Ok so this is just a quick question the the community. I know many of you have been playing SC since BW days and what not so I'm sure you have some intel on this subject.
This is something I've been beating myself up alot lately about. I have always been a competitive gamer, but it has always been console games. I have been to MLG events and played Halo, Gears of War, and CoD at very high levels. Ive played Sc2 since season 1, but I never played it seriously until mid season 4 (5 weeks ago to be precise). I am currently bouncing around in the t20 of my gold league. I added up my wins and losses totals since i began playing 5 weeks ago and Im at about 110 wins and 100 losses. In season 1 I played 0 1v1s. In season 2 I became silver winning 17 1v1s. In season 3 I was number 1 silver and had 46 wins total , and season 4 placement got me gold and it was the only game I played til a few days b4 season 5. Now in season 5 I have 96 wins.( been goin hard ;P)
So a grand total of around 170 wins in 1v1s. Should I be higher than gold? because in my experience as a competitive gamer I have progressed through the ranks very quickly. I also feel like I know this game really well now seeing as how I've watched every video known to man, studied, taken notes, all that jazz. It is something I really want to excel at and all of this boils down to is should I be beating myself up for still being in gold, or is it a normal pace for SC1 / SC2 players.
EDIT: I will be streaming as much as possible today, 1/13/12, so many of the people asking for replays so they can help me can watch and help me from there. I usually read the chat after every game so this should work. Im listed in the TL stream list. Or go to twitch.tv/blackouttz. (This is in no way trying to promote my stream, its just a way for people who want to see replays see them live)
I will also post replays of games I think I should have won later tonight after playing all day so the people that couldnt tune in to the stream can watch as well.
I really appreciate all the people chipping in to help, its nice to see such a helpful community. <3
EDIT 2: Here are some replays from the game I played today. The only one im not posting is me getting 7 pooled. This is also to show that for some of u that think people in gold are clueless and dont do anything right is quite wrong. It is obviously not perfect play, but being able to win every game by doing something stupid is obviously not possible. I won 6 of these game, 2 are losses.
Going from Console to PC gaming is a large shift, as well as the fact that you are going from shooters to RTS. If you were a competitive gamer before and want to get better at SC2, perhaps try to set a practice schedule? Of course, I am not a pro myself so I can only give so much advice.
Number of wins is balanced by number of losses. Also depends on if you are beating people with higher or lower MMR. 170 wins is awesome if you've only lost 2 games. It's pathetic if you've lost 2000+ games.
There is no normal "pace". High gold is probably where your intuitive skills and mechanics have got you. To improve further you can either play lots and lots and slowly improve by brute force, or you can read guides, watch vods, and actively focus on improving your game.
Key thing to keep in mind is that you don't improve your league. You improve your game-play and your league and rank will reflect that.
@Bagration Since I have starting playing seriously I have spent nearly every second of free time playing 1v1s.
@Kharnage I have won more than Ive lost. Since 5 weeks ago it is about 115-100 roughly. And I have stuided, have a library of builds, know every counter to everything, how to do it, how to macro, all that. I guess I know it all i just cant execute well. Thats my best guess.
Don't beat yourself up over it. This game is much more competitive than what you have done in the past and requires a different skill set. Just be patient and learn from your mistakes and you will improve.
I hope it opens your eyes and makes you appreciate the talent of the top-tier players.
@Kharnage And I have stuided, have a library of builds, know every counter to everything, how to do it, how to macro, all that. I guess I know it all i just cant execute well. Thats my best guess.
This just simply cannot be true. If it is, you are thinking/playing too slow.
Just playing out a regular build order without taking any macro risks, even with zero scouting, will get you to diamond at the least. You might not win every game without scouting, but it should certainly get you to diamond.
Play a game against an easy AI. See how long it takes you to get maxed with a standard army with decent upgrades and a normal economy. Compare that time to how long it takes professional players you watch to get maxed. If it's very far off, you're macroing wrong. If you can get maxed almost as fast as the pros, you can get to diamond at least
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.)
This game is way harder than any console game. First, absolutely don't become overconfident in your game knowledge, if you knew as much as you think you do you would not be in gold.
if you wanna play a few practice games or something maybe i can give you a few things to improve on if you are on NA
Just keep focusing on improving and not winning and you'll get there eventually. I focused on winning to get into masters then when I finally did I was like.. Now what?
Go at your pace and look at it as improving not as winning or losing.
I think your pace is average or slightly above average. It really depends on what race you chose as well. I went from Bronze to Platinum fairly quickly as Terran but hit a wall. I think half my time playing was from when I was stuck in Plat.
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 started season 1 in Silver League and it took me until season 5 to make it into masters league. I think I have about 1500 wins combined between my accounts and my win rate I feel is below 50%, I have NA, EU, and TW accounts because I bought into the hype that NA ladder is terrible. I played Brood War a little, but was never competitive except for with the few friends I had who played it occasionally.
170 wins is nowhere near enough for serious progression. Also, in my opinion you should not track your progression by wins. Come up with a different goal. Personally I played hundreds, maybe thousands of games vs AI or by myself just trying to max out as quickly as possible, never have over 30 energy on my queens, hit specific timings, and practice small micromanagement tasks like dropping banelings from overlords while spreading roaches out and scooting them in for better engagements.
When I watch things like State of the Game, or the Day9 Daily when I used to watch that, I would always have Starcraft open and I'd be running through all the drills I could think of that didn't require another person to be against me. I don't even want to think about the amount of hours I have spent inside the Starcraft 2 clients, but I know I worked at it at least as much as I worked at Dawn of War, and I played that game for 3k-ish hours in about a year.
If you really want to excel you're going to have to put a lot of time into it, because I can guarantee you that although I do all of this, it's not enough to really be competitive. I have only reached diamond on the TW/KR ladder.
There is no "normal" progression rate because the leagues do not represent absolute level of skill but rather relative to rest of player base. So being "normal" would mean you stay in the same league and just everyone get better as time goes on.
But as players leave the player base and others work harder to learn new strategies and become more proficient at mechanics, those others will be able to move up the relative leagues and go from Gold to Platinum to Diamond to Masters to GM to Korea.
It all depends on the people, but I will give out my experience. I have been playing SC2 since beta phase, and I probably played about few thousand 1v1 matches total. Like everyone else playing SC2, I began as silver league with 60 apm, and steadily improved my game over the past two years. I am in top master now and I was always in master league or equivalent since the retail release, but I can feel that I have gotten significantly better since 6 months or 1 year ago even though I was always in a master league. My real apm has gone up to 200, which partially shows the improvement on my skill level.
My take on improving your game is that do not worry about quantity of games you play, but rather focus on quality of the each game. Every time you play a game, think yourself what kind of build you will do and what kind of particular actions you wish to achieve (eg. correct marine split, right drone scouting, good drop defending, etc) Once the game is over, try to go over the replay and see whether you have actually achieved this or not, find any particular mistakes or improvements you can do, and try to correct them on the next game or next matchup. I feel that this method give more meaning to your games and I always felt that I improved my skill whenever I win with this mindset. I don't know whether this will work on you but good luck and have fun!
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.
Maybe you should figure out how to scout those things. If you keep learning, you'll improve but for now, honestly you're just bad. You don't know the game remotely as well as you think you do. Even most people in masters are pretty clueless.
I was like you I switched from playing Xbox games and gamebattles for Gears of War, CoD and halo and I started in bronze. I was able to get from bronze to masters in about 6 months playing a few times a week. It's not hard to go up the ladder if you just focus on pure macro and build orders.
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.
It has nothing to do with meta game. If you scout something and counter it, you should win. Also, you can randomly build whatever you want as long as you build stuff and win at the gold level.
hi, top8 gold random player (with about 2k games played)here. are you aiming to go pro, or just aiming to get to masters league?i dont think that you will never be able to play at pro lvl if your winratio vs goldplayers is 1.15. evrybody tries to improve, so your league progression isnt a way to messure your improvement,because if you progress, someone els has to go down a league. you must compare yourself to your past results, just load up a replay from the 5 weeks ago, watch it and compare it to a recent replay. you probably see HUGE improvement. also, if you have a possitive win ratio, you are progressing faster than most of us. i started of in the bottom of bronze(got 0 points for winning), and therefore have a winratio at about1.3(from beating 6pool and voidrays in bronze). btw, just check most of the players in your league's "games won". most of them probably have atleast 300,and almost evrybody copies a build from a pro and play around 40 apm atleast, which is a sign that they are constantly active and tries with all their hearth to win(on eu server, dont know about na). just remember that evryone aims to be masters, there is a very small precentage that can be. so what makes you think you should be one of them? play for fun, not to get good.
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 ^^
This is ofc not exact at all, but generally i reckon you can pick a player and see what league he's in and 8 times out 10 the numbers above will be more or less right.
However you should consider that the vast majority of ladder players are not really using the ladder for dedicated, efficient practice. Many just have a general idea of a build and a vague desire to improve and the rest just cheese or all-in a lot because they are insecure or something.
The way to beat these numbers is to practice one specific area of your play at a time. I'd recommend just picking 3 standard macroish builds (1 per matchup) until diamond and focusing on areas like scouting at right times, not getting supply blocked, engaging correctly with your army etc one at a time until you get them all right.
Also a really good way to improve is to play people miles better than you if you can get hold of them; A lot of the time you can see mistakes in your play which would not be apparent vs players in your own league. As an example - I'm diamond zerg and generally my plan for attacking a terran army was box everything, a-move, target banelings on marines and mutas on siege tanks. Then i played a couple of masters guys and the way they positioned and handled their armies meant that i realised i had to set up flanks and engage in open areas from multiple sides to have any hope of taking out their forces. Now i'm applying that to my ladder games and i'm not being matched against platinums anymore ^^.
edit: and if you play for fun, not to get good, you will still be in gold with 2k games played :p
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.
It has nothing to do with meta game. If you scout something and counter it, you should win. Also, you can randomly build whatever you want as long as you build stuff and win at the gold level.
like destiny said, he can beat your ass with any unit composition he likes, purely because he can make more units than you can.
Competitive gamer all my life. Never played BW. ¬10 games played in Beta. On release I placed into Gold and made Diamond season 1. About 130 1v1s total played, about 70 to make Diamond. Just watched a bunch of Day9, talked to a friend of mine who's an old school BW player and studied the game.
My advice would be as follows, ignore everything except for basic unit compositions and just work on macro until you're high platinum. Play relatively safe and if you macro perfectly, you'll simply have way more stuff than any of your opponents. There is way too much crap people get caught up with that is literally no help at lower leagues. When you get to high platinum, game sense and expansion timings become much more important as most of your opponents will finally be able to keep pace with your mechanics.
just from looking at my different friends who played the game i think 170 games does sounda bout right to be in gold for the average player. I guess with your competitive background you think youre above average? In which case you'll have to crank out a ton more games
I also came from Halo 3, I wasnt anything special, highest skill 50 and played online with friends, no LAN events. But I did alot of WoW pvp so I became familiar with a keyboard and mouse instead of a controller. Then I switched over to Sc2, played season 1 and got bronze and got really discouraged because I hate not being semi decent, so I stopped playing for awhile.
Season 2 rolled around (I think season 1 was really really long?) and for some reason I really got back into sc2, and wanted to be really good at it, and I feel I improved much faster than my friends. The trick? I'm being completely honest, it was Day9.
I also got coaching from wtr1be, and that helped substantially as well, in those 2 hours I spent with a very high masters player from the EU, I felt like I knew so much more. That was 8 months ago, and now I'm on the verge of masters, rank 1 in diamond and playing against alot people I used to download reps from. Now I am able to play them, and sometimes beat them.
Be confident, be competitive, if you put in the work you will see yourself improve over time, just be patient.
TL;DR: It has taken me 8 months and 2000 1v1 games of Sc2, along with Day9 and coaching to get from low low bronze to high diamond, hoping to get masters before the 1 year mark :D
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 ^^
This is ofc not exact at all, but generally i reckon you can pick a player and see what league he's in and 8 times out 10 the numbers above will be more or less right.
So I played 3k games of Broodwar and I couldn't stay in D+ without dodging PvZ. I've played 4k+ games of HoN and I'm still 1500. Progression is a function of deliberate attempts to improve. Not just number of games played.
It's hard to tell what your biggest motivation is right now. Do you want to be higher than gold? Or is your interest in raising your overall skill? Both cannot work together no matter what anyone tells you. If you are interested in raising your ladder score and league, you will want to learn 1 base timings that are far easier to master than overall solid play. If your biggest motivation is improvement, then fretting over ladder points will only hold back your ability to experiment and learn. You shouldn't worry where you are after 190 games, as the top players in the world have closer to 19,000. I have played 6,500 or so and am rank1 master/GM on diff accounts, and I make hundreds of mistakes in each game that I can pick out after. The greatest pros on earth are also constantly making major errors and learning from each others games. As you will find in numerous well put together guides, the best way to start making big changes is cleaning up your macro. You will be quite shocked how big of a difference it makes. If you try to leap ahead of yourself and get advanced, you will only create more work for yourself later. Others have given good advice before me, particularly learning one build at a time per matchup, and doing it over and over. I understand I may have misinterpreted what you meant by taking sc2 "serious," hopefully this helps.
Also, about the post above that said you cannot go pro. This is obviously not true, as in time the current pros will eventually hang up their keyboards, and those who had the balls to begin pursuing it today will fill their shoes. As with anything it comes down to how much you can let go of what you think you know and how much effort you can put in.^^
@Kharnage I have won more than Ive lost. Since 5 weeks ago it is about 115-100 roughly. And I have stuided, have a library of builds, know every counter to everything, how to do it, how to macro, all that. I guess I know it all i just cant execute well. Thats my best guess.
Practice practice practice practice practice, and then when you're sick of practicing, practice some more. Starcraft is deceptive in that it seems like a mental game, but really, "knowing what to do" means jack shit until high masters/GM level. The reason people in higher leagues can beat you without even trying is mechanics, pure and simple, and you only develop that by intentionally focusing on it. I frankly think people in lower league watch too many instructional videos and stuff when really an hour and a half of playing against AI and saying "I WILL NOT MISS A SINGLE FUCKING PROBE" is gonna do you a lot better than watching a Day9 video about some shit Thorzain does that you don't have anywhere close to the mechanics to execute.
I was in Bronze for roughly a million years before I realized that knowing cute high-level timings and how to counter every build ever was completely useless if I couldn't actually execute, and the same applies even in Diamond league. I didn't get there through strategic analysis and knowing a million build orders, I got there by doing one build order in every matchup and focusing on scouting and macro.
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 ^^
This is ofc not exact at all, but generally i reckon you can pick a player and see what league he's in and 8 times out 10 the numbers above will be more or less right.
However you should consider that the vast majority of ladder players are not really using the ladder for dedicated, efficient practice. Many just have a general idea of a build and a vague desire to improve and the rest just cheese or all-in a lot because they are insecure or something.
The way to beat these numbers is to practice one specific area of your play at a time. I'd recommend just picking 3 standard macroish builds (1 per matchup) until diamond and focusing on areas like scouting at right times, not getting supply blocked, engaging correctly with your army etc one at a time until you get them all right.
Also a really good way to improve is to play people miles better than you if you can get hold of them; A lot of the time you can see mistakes in your play which would not be apparent vs players in your own league. As an example - I'm diamond zerg and generally my plan for attacking a terran army was box everything, a-move, target banelings on marines and mutas on siege tanks. Then i played a couple of masters guys and the way they positioned and handled their armies meant that i realised i had to set up flanks and engage in open areas from multiple sides to have any hope of taking out their forces. Now i'm applying that to my ladder games and i'm not being matched against platinums anymore ^^.
edit: and if you play for fun, not to get good, you will still be in gold with 2k games played :p
I've been playing bw/sc2 on and off since the beginning of 2010, and in my experience these above numbers are very accurate. I'd say if you're in Platinum (which i'd consider D rank in iccup) with 500 games played, you're about average. I'd say for low Masters (about C- iccup) anything less than 2000 games played puts you ahead of the curve. This process can be expedited through carefully watching all of your replays, reading the right guides, and, above all else, sticking with the game and not taking extended periods of time off (anything more than 3 weeks begins to set you back).
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).
You can have all the knowledge about this game you want, but if you dont have the skills to make those thoughts happen, your not going to be very good.
I just want to add, I got a friend of mine to gold league in two months by having him do 1rax expand in every matchup and just making marine/marauder. When he'd ask me how to counter colossi/muta/whatever, I'd tell him to just focus on making more marines and marauders, because he could win if he just spent all his money and made more workers. We're now working on unit counters and all that because I don't want him to stagnate, but seriously, it does work to just macro and be better than your opponent. Don't overthink it.
edit: also he's never played a PC game before ever, so if he can do it, you can.
some people just suck at video games, dont go all emo over it. even for master league players there are still so many people better than them that their skill is irrelevant when compared to a pro. dont worry about your rank maybe just try a different game like rayman origins, my 3 year old nephew can play that so im sure your gold league micro will be able to handle that
Try not to focus on what league you are in so much. If all you want to do is go up leagues then find a few good early builds (with terran) and just get to diamond/master in a week after you are used to the build and using it v all three races (or one build for each race).
I would say playing normally, you can prob go up one league a season ez. Just watch a lot, read a little bit (not too much), also do not be scared to play 2v2 3v3 and 4v4, it will teach you micro, map awareness, unit counters, early timings and take some of the stress out of 1v1. Also get yourself to either always cheese/rush or never cheese/never rush, or have a set number of games in which you cheese/dont cheese. I include 1base in my cheese/allin/rush. It is bad to stay on one base, one of the biggest improvements in my game involved playing with at least 2 bases in mind.
Focused practice is necessary for rapid improvement, if your opponents are better than you, you'll improve faster as well. First fix your macro, workers, supply, macro mechanics, spending money, building timing. Then work on learning specific strategy timings, deviations, army control, and scouting.
If you have the hand speed, you can go from gold to master in <100 games of practice, by stealing 3 solid build orders, where all the work of having safe timings and having a plan is done for you. You still need to work on the deviations and scouting tho.
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).
I didn't want to be the one who said this but im happy someone else feels this way. I really can not understand some people with the time they put in this game and still not improve.
I was pretty much in your spot where i did not have any prior RTS experience, got placed in bronze where i stayed for less than 30 games and then got promoted to gold where i stayed for the majority of season 1 since i did not play very much. (I still watched alot of SC2 and read TL etc). When blizzard announced the end of season 1 i figured it would be nice to not be in gold and have that printed on my account so i started to play some again and within 50 games or something i got into diamond. And that's where I've been since late season 1.
Just checked and I have 81 solo league wins so i have played approximately 150 1v1 games.
I didn't want to be the one who said this but im happy someone else feels this way. I really can not understand some people with the time they put in this game and still not improve.
I was pretty much in your spot where i did not have any prior RTS experience, got placed in bronze where i stayed for less than 30 games and then got promoted to gold where i stayed for the majority of season 1 since i did not play very much. (I still watched alot of SC2 and read TL etc). When blizzard announced the end of season 1 i figured it would be nice to not be in gold and have that printed on my account so i started to play some again and within 50 games or something i got into diamond. And that's where I've been since late season 1.
Just checked and I have 81 solo league wins so i have played approximately 150 1v1 games.
Not to discredit you, but season 1 leagues don't really mean anything these days... I have friends who were gold/plat/diamond in season 1 and 2 and would be in the dredges of bronze league now if they tried the shit that worked for them back then. The pro scene and the whole Day9 thing wasn't as big, whereas now 75% of the people you run into in silver league watch Newbie Tuesday religiously.
Hell, one of my friends was in gold league in season 1, and he thought having more money in your bank meant you were winning...
I would suggest maybe getting a coaching lesson or two. If you are truly that serious about improving, they might be able to spot some obvious issues in your play and save you days/weeks/months of playing with bad habits that you haven't noticed.
I didn't want to be the one who said this but im happy someone else feels this way. I really can not understand some people with the time they put in this game and still not improve.
I was pretty much in your spot where i did not have any prior RTS experience, got placed in bronze where i stayed for less than 30 games and then got promoted to gold where i stayed for the majority of season 1 since i did not play very much. (I still watched alot of SC2 and read TL etc). When blizzard announced the end of season 1 i figured it would be nice to not be in gold and have that printed on my account so i started to play some again and within 50 games or something i got into diamond. And that's where I've been since late season 1.
Just checked and I have 81 solo league wins so i have played approximately 150 1v1 games.
Not to discredit you, but season 1 leagues don't really mean anything these days... I have friends who were gold/plat/diamond in season 1 and 2 and would be in the dredges of bronze league now if they tried the shit that worked for them back then. The pro scene and the whole Day9 thing wasn't as big, whereas now 75% of the people you run into in silver league watch Newbie Tuesday religiously.
Hell, one of my friends was in gold league in season 1, and he thought having more money in your bank meant you were winning...
I am still in diamond though and getting my fare share of matchups vs master players so my point still stands. I still don't have that many 1v1 games in comparison to many people who are still in lower leagues with alot more games than me.
Give us a replay, and we will show you what you are doing wrong If you are in gold, then you obviously have giant holes in your play, there is no reason why you should stay in the top 60% of players when you can be in the top 2%. I have friends that barely know the game that are in platinum.
You need 1 solid build order for each matchup. Knowing the metagame is important, and if you have a good build and execute it well, you will move up the ranks very quickly. I haven't lost a TvT in a few weeks (granted i dont play much) because the build i use is so good that nobody at the high diamond/low master level can stop it, marine medivac stim combat shield +1 timing when they only have 2-3 tanks is the shit.
My account is doomblaze.496 if you want to hit me up
I just did some practice games with Stokes, the diamond toss who posted on here and we played 3 games. PvP. He won the first 2, and I won the 3rd game. Pretty much what it cam down to is this.
In gold league i experience all ins more than 70% of my games. Usaully i feel like I dont have the amount of money I would like to have to build more units. Also im not the best at deciding when to build more gates, and when to build units. Working on my scouting is also something i need to do but i think with simply more obs play ill be fine. I made probes perfectly fine, no problems there. Its pretty much just came down to him having more units than me. I think i just need to work on not being so scared of early pushes to where i build so many units i have no time to do anything else. It just seems so hard to do when every terran 1-1-1 every toss 3 gate robos and pushed with 3 immortals, and zergs just mass roach hydra off 3 base.
I did read every post and i appreciate most of ur help. Thanks
Personally, I started playing last season after having played Brood War since it came out. Started in Platinum, and made it to diamond in around two and a half weeks, then didn't really play 1v1's after that.
On January 13 2012 15:59 Ejje wrote:I am still in diamond though and getting my fare share of matchups vs master players so my point still stands. I still don't have that many 1v1 games in comparison to many people who are still in lower leagues with alot more games than me.
Also im sorry for your friend.
I guess I more just wanted to point out that gold league season 1 != gold league currently, it had nothing to do with you personally. I don't want the OP to think that people who hit gold in season 1 without trying are some sort of demigod and he's a total noob, when it actually takes as much skill to get to rank 1 bronze now as it did to get gold back then.
Mechanics, mechanics, and more mechanics. I got into diamond with only a couple dozen games played and I've stayed there since. I'm also confident I'd be a solid masters player if I played more than a handful of games a season. I had a long history with BW before SC2 came out. I played hundreds of games on b.net and iccup, and that skill set transferred over and gave me an immediate edge once I got a bit of a feel for SC2. I'm by no means a super fast player (only about 110-120 APM) but the speed I do have keeps me well ahead of most players I do play, and even with minimal practice I still maintain a win percentage comfortably above 50.
Learn build orders and learn how to spend your money and you should get into diamond based purely on that. Seek a level where most of the stuff you do, you don't really think about because it's all muscle memory. Strategy is only really important once you've got the mechanics to actually execute properly. And if you're in gold, odds are you don't have the mechanics yet.
On January 13 2012 15:59 Ejje wrote:I am still in diamond though and getting my fare share of matchups vs master players so my point still stands. I still don't have that many 1v1 games in comparison to many people who are still in lower leagues with alot more games than me.
Also im sorry for your friend.
I guess I more just wanted to point out that gold league season 1 != gold league currently, it had nothing to do with you personally. I don't want the OP to think that people who hit gold in season 1 without trying are some sort of demigod and he's a total noob, when it actually takes as much skill to get to rank 1 bronze now as it did to get gold back then.
I see your point! And ofcourse gold now doesn't equal gold season 1 the game has evolved alot since then.
i went from halo to sc2 as well. mlg 50 in halo 3, which is like saying youre grandmaster on NA in terms of how good that is. (not very)
no prior rts experience, went from copper league to grandmasters. I was really bad. really really bad. But I believed from the start that I would be able to be a top level player and was never satisfied with where I was. (still not, and I'm top rated on every server that I play on.)
Not having experience doesn't matter. Just have the motivation to keep playing a ton and practice hard. Whenever you get stuck vs certain strategies/races look around for help.
Last bit of advice, from someone near the top looking down, 99% of the people that play this game suck. Work on getting faster and knowing what to do vs every kind of strategy and then you will be able to surpass us all easily.
The only negative thing I see is that you are wasting your time thinking about this. Go play more and have fun! It's of very little use to compare the rate of improvement of different people, because they have different backgrounds, even if it's not BW or other RTS.
Some may have been taught how to cook, so they are good at multitasking, others may have studied a musical instrument and learned to excel at routine mechanics exercises etc. But one thing is sure, the more you play the better you become, so keep playing! You don't get better by thinking "I need to get better" or "I need to reach that league", but by just staying calm and sharp and thinking about each game, analyzing your replays, taking notes in a notebook, and stuff like these.
On January 13 2012 16:50 Bocian wrote: well I only played fps games before and i had ZERO rts experience. 1season finished 1st in my diamond division. SO u really don't have talent
Yeah that's really helpful. Thank goodness you posted in this thread! Jerk.
Everyone improves at their own rate; there is no standard to which you can compare your own progress. Simply stay active, play a lot of games. A lot of advice in this thread is sound. Don't worry as much about benchmarks in leagues as much as improvement.
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 ^^
This is ofc not exact at all, but generally i reckon you can pick a player and see what league he's in and 8 times out 10 the numbers above will be more or less right.
Having a small background in RTS especially starcraft 1 helps a lot for most people. I played sc1 very very casually for like 2 years even just custom games and whatnot. Still enough to easily get me to diamond through very very very little games. So I would say your shooter and console background is helping you very little compared to even my very weak sc1 background.
Don't obsess over the amount of wins you have, unless you need like 6k games to get diamond I strongly doubt it matters. Personally, I got to master league with less than 200 wins in season 1, and I'm still in master league with around 600 wins, yet there are A LOT of people who took well over 1500 games to get to master, that are MUCH better than me.
looked at all my ladder stats dating back to oct last year. i've played roughly 600 1v1s across my playable servers (na, sea, kr), and i'm master na/sea and diamond in kr. i had an extensive bw background although i'm a slow starter when it comes to games.
edit: i meant 600 wins! i always get confused with this
i don't really think that there is a "normal" progression it depends alot on how you aproach games and if you just play or if you actually atempt to improve just playing and improving is not quite the same thing. also attitude tallent etc all plays in in how fast you improve as a player. but just keep at it and don't worry to much about the rate you improve and just have fun
i qualified for bronze league 1v1 in season 1 after my placement matches on the SEA server. Before end of season 1 after about 50 wins on ladder i had climbed to diamond..
i am now top8 diamond on SEA with about 50 wins this season (i think my total 1v1 ladder games are about 200 games played since season 1)...dont really 1v1 on ladder much..
fighting my way up into masters...
anyway, biggest tip i can give to atleast get into high diamond is just macro, have a build order/game plan from the start and just focus on your macro, always training workers, always keeping money down, dont get supply blocked, continually building army..dont sit on one base for too long, learn when it is safe to expo... these really basic things are much more important than micro tactics and clever play until you get to a higher level...everyone hates hearing it...but MACRO MACRO MACRO MACRO.....
Shifted from FPS to RTS, and this is my first RTS game. I had around 900 games before i got to masters. But it was so one sided in a sense that majority of my diamond games were TvZ, and TvZ was my strongest match-up that made my other match-ups weak. Like the others said you should focus more on improving all your match-ups and not just winning.
On January 13 2012 15:49 Ejje wrote: I didn't want to be the one who said this but im happy someone else feels this way. I really can not understand some people with the time they put in this game and still not improve.
Well it's really quite simple - if you keep doing what you're doing, you keep getting what you're getting. I guess most players don't start off with an optimal playstyle and those who don't change their initial playstyle better don't get better and stay on their level.
On January 13 2012 15:49 Ejje wrote: I was pretty much in your spot where i did not have any prior RTS experience, got placed in bronze where i stayed for less than 30 games and then got promoted to gold where i stayed for the majority of season 1 since i did not play very much. (I still watched alot of SC2 and read TL etc). When blizzard announced the end of season 1 i figured it would be nice to not be in gold and have that printed on my account so i started to play some again and within 50 games or something i got into diamond. And that's where I've been since late season 1.
Just checked and I have 81 solo league wins so i have played approximately 150 1v1 games.
Eh. Since you started off with kind of an elitist atittude, I'll give you some feedback in kind. In light of your low number of games played, your words and attitude about progression come off as rather silly. See: You got to diamond when diamond was much easier than today, and since then you have played roughly (supposing that you have played 100 games in diamond and that season 1 ended march 29th 2011) 11 matches per month in diamond.
Ergo (I didn't want to say this but...): You Sir are a bonus pool surfer and a bogus. Try using up you gigantanormous bonus pool and keep playing, and see if you remain in diamond.
As for the OP: Don't look at or compare yourself to others. There are so many factors that weigh in on how fast you will progress through the ranks. If you learn a very strong one base push as terran, you will get up faster than if you start off trying to go macro as zerg (I would guess). Others might have made the major part of their progress during the initial stages of the ladder (when the competition was less fierce) and thus have a skewed picture of what is "normal". It also depends on when and how you play. You only play with bonus pool after a long night's sleep, a healthy breakfast and a nice shower? Or do you play late into the night, half zombiefied, tilted and raging? (the latter will be detrimental to your ladder progress haha)
The point is that the answers you will get on what is normal progression rate will vary wildly, and probably only make you angsty about your own progression. ("Oh two months played and still not in diamond, I'm baad, baaad!" etc). Just keep focusing on improving your play, and unless you are held down by mental or physical handicaps, you will probably follow a "normal" progress automagically. (and should you plateau with no clue as to how get further, post replays in the help thread or get coaching).
Also, I would recommend that you try not to think of yourself as very aware. Yes, you may have watched a lot of videos and you are perhaps aware of the current metagame among the top GSL contenders. But you know, that really doesn't matter much. It really doesn't. I can read ten thousand books on karate - a ten year old practitioner would probably dropkick me to the ground anyway*.
The great thing with TL.net is that ALL sc2 players come here. It´s also the bad thing about this site, because the players skill varies so much.
Being a gold level player myself after more than 2k games played I can relate to your situation and frustration. Some of the answers in this thread are really helpful, e.g. those pointing out that good macro and a solid buildorder will get you to at least platinum/diamond. I have come to realize that I lack the talent to ever excel at sc2, I´m bad at multitasking and I make poor decisions when under pressure. My improvement curve is really low. I still love the game though so I will continue to play. Maybe someday I´ll reach platinum ;-) (to my defense I must point out that I have a family and a job and can´t play as much as I´d like to, that obviously hinders my progression as well)
People in this thread saying they reached diamond/master or whatever after a couple of games: congratulations. It probably means that you have a talent for this type of game. It does not, however, mean that all other persons will be able to achive the same in the same amount of time.
I often in theses threads find an elitist way of reasoning, "sc2 is easy and you suck" -arguments. Sc2 is only as easy as your opponents skill. When sc2 came out a lot of people tried the multiplayer part of the game, and it was relatively easy to rank up on ladder for anyone who put in some effort. Now, more than a year later, the people still playing have gotten much better, and players in gold leauge are not bad anymore (compared to someone who just started playing). I know this because sometimes I play against newbies in custom games, and I completely smash them (you prob know the feeling: "why hasn´t he expanded or attacked me? He must have a really powerful all-in coming! Oh, he just made his first marine! I´ll almost feel bad when I come up his ramp..) Next game I´m up against a diamond or master, and although I´ll probably lose, it´s often a pretty close game ( I know custom is different from ladder, but I´m talking about matches where the other player doesnt just fool around).
Some people give the advice to just macro up a big army and a-move. That doesnt work in gold league (anymore). You must learn basic scouting and positioning or your bigger army will get crushed (a-move into HT:s, coli, ling-blings, infestors, tanks? I don´t think so.) Good macro and mechanics will get you an advantage over your opponent, but it´s not enough to win the game.
My advice is to play the game as long as you get something out of it and enjoy it. If you want to rank up you practice more than you ladder and only ladder when you´re fully concentrated and not tired. If you want to get better you analyze all your losses and learn from your mistakes.
Progression is individual, what you seem to want to know is just how good you are and how good you have to be to move on.
Being in gold means youre somewhere in the lower 60% of the player base, plat an above being the upper 40%. This means, if you're doing about 50% and you're matched against high gold players more or less constantly, you're pretty much dead average at the game, in terms of the whole active player base. So when you're thinking about progression, it just depends on you as an individual, how much does it take for you to go beyond averageness at an RTS? Personally, I've played less 1v1 games than you, but I'm high platinum. Mainly because I played SC and probably have some more experience in RTS, and because I've played team games a lot. Doesn't mean I progress better than you or that I'm more talented than you, it's probably just a matter of time invested.
My main advice: Don't take notes from pros and try to learn from pro streams. You're gold, first accept that you're extremely average at the game, then accept that you can't do the things the pros do. Once you've done that, you can focus on what will actually help you: How to be better than the average SC2 player. This means focusing on macro and mechanics, and learning the basic scout timings, especially if you play zerg since it's more or less impossible to play zerg with 0 scouting above silver league, but it's of course true for terrans and toss as well. You say you know the perfect compositions and counters etc... forget about that stuff. Yeah, having vikings vs colossus is great, but you don't need vikings vs a gold player toss using colossus if you're playing at plat/diamond level in macro and mechanics, you can just stim in and target down his colossus. Knowing good counters etc is good, but don't center your game around something which matters relatively little at your level.
If only you played Zerg ^-^ Can beat most 1 base pushes with just ling/bane or roach etc, so macro can be more of a focus until higher levels. Masters on NA, just started on Korea. Lost some weird games in placements (got diamond twice in SEA just via placements..) so I ended up lowly. Got 2 promotions after 20 games and now I'm platinum facing diamonds or top8. Hard to imagine being in gold or lesser. Much of the macro in gold I was up against was so poor I couldn't comprehend. Coming at me @ 12 minutes with 6 stalkers and 7 gateways, usually a scary position to be against 2 base timings in diamond+ as it's almost universally refined by then and you can't miss a single inject, but you can literally be 1 base roaching and hold off most of these all'ins from T and P.
Tldr; focus on macro, less on the league you're in, because you wouldn't be there after 50 games if you weren't meant to be there - it only took me a little longer than you've been playing to get to diamond (not counting weeks I'd take a break in the very long season 1) - but you'd be arrogant to think you're near that level now.
I was plat/diamond/masters ever since the leagues were open, usually through just grinding out my bonus pool at the end of each season so I'm around ~850 wins since launch. No prior RTS experience either. The game isn't hard, all you need is some critical thinking, good mechanics (not great) and a few builds, that includes reactive cheese. So stop crying about imba if you do and always analyze what made that retarded build work. Then do them over and over again to identify when to use which build and you should fly to masters in no time. Just don't practice until you do it right, practice until you can't do it wrong, big difference.Sure it's a bit different compared to your average fps where all you need is a good trigger finger for decent K/D, but that's why I like it.
The other thing is mindset, I never play "just to pass time", it's always to win, once I do builds just so I don't lose to this or that, it's time to step back. Also never get discouraged by early game cheese, it shouldn't all that much statistically relevant to your learning.
Rank has nothing to do with your number of wins. You have a hidden rating that determines your relative skill level and gives you opponents that have a similar rating. If you win more than 50% of those games your rating wil increase bit by bit and the system will give you harder opponents to match that.
In your case you're gold and probably playing vs gold level players. When you start winning more than 50% of your games against gold level opponents you'll start facing better and better opponents in that skill region until you win enough to start facing low platinum players. If you start beating those platinum players more than 50% of the time you'll get promoted to that league.
And yeah, the ranking system isn't flawed, SC2 is just a hard and competetive game :D
On January 13 2012 15:49 Ejje wrote: I didn't want to be the one who said this but im happy someone else feels this way. I really can not understand some people with the time they put in this game and still not improve.
Well it's really quite simple - if you keep doing what you're doing, you keep getting what you're getting. I guess most players don't start off with an optimal playstyle and those who don't change their initial playstyle better don't get better and stay on their level.
On January 13 2012 15:49 Ejje wrote: I was pretty much in your spot where i did not have any prior RTS experience, got placed in bronze where i stayed for less than 30 games and then got promoted to gold where i stayed for the majority of season 1 since i did not play very much. (I still watched alot of SC2 and read TL etc). When blizzard announced the end of season 1 i figured it would be nice to not be in gold and have that printed on my account so i started to play some again and within 50 games or something i got into diamond. And that's where I've been since late season 1.
Just checked and I have 81 solo league wins so i have played approximately 150 1v1 games.
Eh. Since you started off with kind of an elitist atittude, I'll give you some feedback in kind. In light of your low number of games played, your words and attitude about progression come off as rather silly. See: You got to diamond when diamond was much easier than today, and since then you have played roughly (supposing that you have played 100 games in diamond and that season 1 ended march 29th 2011) 11 matches per month in diamond.
Ergo (I didn't want to say this but...): You Sir are a bonus pool surfer and a bogus. Try using up you gigantanormous bonus pool and keep playing, and see if you remain in diamond.
As for the OP: Don't look at or compare yourself to others. There are so many factors that weigh in on how fast you will progress through the ranks. If you learn a very strong one base push as terran, you will get up faster than if you start off trying to go macro as zerg (I would guess). Others might have made the major part of their progress during the initial stages of the ladder (when the competition was less fierce) and thus have a skewed picture of what is "normal". It also depends on when and how you play. You only play with bonus pool after a long night's sleep, a healthy breakfast and a nice shower? Or do you play late into the night, half zombiefied, tilted and raging? (the latter will be detrimental to your ladder progress haha)
The point is that the answers you will get on what is normal progression rate will vary wildly, and probably only make you angsty about your own progression. ("Oh two months played and still not in diamond, I'm baad, baaad!" etc). Just keep focusing on improving your play, and unless you are held down by mental or physical handicaps, you will probably follow a "normal" progress automagically. (and should you plateau with no clue as to how get further, post replays in the help thread or get coaching).
Also, I would recommend that you try not to think of yourself as very aware. Yes, you may have watched a lot of videos and you are perhaps aware of the current metagame among the top GSL contenders. But you know, that really doesn't matter much. It really doesn't. I can read ten thousand books on karate - a ten year old practitioner would probably dropkick me to the ground anyway*.
*ah well, let's say a thirteen year old
It wasn't my intention to come out sounding elitist. As for calling me a bogus? It's true I haven't played that many games and I have always had some bonus pool left at the end of seasons. However I am still getting matched against high diamond/master players and winning about half of those games so I don't really understand what you were basing your comment on.
On January 13 2012 19:30 Zaphid wrote: Just don't practice until you do it right, practice until you can't do it wrong, big difference.
This is important. Once you get a build down solid, don't think it's time to move on to something else. Keep doing it over and over again until you can execute it without thinking at all. It has to be so ingrained into your muscle memory that you could walk away from SC2 for a month and come back and do it correctly right away. Once you get to that point, then you can start learning something new.
honestly you prob know less than you think you do, or what your think you do know is not correct. or what you mentioned and just have bad execution. should prob upload replays or start streaming if you want people to give advice on your play cause that is prob more beneficial to getting better
Interesting how many say FPS != RTS. I mean sure the broad concept of the games is totally different. But mindset and practice is about the same. I really doubt a lot of the ppl posting here played FPS seriously.
My advices to transition from FPS to RTS: Try to find analogies. When I was playing FA and DoD competitivly we had different training scenarios: 1. Tactics/Strategies/Teamwork (the broad concept of how to play as a team) 2. Reaction/Timing 3. Mapawarness/Communication/Positioning 4. Take it to the next level: play vs your practice clans.
Those, i'll call it 4-Step-Approach, can somewhat be translated to Starcraft 2: 1. Tactics/Strategies 2. Mechanics/Precision 3. Mapawarness/-control, Positioning 4. Take it to the next level: grind hardcore vs practice partners to get your builds and MUs straight
If you want to get better at FPS or RTS you will need to improve on said steps. Not one, ALL. Sure you can priorize steps over the others; thats why watching replays is so important in competitive games, to know where your weaknesses are and even more important where your strengths are. That may sound weird to some because everyone knows: Work on your weaknesses to become a beast. But why should I then focus on my strength? Naturally it will become harder and harder to improve on your strength. If you have analyzed your play that you know where you strength are. And furthermore you can use it as your comfortzone. When ever you feel uncomfortable remember your strength and try to apply it to take out some of the pace of the game. This will allow you to focus mainly on your weaknesses when playing. Lets say you are bad at macro, but good at micro. You get pushed hard and you marco slips. Rely on your strength, build a banshee/drop/something microintensive and try to force your way back into the game by relying on your strength. Executing it should be easy and almost relaxing which frees up your mind to do the "hard" stuff: macro.
Starcraft, AoE2, RTS in general have one big thing in common with FPS (i would even argue that FPS has a bigger focus on it): If you get to a level where you execute most things without thinking, thats where you will shine. FPS example: Quake3Arena, if you have mastered the maps and movment on maps to a level where you dont need to think:"In which angle i need to rocketjump to get to the Red Armor on the plattform" you will have the time to think about "Okay when Red Armor spawns and my enemy is not there, where could he be?" Sniper example (any "realistic" FPS): If you can strave your mouse to the speed of running enemys depending on the distance without thinking, just be reflex you now got the time to think about a positon-cycle (where you will go after the next 2 kills, and from there where you will go after the next 4 kills and so on).
If you got there you will notice how big your improvement in your "weaknesses" will be when you can rely on your strength.
TLDR; know your strength, practice your strength to a degree where you don't need to activly think about doing it. This will give you the (ingame) time to think/work on your weaknesses. Free up your mind for important stuff by shifting other important stuff to your subconcious.
My understanding is your MMR in an ideal world is suppose to find your most suited league position. Meaning it wants to find ideal people for you to play, so the same standard as you. So in theory you should win as many games as you lose if it's found where to put you for this time. Now we all know that in sc2 odd things happen and your MMR is effected, such as someone leaving a game or you getting matched to an incorrect player, such as someone two leagues above or two leagues below etc. Or just simply someone cheesed you and lost. So it's not a perfect system but it's the best we have right now, and infairness its very very good.
So the idea is you win as many as you lose, but then you have to take into account that sometimes you might be playing players in the league above or below you. This again will effect your mmr in different ways. From my experiance to get promoted you need to be consistantly beating players in the league above you, not always winning but if you win enough it will raise your mmr high enough to lift you up.
What you need to remember is at the begining your mmr will jump around all over the place as it only has a short sample of games to judge you on. So you might only get placed in bronze but if you learn quick you might win quite a few games in a row shooting your mmr up to the next teir very quickly because again it's judging you on a small sample. So for example you might have only played 15 games but you won 10 which gives you quite a high win ratio. The more games you play the better it can find you your perfect skill level match. The OP has a good sample of around 100/100 ish which means they are placed sort of correctly and once they rise in skill level and start beating more people they will be then raised to play players in the league above and once you are beating those regually they will be replaced into the higher league.
I've only had my new computer, and SC2, for about the past 2 weeks I've gone from Bronze to Gold in that time I am going to hit platinum tonight, if it kills me different strokes
On January 13 2012 20:26 Bill Murray wrote: I've only had my new computer, and SC2, for about the past 2 weeks I've gone from Bronze to Gold in that time I am going to hit platinum tonight, if it kills me different strokes
On January 13 2012 16:15 BLacKOuTz wrote: I just did some practice games with Stokes, the diamond toss who posted on here and we played 3 games. PvP. He won the first 2, and I won the 3rd game. Pretty much what it cam down to is this.
In gold league i experience all ins more than 70% of my games. Usaully i feel like I dont have the amount of money I would like to have to build more units. Also im not the best at deciding when to build more gates, and when to build units. Working on my scouting is also something i need to do but i think with simply more obs play ill be fine. I made probes perfectly fine, no problems there. Its pretty much just came down to him having more units than me. I think i just need to work on not being so scared of early pushes to where i build so many units i have no time to do anything else. It just seems so hard to do when every terran 1-1-1 every toss 3 gate robos and pushed with 3 immortals, and zergs just mass roach hydra off 3 base.
I did read every post and i appreciate most of ur help. Thanks
The moment you lower your ego, you'll notice more improvement in your game. I don't know if you've learned more from the this thread or not but as you can see the general message is that you're simply not as good as you think you may be. If you're thinking that your understanding of the game is beyond gold level, you are wrong it is simply at gold level, and I know this because you yourself have stated that you keep losing to all-ins. I mean you could have 30 APM and still dominate all-ins if your understanding of the game was at Masters.
If you're thinking that your understanding of the game is beyond gold level, you are wrong it is simply at gold level, and I know this because you yourself have stated that you keep losing to all-ins. I mean you could have 30 APM and still dominate all-ins if your understanding of the game was at Masters.
I disagree. If I watch a 1000 football games at the highest level my understanding of the game will be really good. That doesn´t mean I can play like Messi. I´ve watched almost every game in GSL and the other major tournaments since sc2 came out, seen lots of replays, most of Day9 and many streamers. I´ve played RTS games since dune II. I still suck at starcraft, but it´s not because I don´t understand the game, it´s because I can´t play at the same level as those that are better than I am. Your understanding of the game won´t help you play better if the execution is bad.
I came from halo as well and I think I started in mid june with sc2, I did not play any pc games since like 2004 and had zero rts expirience, playing a bit of AoE 2 campaign when I was like 8 is about it.
So as I said I'm about half a year in right now and I'm high diamand atm, with about 450 1 v 1 wins. Now keep in mind that this is just my number, I picked my race immediatly and I do watch a lot of gsl and think about the game a lot, also I'm theorycrafting with friends atleast like 4 times a week. I do have some practice partners but right now I'm just using ladder to get mechanics going as I had like 0 when switching from Xbox, I was literally clicking on everything etc. Also from my number of games (which should be about 900 given how ladder works, probably less as I went from bronze to diamand) you can tell that I don't play a lot of games.
Now someone who played a lot of bw/wc3 probably started in plat/diamand as the game came out so thinks are totally different for them. And even between people with 0 rts, or maybe even little to no pc background things will be different, some get the game quicker than others, some have more time than others etc. Also practice is different for everyone, some just mass ladder, others use customs, some do a mix, some go over almost every replay, some only watch their looses etc. pp. You should not worry about other people being quicker/slower at learning the game. You learn at your pace and that's perfectly fine, some will get to masters in a month or two, for others it might be a year or even more. But at the end of the day both enjoy the game and both reach the same point. I feel like no matter what you bring to the table you will always be able to get pretty high if you are not totally stupid and invest a lot of time. Also keep in mind that you do this because it is what you love doing.
Gameunderstanding can be a lot higher than your league, if you have shitty mechanics it will not help you that you know what to do. Given that most of the people here were good at rts before sc2 they keep forgetting that some actually have 0 mechanics when starting this game, if you can't execute your build right knowing it won't help you much.
On January 13 2012 14:29 Netsky wrote: Nice guy, non-elitist answer:
Don't beat yourself up over it. This game is much more competitive than what you have done in the past and requires a different skill set. Just be patient and learn from your mistakes and you will improve.
I hope it opens your eyes and makes you appreciate the talent of the top-tier players.
I started in silver league and I'm mid-high master league now. The other day I bought a smurf account and I was put into master league again within 30 wins. Let me tell you something; you are a fool if you thInk that you completely understand the game and are anything below grandmaster level. If you're in gold and you think you even understand the game in the slightest, you need to wake up. I was there once myself, and let me tell you, every single promotion that I got was because I realized the importance of a basic game mechanic. It wasn't until I hit high master league that I started to realize how bad I truely was and how much I still need to learn. If you're sub masters, you still don't understand the basics of the game whether you realize it or not.
People need to understand that most high master players have been playing Blizzard style RTS games since BW and WC3, people that don't have these RTS gaming experiences will take longer to get to the highest levels simply because they are not completely used to the control and the intellect process behind the game at diamond/master level, especially when it comes to macro and mid/late game management. The MMR system is actually remarkably accurate. 170wins is literally nothing if you compare it to the number of RTS matches many of us have played since BW. The MMR system doesn't reward casual players either when it comes to promotion.
Also nobody really cares if you are gold or master level, if you should be at a higher league you will be there, it just takes time. 170 wins is like a week of regular gaming for some people. Think about it, if a guy tells you he should go pro at a certain FPS game after 200 wins against newbies around his skill level with a fair matching system, what would you say?
Well let me share my experience...(High masters now)
I started SC2 when it came out (july 27 10). I was placed into bronze (no previous RTS experience) at first I massed gamed and made it easily into gold. Then a period of mass stagnation came, I couldn't pass through the gold league. So I knew I was doing something wrong... I started looking at online resources for high level play (replays etc.) and I tried copying whatever the pros did. After much hard work I managed to make it to diamond (highest league in that time) and then masters.
So to conclude I think there is no real pace at which you can get better in SC2. It all depends on how you invest your time practicing and learning. So it's obvious you are doing something wrong in your practice regime and need to find out what it is. Once you fix it you will no doubt advance at a pace unimaginable.
I got around 800 wins to reach master(3 seasons). When i started to improve a lot, was when i learned to play all 3 races, but still sticking to one. GL.
I think the OP is colourising himself a little. I think you think you are better than you actually are, basically, matchmaking and blizzard leagues work in a way, that if you play enough and win enough games, you WILL GET PROMOTED. I think like 2-3 months ago blizzard posted this chart about general number of points required for league promotion; try to compare yourself to those. Try to improve, and tell yourself you are bad when you lose, it really motivates me for example, in S1 i used to be in bronze and climbed to diamond now, I don't think my play is perfect and I understand that more, the more pro replays and casts I watch. Anyways, I think a certain work ethic is needed to improve; if you tell yourself you are too good, you will probably not become better because you will not focus too much on it.
You're in gold league how do you not realize that you're nothing special and compared to any competitive gamer absolutely terrible. What the hell is wrong with the sense of entitlement of all these SC2 players who think they should be pros and are in gold league? It's literally every other day I see a blog saying how "Guys I made it to gold league I'm on my way to becoming pro."
I don't want to be the guy who has to be a dick but you guys all need to get it through your head that you're all terrible and do uncountable numbers of things wrong. If you don't be realistic you'll never get better.
To be completely honest, i just tried spent all my money and make as much shit as i can. That mindset only got me to diamond where i had to learn to to scout and react... Then you will get to master.
On January 13 2012 14:18 BLacKOuTz wrote: Ok so this is just a quick question the the community. I know many of you have been playing SC since BW days and what not so I'm sure you have some intel on this subject.
This is something I've been beating myself up alot lately about. I have always been a competitive gamer, but it has always been console games. I have been to MLG events and played Halo, Gears of War, and CoD at very high levels. Ive played Sc2 since season 1, but I never played it seriously until mid season 4 (5 weeks ago to be precise). I am currently bouncing around in the t20 of my gold league. I added up my wins and losses totals since i began playing 5 weeks ago and Im at about 110 wins and 100 losses. In season 1 I played 0 1v1s. In season 2 I became silver winning 17 1v1s. In season 3 I was number 1 silver and had 46 wins total , and season 4 placement got me gold and it was the only game I played til a few days b4 season 5. Now in season 5 I have 96 wins.( been goin hard ;P)
So a grand total of around 170 wins in 1v1s. Should I be higher than gold? because in my experience as a competitive gamer I have progressed through the ranks very quickly. I also feel like I know this game really well now seeing as how I've watched every video known to man, studied, taken notes, all that jazz. It is something I really want to excel at and all of this boils down to is should I be beating myself up for still being in gold, or is it a normal pace for SC1 / SC2 players.
Assuming that your ladder experience is largely coming from 1v1s, your pace is really good. 170 wins total is really not a lot @ gold level - not bad at all.
It totally depends on if it´s your first RTS you ever played.If it´s your first RTS it´s ok to be gold with such Win/Loss.But if you played some RTS before, so you don´t know much about SC2 but you have a general sense of RTS (Macro/Macro).If you don´t play seriously you won´t improve fast.When you really want to improve you can get much better with just some basics, which you really hard practice.It´s an really easy jump in my opinion to get from gold to like high diamond.(If you´re NA,SEA or EU) server. Maybe you´re interested I´ve needed like ~80 games to get Diamond.(was when SC2 was released)
I started in silver league and I'm mid-high master league now. The other day I bought a smurf account and I was put into master league again within 30 wins. Let me tell you something; you are a fool if you thInk that you completely understand the game and are anything below grandmaster level. If you're in gold and you think you even understand the game in the slightest, you need to wake up. I was there once myself, and let me tell you, every single promotion that I got was because I realized the importance of a basic game mechanic. It wasn't until I hit high master league that I started to realize how bad I truely was and how much I still need to learn. If you're sub masters, you still don't understand the basics of the game whether you realize it or not..
I think you're mistaking "understanding the game" with "playing the game". It's entirely possible to understand the game at a high-level without being able to play the game at that high-level. Some people simply don't have good multi-tasking or don't work well under duress etc., and these are skills they have to develop by playing the game... no matter how well they understand it from a logical point of view.
Which is why I said that people should start off small. You need to learn how to play the game mechanically before you can focus on the logical side of things. Without the underpinning mechanics, it doesn't matter whether or not you know the correct response - you won't be able to perform that response optimally and can/will end up losing because of it.
This guy has hit my experience on the head. I was pretty terrible (well I still am!) But I watched no end of competitive games and knew responses to builds, I have quick handspeed and what not, but if your macro is bad (which mine is) then you can only get so far. I have been practicing with a masters league friend, and if you can macro well then you will see vast improvements! Macro is the best place to start with improving. Once you have solid macro, micro'ing should be getting easier too as macroing will be a natural thing.
I am nowhere near getting really good at macro or micro at the moment but I am in platinum league purely because I can outproduce other people in the platinum league.
Oh also, an important thing is to always be having fun, even if you lose, dont get worked up, go over the replay and look at areas to improve. Strong loss analysis will get you a long way! gl hf!
On January 13 2012 20:26 Bill Murray wrote: I've only had my new computer, and SC2, for about the past 2 weeks I've gone from Bronze to Gold in that time I am going to hit platinum tonight, if it kills me different strokes
I'm also trying to get better. I have been playing since the end of season 3 ladder lock. I had no experience in any RTS game whatsoever. Neither in any other strategy game. I only playd CoD4 on fairly high levels on PC aswell as on console. After my placement matches i was already placed in gold. Currently i am top 3 diamond, and playing against masters. Im not sure wether this is fast progress or not. Altough i have the feeling i could have been in masters already because i havent played to much lately. I have 269 1v1 league wins. So, am i progressing fast, or could i go faster?
You should be exactly where you are, OP. You need to take into account the fact that other players are practicing at rates that may be higher than yours, and the leagues have become even more competitive over the past year. Gold nowadays isn't as bad as gold was during release. Master league is much better than it was half a year ago. Et cetera. If you practice more and put in more time and effort, there's a very good chance you'll make more progress, faster.
And you also seem to be learning the fact that it's a heck of a lot harder than the stereotypical shooter game
I swapped from playing Halo 3 competitively at events to Starcraft 2. During Beta I was in Platinum, after beta I was in Diamond and I'm currently mid-high masters.
However, I've played a lot of games ;D.
Gold is decent for 170 games, probably about right for someone with a competitive background. Its the /ability/ to learn how to be good that makes you good imo. Nice to see a lot of console gamers coming over though .
I didn't have any RTS background really, just AoE2 single player, and Broodwar UMS.
Edit: Not to mention Gold now is like Diamond 2 months after release ;D.
I've been playing since half-way throught the beta, and, although I've vastly improved, I've only gone from about bronze to mid/high diamond since then. I've stopped playing a couple times, and of course, I haven't always focused solely on improving, but I think it's definitely possible to do better than I did in a short amount of time. Day9 was a huge help for me though.
On January 13 2012 23:00 tUUTZ wrote: Everyone should be in Master League after playing for a year or so.
You realize that this is impossible, right? Given the way blizzard distributes percentages of the population into different leagues not everyone can be in master's
I'm in Platinum league now, and it took me about ~100 games to get there from silver, when I started playing early last year. I then didn't play until last fall, and now I'm still firmly in Platinum after playing several hundred more games. I don't expect to be promoted any time soon even though I am improving, and that doesn't bother me at all actually.
I think you need to have a clear goal which you want to achieve. Then you can decide on best method to achieve it, and come up with benchmarks to measure your progress. It will allow you to measure your skill improvement objectively, like making sure you have a specific number of scvs at 10 minutes, etc. I can sometimes play a game, lose narrowly even though I did everything correctly and rage that something is imba. Then I open up a replay and see that I had 36 scvs instead of 44 at 10 minutes. There is no point in watching the rest of replay or using this game to judge skill.
As many people pointed out, if getting up the ladder is your main concern, the best way to achieve it is to focus on strong 1 or 2 base all-ins. Your games will be relatively short (so you'll play a lot of them), you will have clear army benchmarks at all points of time, and will get a lot of practice with unit control. This won't get you to code S, but might get to code A :p
On the other hand, if you want to develop mechanics and game sense to become a competent and creative player, you might want to incorporate elements of multitasking into your builds, try to execute pushes and harrass while macroing, and what not. That's what I try to do personally. For example, my personal measure of progress is that I fail less and less miserably in trying to do two things at a time, not what league I'm in.
Progression isnt measured in games but in time. I used to play BW a ton and had knowledge on what you should focus on, how to improve what to do and I got into masters(diamond when masters didnt exist) pretty easy in under 100 games (same as some friends from BW).
People new to Starcraft 2 need to go through the same steps like the ones from BW did like: playing faster, analysing replays of pros and see what they do and why they do them, when they attack, when they defend and how etc.. If you focus on learning rather than grinding games making the same mistakes over and over you will progress much faster. Just my opinion, everyone has different experience and backgrounds.
If you're thinking that your understanding of the game is beyond gold level, you are wrong it is simply at gold level, and I know this because you yourself have stated that you keep losing to all-ins. I mean you could have 30 APM and still dominate all-ins if your understanding of the game was at Masters.
I disagree. If I watch a 1000 football games at the highest level my understanding of the game will be really good. That doesn´t mean I can play like Messi. I´ve watched almost every game in GSL and the other major tournaments since sc2 came out, seen lots of replays, most of Day9 and many streamers. I´ve played RTS games since dune II. I still suck at starcraft, but it´s not because I don´t understand the game, it´s because I can´t play at the same level as those that are better than I am. Your understanding of the game won´t help you play better if the execution is bad.
Around two months ago, we were hanging out at my friend's house. I played with my off hand (left), and got my friend's bronze account into low platinum with no hotkeys with protoss, which I never play. I play zerg. You don't understand the game if you're not in masters. Even masters players don't know the game well at all. My apm is 55 to 65, so you don't need great mechanics to get into top 25 masters.
If you're thinking that your understanding of the game is beyond gold level, you are wrong it is simply at gold level, and I know this because you yourself have stated that you keep losing to all-ins. I mean you could have 30 APM and still dominate all-ins if your understanding of the game was at Masters.
I disagree. If I watch a 1000 football games at the highest level my understanding of the game will be really good. That doesn´t mean I can play like Messi. I´ve watched almost every game in GSL and the other major tournaments since sc2 came out, seen lots of replays, most of Day9 and many streamers. I´ve played RTS games since dune II. I still suck at starcraft, but it´s not because I don´t understand the game, it´s because I can´t play at the same level as those that are better than I am. Your understanding of the game won´t help you play better if the execution is bad.
Around two months ago, we were hanging out at my friend's house. I played with my off hand (left), and got my friend's bronze account into low platinum with no hotkeys with protoss, which I never play. I play zerg. You don't understand the game if you're not in masters. Even masters players don't know the game well at all. My apm is 55 to 65, so you don't need great mechanics to get into top 25 masters.
The first part of your post didn't make sense in conjunction with the second part of your post. You didn't address PapaJed's argument that you don't have to be master to understand the game with any actual evidence, you just negated it without actual evidence.
Sure you can be master without understanding StarCraft-- that doesn't mean you have to be master to understand the game in depth. Understanding and execution are very different.
If you're thinking that your understanding of the game is beyond gold level, you are wrong it is simply at gold level, and I know this because you yourself have stated that you keep losing to all-ins. I mean you could have 30 APM and still dominate all-ins if your understanding of the game was at Masters.
I disagree. If I watch a 1000 football games at the highest level my understanding of the game will be really good. That doesn´t mean I can play like Messi. I´ve watched almost every game in GSL and the other major tournaments since sc2 came out, seen lots of replays, most of Day9 and many streamers. I´ve played RTS games since dune II. I still suck at starcraft, but it´s not because I don´t understand the game, it´s because I can´t play at the same level as those that are better than I am. Your understanding of the game won´t help you play better if the execution is bad.
Around two months ago, we were hanging out at my friend's house. I played with my off hand (left), and got my friend's bronze account into low platinum with no hotkeys with protoss, which I never play. I play zerg. You don't understand the game if you're not in masters. Even masters players don't know the game well at all. My apm is 55 to 65, so you don't need great mechanics to get into top 25 masters.
The first part of your post didn't make sense in conjunction with the second part of your post. You didn't address PapaJed's argument that you don't have to be master to understand the game with any actual evidence, you just negated it without actual evidence.
Sure you can be master without understanding StarCraft-- that doesn't mean you have to be master to understand the game in depth. Understanding and execution are very different.
You can always argue his point, without ever being disproven. I'm not sure how his point is falsifiable.
Him: Hey guys, I suck at execution, but I really understand the game. Me: No, you don't understand the game. I suck at execution, and I am in masters with horrible mechanics. You: Well technically, you didn't disprove him. Me: No shit, no one can. He can always resort to "Hey guys, I really know the game".
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.
Everyone is going to progress differently.. I had no PC gaming or RTS experience at all when I got the game. Was placed into bronze, took me quite a while to get out but once I got to gold I basically skipped over gold and platinum into diamond where it took me a couple months to get into masters.
On the flip side of the coin I know people that were diamond season 1 who still play actively and haven't gotten significantly better, being stuck at a high diamond/low masters level or people who went from bronze to diamond quickly but have been unable to break into masters. It just depends with how you use your time and apply yourself to learning.
Play lots of games, watch your replays, do practice games with people, you will get promoted.
Its hard to read every post but to me it seems like people underestimate gold players. I mean I have many friends and practice partners in diamond, and I can beat them with a fairly good ratio. It almost seems like I play better against better players. I wish I had some specific replays to give examples but I just can't find any that truly explain what im trying to say.
There have been games where a gold player has beaten me using some of the most perfect Forcefields i've ever seen. Gold terran players dropping at all 3 bases and microing. Just seems to me like some of these people execute things so well and I dont expect it. I have a mindset where I say things like, "Oh they are in gold so theres no way they will know to do this" and i think thats bad. I dont try to its just subconscious. Another thing i will do that i shouldnt is i will do a 2 base timing push and say, "I did this really well, since this is gold league i should be able to win with this" and then i focus on micro for that big push and my macro slips.
After reading this replies to my post i think I have figured out how i need to change up my play and things i need to work on. Thanks everyone.
If you're thinking that your understanding of the game is beyond gold level, you are wrong it is simply at gold level, and I know this because you yourself have stated that you keep losing to all-ins. I mean you could have 30 APM and still dominate all-ins if your understanding of the game was at Masters.
I disagree. If I watch a 1000 football games at the highest level my understanding of the game will be really good. That doesn´t mean I can play like Messi. I´ve watched almost every game in GSL and the other major tournaments since sc2 came out, seen lots of replays, most of Day9 and many streamers. I´ve played RTS games since dune II. I still suck at starcraft, but it´s not because I don´t understand the game, it´s because I can´t play at the same level as those that are better than I am. Your understanding of the game won´t help you play better if the execution is bad.
Around two months ago, we were hanging out at my friend's house. I played with my off hand (left), and got my friend's bronze account into low platinum with no hotkeys with protoss, which I never play. I play zerg. You don't understand the game if you're not in masters. Even masters players don't know the game well at all. My apm is 55 to 65, so you don't need great mechanics to get into top 25 masters.
Some people are just flat-out bad at multi-tasking and so are always going to find SC2 hard, no matter how much they understand it. Some people don't work well under pressure and will crumble to drops etc. because they just don't have the right mentality. Some people are bad mechanically (not in the SC2 sense, in the sense that their mouse-accuracy or hand-eye co-ordination are really bad). All these things matter and, in combination, will halt your progression more than knowing what units to build next. Not everyone is the same, which is why people have different play-styles and such. How hard is this to understand?
Hell, just look at commentators in a lot of sports. Some of them have never played the sport at a high level, but they have a deep understanding of the game being played (John Motson comes to mind in football). Same goes for football managers - nobody would argue that Jose Mourinho doesn't have a deep understand of how football works, but he was never a good player.
EDIT:
Obviously, it's kind of hard to prove that you have a good understanding of the game, whereas it is easier to prove that you're mechanically good (average unspent minerals, APM, micro-ability etc. all show this off). This makes "understanding the game" an easy crutch for people to fall back on if they're not doing well and I certainly don't want to endorse that in any way. I think that if a person thinks their understanding of the game is good whilst still in a low league, they need to work at their mechanics much harder - I just don't like people reiterating the idea that you don't understand the game if you're not good at it. Understanding is only part of the battle, and a pretty small part at that.
I believe this is pretty spot on. I think i understand the game just as well as anyone, hell, maybe even better based on how many vids I watch and how much I practice, i just need to execute things better. Really all it comes down to.
If this thread stays alive for the rest of today I will post as many replays from my games today as i can. Also i will try and stream and people who want to see how I play can watch that if they desire to. Hopefully we can figure this out and I can better my play!
If you're thinking that your understanding of the game is beyond gold level, you are wrong it is simply at gold level, and I know this because you yourself have stated that you keep losing to all-ins. I mean you could have 30 APM and still dominate all-ins if your understanding of the game was at Masters.
I disagree. If I watch a 1000 football games at the highest level my understanding of the game will be really good. That doesn´t mean I can play like Messi. I´ve watched almost every game in GSL and the other major tournaments since sc2 came out, seen lots of replays, most of Day9 and many streamers. I´ve played RTS games since dune II. I still suck at starcraft, but it´s not because I don´t understand the game, it´s because I can´t play at the same level as those that are better than I am. Your understanding of the game won´t help you play better if the execution is bad.
Around two months ago, we were hanging out at my friend's house. I played with my off hand (left), and got my friend's bronze account into low platinum with no hotkeys with protoss, which I never play. I play zerg. You don't understand the game if you're not in masters. Even masters players don't know the game well at all. My apm is 55 to 65, so you don't need great mechanics to get into top 25 masters.
Some people are just flat-out bad at multi-tasking and so are always going to find SC2 hard, no matter how much they understand it. Some people don't work well under pressure and will crumble to drops etc. because they just don't have the right mentality. Some people are bad mechanically (not in the SC2 sense, in the sense that their mouse-accuracy or hand-eye co-ordination are really bad). All these things matter and, in combination, will halt your progression more than knowing what units to build next. Not everyone is the same, which is why people have different play-styles and such. How hard is this to understand?
Hell, just look at commentators in a lot of sports. Some of them have never played the sport at a high level, but they have a deep understanding of the game being played (John Motson comes to mind in football). Same goes for football managers - nobody would argue that Jose Mourinho doesn't have a deep understand of how football works, but he was never a good player.
EDIT:
Obviously, it's kind of hard to prove that you have a good understanding of the game, whereas it is easier to prove that you're mechanically good (average unspent minerals, APM, micro-ability etc. all show this off). This makes "understanding the game" an easy crutch for people to fall back on if they're not doing well and I certainly don't want to endorse that in any way. I think that if a person thinks their understanding of the game is good whilst still in a low league, they need to work at their mechanics much harder - I just don't like people reiterating the idea that you don't understand the game if you're not good at it. Understanding is only part of the battle, and a pretty small part at that.
Fair points throughout your post, and I would agree. The bold is my point, so I don't see us disagreeing much at all. Now if some poster comes in, and tells me he's the new coach planning out Slayers terrans build, but suck in platinum, his argument is legitimate.
If you are someone really bad at multi-tasking, but you know the game as well as some claim, I think you should be aware of how to minimize multi-tasking. I have to make adjustments and sacrifices in my build, which no pro does, because I can't defend with the minimal units and compositions they do.
As for cheese, we're not playing grandmasters, so it's your own fault for not seeing something coming. Also, maybe I'm in the minority, but I especially enjoyed facing all the cheeses in lower leagues. It presents a really simple early game problem, solvable in a short period of time. There was never a cheese I couldn't figure out how to crush, because of my mechanics.
I would guess a big reason alot of gold/platinum people have horrible macro is because, they really don't know what they should be doing. They just have a vague clue from what they've seen others do, and they think that's real knowledge. I remember Catz coaching a platinum zerg and once it got to the midgame, Catz literally had tell him step by step how to spend his money. Especially if the kid took any damage, he became pretty clueless. It's like he knew what to do only when he was relatively untouched, but once the game started branching out with him taking damage or needing to make midgame adjustments, his knowledge on how to spend his resources was really full of holes.
On January 14 2012 03:20 BLacKOuTz wrote: Its hard to read every post but to me it seems like people underestimate gold players. I mean I have many friends and practice partners in diamond, and I can beat them with a fairly good ratio. It almost seems like I play better against better players. I wish I had some specific replays to give examples but I just can't find any that truly explain what im trying to say.
There have been games where a gold player has beaten me using some of the most perfect Forcefields i've ever seen. Gold terran players dropping at all 3 bases and microing. Just seems to me like some of these people execute things so well and I dont expect it. I have a mindset where I say things like, "Oh they are in gold so theres no way they will know to do this" and i think thats bad. I dont try to its just subconscious. Another thing i will do that i shouldnt is i will do a 2 base timing push and say, "I did this really well, since this is gold league i should be able to win with this" and then i focus on micro for that big push and my macro slips.
After reading this replies to my post i think I have figured out how i need to change up my play and things i need to work on. Thanks everyone.
Sounds like you're a victim of SlayersDragon. Don't let him get to you, he's gold master.
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.
Calling bullshit here, yep, major bullshit.
Also, this is the exact opposite type of game than what you described, well almost.
Starcraft is the HARDEST game to learn hands down, hardest game to get good at, hands down and hardest game to master, hands down.
What game is harder to learn than Starcraft 2 besides Starcraft BW? Also, I know for a fact you did not make it to diamond or masters in that time frame, playing that much.
Hate to say it but this game really is a game of intellect. You are directly pitting your intelligence and problem solving against other players. There are a lot of players that have a knack for it. Others do not. Ask anyone on here with 5+ real life friends that play starcraft. The ones that are good also happen to be the ones that seem to be the most intelligent. My friends that are tards just constantly get overwhelmed in real life, and in game by simple concepts.
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.
Calling bullshit here, yep, major bullshit.
Also, this is the exact opposite type of game than what you described, well almost.
Starcraft is the HARDEST game to learn hands down, hardest game to get good at, hands down and hardest game to master, hands down.
What game is harder to learn than Starcraft 2 besides Starcraft BW? Also, I know for a fact you did not make it to diamond or masters in that time frame, playing that much.
I'd have to agree with him too. Basically as soon as I play someone vastly better than me, I get to there level in almost no time. Then it's just smoothing the sharp edges. Whenever I play my friend Bubba, within 10 games I'm back to his level. I get the concepts of the game, I don't have to grind games to understand the meta game switch. I either build X unit, or Y unit, and go from there. I barely play more than 5 games a week and I stay mid to high masters with no effort. It's been like that since beta 1.
Your rate on progression depends on this one question. How much are you willing to push yourself? If you truly want to improve dramatically you need to push yourself past your limits. You need to analyze pro's replays, master the safe macro build orders, Think while you play(not just mindlessly playing), have some good practice partners, and mass gaming on ladder. It's a good place to start, and you shouldn't be discouraged if you aren't the best at this game. Good luck! Always remember it's about the journey towards that destination, not the destination itself that makes SC2 fun .
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.
Calling bullshit here, yep, major bullshit.
Also, this is the exact opposite type of game than what you described, well almost.
Starcraft is the HARDEST game to learn hands down, hardest game to get good at, hands down and hardest game to master, hands down.
What game is harder to learn than Starcraft 2 besides Starcraft BW? Also, I know for a fact you did not make it to diamond or masters in that time frame, playing that much.
I'd have to agree with him too. Basically as soon as I play someone vastly better than me, I get to there level in almost no time. Then it's just smoothing the sharp edges. Whenever I play my friend Bubba, within 10 games I'm back to his level. I get the concepts of the game, I don't have to grind games to understand the meta game switch. I either build X unit, or Y unit, and go from there. I barely play more than 5 games a week and I stay mid to high masters with no effort. It's been like that since beta 1.
I also call bullshit here, this just isn't possible, you won't have the mechanics needed and unless you do a lot of spectating you won't have the game knowledge neccessary or even the skills to hold certain pushes off that require good micro.
i'll be happy to play you, I don't play much but if you only play that much I am pretty sure I can beat you even if I am rusty.
On January 13 2012 14:29 BLacKOuTz wrote: @Bagration Since I have starting playing seriously I have spent nearly every second of free time playing 1v1s.
@Kharnage I have won more than Ive lost. Since 5 weeks ago it is about 115-100 roughly. And I have stuided, have a library of builds, know every counter to everything, how to do it, how to macro, all that. I guess I know it all i just cant execute well. Thats my best guess.
you absolutely have 0 idea what you're doing, there's just no other way you'd be losing. i'm not sure you know common reads or are even using proper builds... maybe you are. if you are, just practice your handspeed/APM. sc2 requires you to be VERY fast.
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.
Calling bullshit here, yep, major bullshit.
Also, this is the exact opposite type of game than what you described, well almost.
Starcraft is the HARDEST game to learn hands down, hardest game to get good at, hands down and hardest game to master, hands down.
What game is harder to learn than Starcraft 2 besides Starcraft BW? Also, I know for a fact you did not make it to diamond or masters in that time frame, playing that much.
I'd have to agree with him too. Basically as soon as I play someone vastly better than me, I get to there level in almost no time. Then it's just smoothing the sharp edges. Whenever I play my friend Bubba, within 10 games I'm back to his level. I get the concepts of the game, I don't have to grind games to understand the meta game switch. I either build X unit, or Y unit, and go from there. I barely play more than 5 games a week and I stay mid to high masters with no effort. It's been like that since beta 1.
I also call bullshit here, this just isn't possible, you won't have the mechanics needed and unless you do a lot of spectating you won't have the game knowledge neccessary or even the skills to hold certain pushes off that require good micro.
i'll be happy to play you, I don't play much but if you only play that much I am pretty sure I can beat you even if I am rusty.
I think you're giving sc2 too much credit. Yes it's a hard game to master but these guys are mid master. To get to that level do not take as much as you seem to think.
On January 14 2012 04:19 discobaas wrote: You probably just can't macro, there's no need for strategy/builds/control in gold etc
The last thing I'd ever do in gold is try and 4 gate or all in someone. Waste of time. This guy is completely right. You'll be at masters in no time with just practicing making yourself a wall of blades opponents stab themself to death on =p
i played since the beta, but maybe only a couple games a month sometimes, sometimes many a week
but since i played since the beta id say i have a huge advantage and thats probably part of why im ranked so high. ive always been in the highest league ever since i started playing and i dont even try to get there i just play naturally and barely try
i think some people are just gifted with natural talent. if idra quit for 5months and started playing again just his mechanics alone would get him to masters. some people just have way better mechanics that they were born with.
so people who are saying it was easy for them to get to diamond/masters and they did it in a couple weeks, i believe them because some people just unfairly have superior mechanics that they were born with
On January 14 2012 05:09 roymarthyup wrote: i played since the beta, but maybe only a couple games a month sometimes, sometimes many a week
but since i played since the beta id say i have a huge advantage and thats probably part of why im ranked so high. ive always been in the highest league ever since i started playing and i dont even try to get there i just play naturally and barely try
i think some people are just gifted with natural talent. if idra quit for 5months and started playing again just his mechanics alone would get him to masters. some people just have way better mechanics that they were born with.
so people who are saying it was easy for them to get to diamond/masters and they did it in a couple weeks, i believe them because some people just unfairly have superior mechanics that they were born with
Some people are good at this game, some aren't. I got to diamond back in season 2 within 400 games played, and most of it was just me "winging it" or rolling random for the lulz.
Truthfully, if you're actually trying to improve, you shouldn't be about even in wins vs your peers. If you're still about even in w/l (or not playing people in higher leagues than you) it's because you aren't improving.
It really depends on how quick you learn things and get accustomed to them in my opinion. I used to be a pro CoD player on console, until I didn't have fun with the game anymore so I quit and found SC2 . (I believe I started playing SC2 around January 2011.) I learn things really quickly, and am very dedicated, (which you need in SC2 to get better, you can't play a game a day and expect to be good) so I found myself in masters relatively quickly, which was around 3 months of playing. I am still in high school, so when I came home I did homework and then just grinded SC2 games. Now I have a MMR of top 100 GM :D. In my experience, it all came down to dedication and amount you play when it comes to getting better. The more you play and learn from experience, the better you get.
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.
Also, I cant PROVE to anyone how fast I got to diamond and masters unless I take a shit ton of screen shots, and I have no reason to force people to believe me lol. I just shared my own experience, whether or not you believe me is up to you, and either way it doesnt matter to me. Saying that im lying wont hurt my feelings lol.
You would be surprised how far 4 gate can take you on the NA ladder
On January 14 2012 05:34 Siphonn wrote: It really depends on how quick you learn things and get accustomed to them in my opinion. I used to be a pro CoD player on console, until I didn't have fun with the game anymore so I quit and found SC2 . (I believe I started playing SC2 around January 2011.) I learn things really quickly, and am very dedicated, (which you need in SC2 to get better, you can't play a game a day and expect to be good) so I found myself in masters relatively quickly, which was around 3 months of playing. I am still in high school, so when I came home I did homework and then just grinded SC2 games. Now I have a MMR of top 100 GM :D. In my experience, it all came down to dedication and amount you play when it comes to getting better. The more you play and learn from experience, the better you get.
Im guessing ur the guy who plays with Rambo, Striker, Breezy, etc? lol. But yea i get what ur saying.
Also i have played 9 1v1s today and won 6 of them, 2 of the losses were 7 pools... So i think from this thread and practicing a bit with people helping me in my chat my mistakes are becoming more clear and i think ill be able to quickly fix them seeing as how Im a pretty fast learner when it comes to competitive games. I was just focusing on the wrong things to try and get better. Thanks to all who watched my stream today and helped <3
On January 14 2012 04:01 Frozne wrote: Hate to say it but this game really is a game of intellect. You are directly pitting your intelligence and problem solving against other players. There are a lot of players that have a knack for it. Others do not. Ask anyone on here with 5+ real life friends that play starcraft. The ones that are good also happen to be the ones that seem to be the most intelligent. My friends that are tards just constantly get overwhelmed in real life, and in game by simple concepts.
I agree. I met only one person in real life who has played starcraft as well. He was a huge fucking retard and was of course the worst player ive ever seen. My friend from high school who was pretty smart is almost the exact same mmr as me in master league.
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.
Yes, your problem is that you know the GM meta game all too well. This is why you are in Gold league. Not because you suck.
Jesus H, kid, get off your high horse and stop pretending to be better than you actually are. No, its not _normal_ to be in Gold after 170 (consecutive) wins.Not for someone whose goal is to climb up the ranks at least.
My advice would be to stop watching TheoryCraftCentral9 and direct your attention to a pro gamer's stream where you should try picking up some builds and timings and a certain style of play in general.
considering that you've started playing seriously 5-6 weeks ago, I'd say that's pretty impressive.
If you want to know, I started off as gold season 1, plat season 2, master season 3 (toss, but it was very low masters), then I switched to zerg season 4, and season 5 I'm masters.
I could say that experience has a lot of merit because I've played as toss and have an understanding of how toss works (they get to warp everywhere ) For some of the people out there who are saying that you have a GM understanding of the game but lack the mechanics to do it, I agree partly with that statement. At a GM level, more than just the build order and counters are there, it's more psychological and the GMs know/play each other on a regular basis. In the case of a gold ladder, you rarely ever play the same opponent twice.
The metagame at lower divisions could also account to the reason why you are in gold. I would suggest dling platinum rank replays to help give you an idea of what you should be expecting. Because mechanics greatly comes into play at higher levels of skill, control groups and memorizing hotkeys gives you that much more of an edge over your opponent. Just because you know the counters and build orders does not mean you can execute them perfectly against your opponents. Sometimes, when you are on a set build order and you scout something thats uncool, you have to be able to play in the moment and switch up or completely change your plans. Knowing BOs is not enough; you need to react accordingly.
That said, there's a bunch of things I could go into since I don't know your style of play/how you play, but I feel that you are doing great so far with only 200+ games under your belt. I've played over a thousand games, so maybe let that be your benchmark for future games.
You're probably doing something wrong if you're stuck in gold after so many games. If you're gold, there are probably a ridiculous number of holes in your play. My little brother placed into platinum by zealot rushing every game, without upgrades, without warpgate, and not even proxying, or macroing well. And obvoiusly no micro. He didn't even play practice league or anything.
Now, how to improve: I found that it's really helpful to have someone who's actually sorta decent(I'm thinking at very least mid to high diamond) at Starcraft stand behind you and tell you what to do. Even it's them just telling you that you're bad for 30 seconds, they'll probably be able to point out some large flaws in your game. Patching these very large holes are probably your biggest concern.
If you post replays of either wins or losses, you would probably get a lot of good commentary and realize how many things you're doing wrong. It's hard to improve when you don't know all the things that you're doing wrong. TL is a decent site to get comments, but so is watching very informative shows such as the Day9 Daily.
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.
Yes, your problem is that you know the GM meta game all too well. This is why you are in Gold league. Not because you suck.
Jesus H, kid, get off your high horse and stop pretending to be better than you actually are. No, its not _normal_ to be in Gold after 170 (consecutive) wins.Not for someone whose goal is to climb up the ranks at least.
My advice would be to stop watching TheoryCraftCentral9 and direct your attention to a pro gamer's stream where you should try picking up some builds and timings and a certain style of play in general.
This guy is completely right. The only reason anyone should lose to something as ridiculous as pure marauders is if they didn't scout. 2 immortals + a few zealots and stalkers can hold 10 marauders easily, and its entirely possible to have that army by the time that many marauders show up at your front door.
I would follow his advice, blackoutz. Go watch pro streams and play the game. I would not, however, try and copy builds just yet. Pro players, and masters players, for that matter, play a reactive style. They may not change builds because of what their opponent is doing, but minor adjustments will be made, but following a pro build might just cause you to lose more games than you win. Stick with your respective race's bread and butter (ie. 3gate expand/robo, 2-3rax or 1 rax expand, 14-14 or 15 hatch) until around diamond with a macro oriented focus, then practice builds.
edit; in relevance to the thread, I have about 250 1v1 wins, and I'm high masters.
It takes thousands of games to build up the mechanics to play the game somewhat close to what it's meant to be. Especially if you have no previous experience in RTS games. I never played these kinda games before SC2 and it took me about 9500 games to get from Bronze to low GM EU / mid GM US. Builds, compositions and strategies are completely useless if you don't have a base to play around, and that's the mechanics. Those you only learn by playing a lot of games and to master em it takes years. Bear in mind i'm a very hard worker when it comes to improving and i'm very competitive, however i'm not really a fast learner nor am i particulary skilled with mouse/keyboard, so depending on your predisposition it might take you something less but it's still gonna be a matter of thousands. Simply put, with 170 games with no RTS experience in your bag, you're nowhere. You can't possibly have any game knowledge if not for what you've seen on streams (which is a whole different game from the one you're playing) and you have a very little grasp of the mechanics and metagame. The league you're in doesn't mean anything with these few games.
I don't really know what the normal progression rate is, but as a player with no RTS background (and no high level halo experience, only "decent" level on halo 2, like top 100-150ish in france, a long time ago), it took me maybe 150 games to be in diamond from bronze (started bronze cuz of disconnect, otherwise I would have been silver/gold), and I became quickly master after it was released (one or two week after). However, I did it the "wrong" and uncommon way imo : I didn't want to learn the basics by playing against bad players, so I just tried to be in the highest league possible and then try to learn the game. Thus I "practiced" only one strat by match-up, as micro intensive as possible, since micro was the most "beautiful" thing about this game for me, like 5rax reaper in every match-up, proxy reaper, etc... And basically the whole season 1 I 2raxed every TvZ, 2rax allined every TvT because I hated tanks-vikings wars, and 5raxreaper then proxy reaper then 3rax allin then dual thor + 1weapon build every TvP then marine scv all-in, until master. And then at the start of the season 2 I started learning the game for real, with a friend's account, testing a lot of strategies, build, learning how to macro properly, and then I just tried to be in control of the pace of the game, being the one who make things happen in the game. I did not drop in MMR when starting to learn the game on my main account but it took some time to really improve. And this season I'm still masters, playing against GM occasionnaly, so basically I progressed at a very slow rate since I'm not even gm -;-, so you should learn the basics instead of trying to win and learn the game while in master.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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 -_-
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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....
@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.
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.
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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 ^^
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I'm not the same person as Lysergic, but thanks for the nice comment. For the record, I agree with the people who say the OP should take a step back and realize that he has a lot to learn (as I do, but you'll never hear me going on about how awesome my SC2 understanding is, except maybe to my S1 bronze league office partner at work.)
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).
I started with that same youtube video on how to 3rax in beta and played around 50 games against the easy AI improving the smoothness of the build every time until I felt like I was doing it better than husky did in the video, and then I went on ladder with it in all 3 matchups and got to the highest rank in the first day, then I switched to protoss and played another 50-100 games against the easy AI practicing maxing out as quickly as possible until I felt like I couldn't make it any faster, then went back to ladder and now I'm a masters protoss, been in the highest leagues ever since beta just by refining specific things against the easy AI.
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.
...
To back that up with an image, here is what sc2gears can show as far as action distribution using a pro replay from MLG:
From left to right: Selection Hotkey Train Build Research Right-click Stop Hold Attack...
EPT
Like the others said you should focus more on improving all your match-ups and not just winning.
![[image loading]](http://i39.tinypic.com/awajcx.jpg)
