to protoss in a sneaky comment. Never seen that before.
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I wouldn't beat yourself up about it I have over 1300 league wins that includes 2s 3s and 4s but the bulk of it is from 1s and I'M still in gold. Just keep at it and work hard you will get to where your supposed to be in time
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Probably depends a lot on why you play on ladder.
If you just want to have fun and don't care about what's optimal and your rank it seems completely fine to be in bronze after 500 games.
If you only care about getting as good as possible and care a lot about winning every game I would probably be extremely disappointed if I was anywhere below mid masters after that many games.
If you want to get good but don't care about winning, don't spend time thinking about the games you played, don't go through your replays and test all builds, keyboard layouts etc on on ladder your games played vs rank ratio can probably look pretty bad.
And so on.
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Sc2 is my first RTS and i started playing just under a year ago and now im mid diamond. but it all depends on how much you play really
I think ive played around 2000 games with 1150 wins
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On January 14 2012 16:20 BLacKOuTz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 16:14 Nemireck wrote: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....
I don't think that's a totally correct logic. Your opponent IS spending his resources on something. If it's not expo, then it's units and/or tech. In latter case you're at risk of attack. If you know that your expand build can't hold a 1 base all-in, then as you say, you can't take an expansion. Now, if the terran takes his expo "late" (you probably meaning like at 6 minutes), your obs will spot it soon after it went down, and you have a window for attack (1 base all-in). That's because you have spent all your 1-base income on units/tech (and hopefully had good macro). Your opponent spent it on units/tech + expo. He still doesn't have medivacs and probably no stim. With an immortal and some forcefields you should be able to roll over him.
Another thing, if you feel that a time gap between your early probe/stalker scout and obs is too big, perhaps you can find a build which gives you earlier obs? I think on Artosis's stream I saw a PvT expand build with a fairly early (and multiple) obs. I'm not 100% sure about this though.
Finally, if you watch the top level games, especially bo5 or more, often half of the games would be an all-in where one player made another think he was doing something different (e.g. expanding), and went for a sneaky all-in.
Hope this helps. Im Platinum, play lots of custom games and I often feel exactly like you about the opponents. Don't let your ego fool you 
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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.
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On January 14 2012 17:43 Netsky wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 17:34 Cramsy wrote:On January 14 2012 17:10 Thaniri wrote:
I'll plug my blog post, as it is on this topic.
As to your question, from what I understand your amount of games is fine for gold league.
From Bronze to mid-master I would say you can get by with macro and a-move. I am living evidence.
Then it gets REALLY fun because you start solving problems with your own twist to it. What race are you playing? Really? It could only be Protoss.
Could be terran too. I went 1 rax FE into MMM against terran and protoss (hellion thor against zerg) and got to a pretty high level of diamond with just macro.
In regards to the OP, I dont really care what level you "understand" the game. What you are doing right now is overthinking with too little actual ingame knowledge. This is evidenced by your "no 4gate by 5:45, guess im safe" idea. What knowledge do you have that your safe outside of the fact that the game timer now says 5:50? None. If you are expecting a 4gate based upon previous scouted knowledge, see no 4gate at this time, this is a sign to SCOUT not a sign to think youre safe. Use the knowledge to realize that its either something else, or something poorly executed.
If you scout that it is something else, you now know what to prepare for. If its just something poorly executed, you will CRUSH his attack when it comes because you know its still coming.
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On January 15 2012 08:51 TheRabidDeer wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2012 17:43 Netsky wrote:On January 14 2012 17:34 Cramsy wrote:On January 14 2012 17:10 Thaniri wrote:
I'll plug my blog post, as it is on this topic.
As to your question, from what I understand your amount of games is fine for gold league.
From Bronze to mid-master I would say you can get by with macro and a-move. I am living evidence.
Then it gets REALLY fun because you start solving problems with your own twist to it. What race are you playing? Really? It could only be Protoss. Could be terran too. I went 1 rax FE into MMM against terran and protoss (hellion thor against zerg) and got to a pretty high level of diamond with just macro. In regards to the OP, I dont really care what level you "understand" the game. What you are doing right now is overthinking with too little actual ingame knowledge. This is evidenced by your "no 4gate by 5:45, guess im safe" idea. What knowledge do you have that your safe outside of the fact that the game timer now says 5:50? None. If you are expecting a 4gate based upon previous scouted knowledge, see no 4gate at this time, this is a sign to SCOUT not a sign to think youre safe. Use the knowledge to realize that its either something else, or something poorly executed. If you scout that it is something else, you now know what to prepare for. If its just something poorly executed, you will CRUSH his attack when it comes because you know its still coming.
Works decently as zerg as well, but probably not all the way to diamond. Regardless of the composition, Zergs has to play reactively to some degree unless they are all-inning, so pure macro won't work since you still need to time when to build units. Bronze and Silver players can easily go ling/roach/hydra defensively and push at 200/200 and win though, as long as they aren't being way too greedy.
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Later 4 gates are horrible. You cant fully support 4 gates on one base with 20 probes, so 4gate guy will have a hiccup in his production while you are getting ahead. In addition, you have more probes and can fight with them.
Terran bunkers up to fake expand? He invested money and time in those bunkers. Surely he can salvage them, but he cant just convert them into marines - he still needs time to build marines. Moreover, making early bunkers probably means he got his additional barracks late, the push is delayed severely.
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I personally have been playing sc2 melee since the day it came out, wasn't in beta. Season 1 and 2 i was bronze and only played team games, 3 i was silver then 4 gold. Right now i am plat! i got into plat at around 100 games because i did not practice my 1v1's in ladder matches.
For a while i actually would go to obs or FFA for warm ups for 1v1 but i would usually get bored, so it was kinda on and off for me. Right now im not actually playing really any 1v1's i got like 3 wins at 33 points and like rank 81 going up though 
And i cant forget about the years of skirmishes and campaign missions i even made on my moms old windows 98', could not afford dial up until about 2004!
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On January 15 2012 09:07 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 08:51 TheRabidDeer wrote:On January 14 2012 17:43 Netsky wrote:On January 14 2012 17:34 Cramsy wrote:On January 14 2012 17:10 Thaniri wrote:
I'll plug my blog post, as it is on this topic.
As to your question, from what I understand your amount of games is fine for gold league.
From Bronze to mid-master I would say you can get by with macro and a-move. I am living evidence.
Then it gets REALLY fun because you start solving problems with your own twist to it. What race are you playing? Really? It could only be Protoss. Could be terran too. I went 1 rax FE into MMM against terran and protoss (hellion thor against zerg) and got to a pretty high level of diamond with just macro. In regards to the OP, I dont really care what level you "understand" the game. What you are doing right now is overthinking with too little actual ingame knowledge. This is evidenced by your "no 4gate by 5:45, guess im safe" idea. What knowledge do you have that your safe outside of the fact that the game timer now says 5:50? None. If you are expecting a 4gate based upon previous scouted knowledge, see no 4gate at this time, this is a sign to SCOUT not a sign to think youre safe. Use the knowledge to realize that its either something else, or something poorly executed. If you scout that it is something else, you now know what to prepare for. If its just something poorly executed, you will CRUSH his attack when it comes because you know its still coming. Works decently as zerg as well, but probably not all the way to diamond. Regardless of the composition, Zergs has to play reactively to some degree unless they are all-inning, so pure macro won't work since you still need to time when to build units. Bronze and Silver players can easily go ling/roach/hydra defensively and push at 200/200 and win though, as long as they aren't being way too greedy.
You could do that for all races. Scout, build units that counter theirs. Take expo when you feel safe. Attack when your army > their army. I guarantee anyone can do that to at least gm.
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On January 15 2012 09:11 Khazidhea wrote:
Later 4 gates are horrible. You cant fully support 4 gates on one base with 20 probes, so 4gate guy will have a hiccup in his production while you are getting ahead. In addition, you have more probes and can fight with them.
Terran bunkers up to fake expand? He invested money and time in those bunkers. Surely he can salvage them, but he cant just convert them into marines - he still needs time to build marines. Moreover, making early bunkers probably means he got his additional barracks late, the push is delayed severely.
Later 4gates are terrible, but not because of the reasons you state. You can fairly easily continue to produce probes and delay the 4gate by just a small amount (which is fine if you plan on not pushing with the first round of warpins anyway). Later 4gates are terrible because they sacrifice the temporary increased production boost that they offer during the first wave of units. The core concept is that your production cycle suddenly shifts ahead ~20-30 seconds from the normal cycle, giving you a slight edge in units over your opponent at that specific time. That is why a later 4gate is terrible, you lose the timing that it is supposed to be used at.
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I truly believe that difference between good and bad player is mainly deecision making, rather that stuff like macro/micro.
SC was always hard for this, because macro is simply important here. You can however learn same in 50 Wc3 games like in 500 SC2 games, and then you will come as easy platinum+ player (in my experiences anyone who knows at least RTS basics and has some idea about SC2 units will get to plat right after first 5 matches).
So if anyone want to learn SC2, dont play it ^^ Just go play some easier macro/micro-wise game like Wc3 where you can focus more on standard responses enemy is teching/massing/exping... when to counter, when to attack etc., learn that easy in couple dozens games not bothered by macro... and then come back to game for real pros ^^
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EPT
