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On March 28 2012 19:37 Zythius wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2012 19:05 Leargle wrote:
You're satisfied with being in the lower 20% of active players...
I wouldn't be. Never settle, push yourself to improve I LOL'd. We may have some bronze/silver players that are stuck AND are putting in a lot of time, but I still maintain that the big reason is time. Nobody is satisfied with being bronze, but most might have other stuff to do than SC2. It takes time to improve and time to win matches. These are the ONLY two relevant factors to advancing up the leagues.
I don't see how this can be 'the big reason'. SC2 is my first competitive RTS and between family, work and other interests I have few opportunities to play. In a really exceptional week I'll get ten games played; often weeks go by with none. I know I would do better if I played more, sure, but games played cannot possibly account for much - if any - of the difference between myself and those who find themselves trapped in bronze. More often than not they describe themselves as more active than I am.
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Apart from obvious portrait farmers, Bronze league consists of 2 types of players and the difference is like Grandmaster and Gold.
On one hand, there is low Bronze, the guys who build 5 cannons at their ramp or a PF in their main base because they mostly play to not die. They never attack until they have a 200/200 army with maximum upgrades. This is how most Diamond/Masters/GM people imagine all the leagues below diamond.
On the other hand, there are the mid- to high bronze players who have an idea on what to do, they might even have some rough build orders, game plans, etc., but they are held back by either severe lack of practice, very slow hands, lack of skill or other factors. It's no shame to be in that position.
I've seen some pretty good bronze players when i started a new account and left all placement matches. Sure, even with my current low at platinum i could probably beat them 10 out of 10 times due to mechanics, but they have a basic, solid understanding of the game and of what you are supposed to do and eventhough they need twice as long due to the above mentioned problems, they get there eventually.
As long as they have fun, why not? Improving is great but having fun is even better.
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On March 28 2012 20:09 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2012 19:37 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 19:05 Leargle wrote:
You're satisfied with being in the lower 20% of active players...
I wouldn't be. Never settle, push yourself to improve I LOL'd. We may have some bronze/silver players that are stuck AND are putting in a lot of time, but I still maintain that the big reason is time. Nobody is satisfied with being bronze, but most might have other stuff to do than SC2. It takes time to improve and time to win matches. These are the ONLY two relevant factors to advancing up the leagues. I don't see how this can be 'the big reason'. SC2 is my first competitive RTS and between family, work and other interests I have few opportunities to play. In a really exceptional week I'll get ten games played; often weeks go by with none. I know I would do better if I played more, sure, but games played cannot possibly account for much - if any - of the difference between myself and those who find themselves trapped in bronze. More often than not they describe themselves as more active than I am.
Well, I'm talking about getting out of a league. If you played your placement matches well and got placed in platinum I don't care about you - you are not relevant for my argument. I'm thinking about the guys placed in bronze that has to work their way up. You need time to practice your skills and time to win matches after your skills have been improved. How is time not THE factor for advancing up in the leagues?
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Hell, I miss Bronze League.
The games were so much slower so you could really enjoy them and relax. Try whatever build orders or strategies you wanted.
But now in Masters the APM requirement is massive and any attempt at breaking from the norm in terms of strategy or build order will see you quickly demolished.
So I say to thee Bronze Leaguers, be happy where you are, you get to enjoy the game on a completely different level to all the condescending higher leaguers.
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On March 28 2012 21:57 Zythius wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2012 20:09 Umpteen wrote:On March 28 2012 19:37 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 19:05 Leargle wrote:
You're satisfied with being in the lower 20% of active players...
I wouldn't be. Never settle, push yourself to improve I LOL'd. We may have some bronze/silver players that are stuck AND are putting in a lot of time, but I still maintain that the big reason is time. Nobody is satisfied with being bronze, but most might have other stuff to do than SC2. It takes time to improve and time to win matches. These are the ONLY two relevant factors to advancing up the leagues. I don't see how this can be 'the big reason'. SC2 is my first competitive RTS and between family, work and other interests I have few opportunities to play. In a really exceptional week I'll get ten games played; often weeks go by with none. I know I would do better if I played more, sure, but games played cannot possibly account for much - if any - of the difference between myself and those who find themselves trapped in bronze. More often than not they describe themselves as more active than I am. Well, I'm talking about getting out of a league. If you played your placement matches well and got placed in platinum I don't care about you - you are not relevant for my argument. I'm thinking about the guys placed in bronze that has to work their way up. You need time to practice your skills and time to win matches after your skills have been improved. How is time not THE factor for advancing up in the leagues?
Aw; I want you to care about me 
As it happens, I placed in bronze and worked my way up - very quickly out of bronze, then a much bumpier ride to get out of silver until the aforementioned epiphany about decision making, and I'm now in Gold. I'm clearly not gifted, and I don't have much time to play. I don't see 'time' being the principle difference between myself and active bronze players.
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I have played this game since release, and I am still stuck in silver league. My race has been for 90% of time Terran.
I was even in gold league for some time but then I got demoted, but thats a long time ago.
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On March 28 2012 21:57 Zythius wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2012 20:09 Umpteen wrote:On March 28 2012 19:37 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 19:05 Leargle wrote:
You're satisfied with being in the lower 20% of active players...
I wouldn't be. Never settle, push yourself to improve I LOL'd. We may have some bronze/silver players that are stuck AND are putting in a lot of time, but I still maintain that the big reason is time. Nobody is satisfied with being bronze, but most might have other stuff to do than SC2. It takes time to improve and time to win matches. These are the ONLY two relevant factors to advancing up the leagues. I don't see how this can be 'the big reason'. SC2 is my first competitive RTS and between family, work and other interests I have few opportunities to play. In a really exceptional week I'll get ten games played; often weeks go by with none. I know I would do better if I played more, sure, but games played cannot possibly account for much - if any - of the difference between myself and those who find themselves trapped in bronze. More often than not they describe themselves as more active than I am. Well, I'm talking about getting out of a league. If you played your placement matches well and got placed in platinum I don't care about you - you are not relevant for my argument. I'm thinking about the guys placed in bronze that has to work their way up. You need time to practice your skills and time to win matches after your skills have been improved. How is time not THE factor for advancing up in the leagues?
Time played is definitely a factor, but not necessarily that huge of one. When I started playing (with no real competitive RTS experience), I was in bronze. By the end of my first season, I was in silver. Currently I'm in gold. I play at most a couple dozen games a season. The main thing that makes a difference for me is choosing to focus my efforts at improving in a specific area.
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In silver league, players are not as random as you think. They have actual builds like 4 gate or 3gate robo etc, or 3rax or 15 hatch etc
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On one hand, there is low Bronze, the guys who build 5 cannons at their ramp or a PF in their main base because they mostly play to not die. They never attack until they have a 200/200 army with maximum upgrades. This is how most Diamond/Masters/GM people imagine all the leagues below diamond.
On the other hand, there are the mid- to high bronze players who have an idea on what to do, they might even have some rough build orders, game plans, etc., but they are held back by either severe lack of practice, very slow hands, lack of skill or other factors. It's no shame to be in that position.
I completely agree with this one. I started in Season 1 with bronze league, and after taking breaks and then getting back into it over last summer. (I consider myself to have quite a bit of Bronze experience, and I don;t consider it an achievement) I played almost 4+ hours, sorta like OP and was still in bronze. Top of the league, but still in bronze. I followed all pro streams, watched day 9 and was STILL in bronze.
Morfildur hit it right on the money. There are some players that have absolutely NO idea what they are doing. Hopefully they are having fun, but you could see a clear separation in the league. The funny thing is, the main reason those upper bronze players stayed in bronze, is because they couldn't scout. It wasn't that they didn't scout, It's that they either, didn't know what to look for, or, most of the time, the opponent was in the lower part of bronze and did some off the wall strategy that somehow takes the opponent off guard and throws them.
Really getting out of bronze league seems hard because of them and, I think it all comes down to playing time.
Over the summer It was me, laddering almost all day, and topping the league. I had seen everything by that time and built up some sort of, bronze resistance. The next season came out and with that later came school and my playing time dropped to about 2-3 Hours a day. But because I was used to it. I eventually got out into silver and then to gold soon after.
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GOOD LORD..........
Make workers.. make units... 0 scout... still win bronzies....
Mass hellion, mass viking, mass hydra, mass queen, mass ling
Conclusion.. macro better pls.. ur out of bronze
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I started out in bronze (diamond now) and I do miss the weird games that I had there from time to time. But it's funny to look back at how much worse I played then. I remember a game, TvZ on Lost Temple where Z took the island expo as last resort while I rolled his base with my 200/200 3/3 mech army (because pushing out before maxed on supply and upgrades is MADNESS). So I Sensor Tower'ed all around his island, transitioned into Battlecruisers and because I was so terribly OCD about unit-retention, my breaking of his three layer deep sporecrawler ring guarded by Corruptors involved me flying in, Yamatoing 2 or 3 Spores or Corruptors and retreating back to my Turret line on the other side to repair my BCs I had a long phone-call during all this, during which I couldn't do much (because I might lose a BC!) so the game ended up lasting for 2 hours.
Good fun
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plat terran here
imo improving at bronze level is about choosing a single thing to improve and that is it. don't abstract play into terms like macro and micro; just choose something simple in concept like mouse control, using hotkeys to build everything, exclusively watching the minimap, etc.
also i see a lot of people say that they watch alot of tournies, read builds, watch day9 and so on; yet they still can't get out of bronze. i think this can create a misconception about the game. when you are bronze you don't want to play like a pro; you want to play like a silver player and that is it.
personally sc2 is not my first rts, but the first ive played for any extended amount of time. i played the campaign first and my placement matches got me into silver; therefore ive never in bronze. not to say im better, but i knew what to improve. i played random and focused on hotkeys first. just learning the hotkeys for buildings and units. i played almost exclusively freestyle. my scouting consisted of only determining the position of the other player and to see if they were making cloaked units.
im plat now, and to be completely honest im still horrible at scouting, and gleaming the correct information. i'm also stuck with the above syndrome with wanting to play like a pro, so i'm insanely stubborn and try to play super economic and get punished by cheese and all-ins.
the redundancy of bad play will never make you better. ive played plenty of games "competitively" and it is really surprising to see players who have played a certain game far longer than i and still on a lower level. pub-stars in counter strike, habitual clickers in WoW, etc.
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While reading this thread i couldn't stop myself from comparing sc2 to chess. You [average guy] only need to train hard, focus on solid openings and one day you will beat Magnus Carlsen, not.
Greetings
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Although this was a long time ago and as it's been discussed already, the average skill of players in each league has increased. A natural consequence of the game being around for a longer period of time.
But! For me it was really easy to get into plat and then later on diamond:
I sat down with a build order against the AI, i rehearsed till perfection much like an actor would do when readong a new manuscript. This alone, improved my macro quite a bit and i constantly found myself severely outmacroing my oponents which would weigh up for my bad micro and other mistakes i did.
I'm saying, macro is the answer at least up to low diamond where i am. While others might not agree, this is my experience and the way i see it from my perspective.
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On March 28 2012 23:34 Dranak wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2012 21:57 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 20:09 Umpteen wrote:On March 28 2012 19:37 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 19:05 Leargle wrote:
You're satisfied with being in the lower 20% of active players...
I wouldn't be. Never settle, push yourself to improve I LOL'd. We may have some bronze/silver players that are stuck AND are putting in a lot of time, but I still maintain that the big reason is time. Nobody is satisfied with being bronze, but most might have other stuff to do than SC2. It takes time to improve and time to win matches. These are the ONLY two relevant factors to advancing up the leagues. I don't see how this can be 'the big reason'. SC2 is my first competitive RTS and between family, work and other interests I have few opportunities to play. In a really exceptional week I'll get ten games played; often weeks go by with none. I know I would do better if I played more, sure, but games played cannot possibly account for much - if any - of the difference between myself and those who find themselves trapped in bronze. More often than not they describe themselves as more active than I am. Well, I'm talking about getting out of a league. If you played your placement matches well and got placed in platinum I don't care about you - you are not relevant for my argument. I'm thinking about the guys placed in bronze that has to work their way up. You need time to practice your skills and time to win matches after your skills have been improved. How is time not THE factor for advancing up in the leagues? Time played is definitely a factor, but not necessarily that huge of one. When I started playing (with no real competitive RTS experience), I was in bronze. By the end of my first season, I was in silver. Currently I'm in gold. I play at most a couple dozen games a season. The main thing that makes a difference for me is choosing to focus my efforts at improving in a specific area.
A couple dozen is 24 games.. I do not believe you advance from bronze to silver to gold if you play that much every season. You would just have to win every single game because you are a good player which happened to be placed in bronze by accident.
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On March 29 2012 01:51 Zythius wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2012 23:34 Dranak wrote:On March 28 2012 21:57 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 20:09 Umpteen wrote:On March 28 2012 19:37 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 19:05 Leargle wrote:
You're satisfied with being in the lower 20% of active players...
I wouldn't be. Never settle, push yourself to improve I LOL'd. We may have some bronze/silver players that are stuck AND are putting in a lot of time, but I still maintain that the big reason is time. Nobody is satisfied with being bronze, but most might have other stuff to do than SC2. It takes time to improve and time to win matches. These are the ONLY two relevant factors to advancing up the leagues. I don't see how this can be 'the big reason'. SC2 is my first competitive RTS and between family, work and other interests I have few opportunities to play. In a really exceptional week I'll get ten games played; often weeks go by with none. I know I would do better if I played more, sure, but games played cannot possibly account for much - if any - of the difference between myself and those who find themselves trapped in bronze. More often than not they describe themselves as more active than I am. Well, I'm talking about getting out of a league. If you played your placement matches well and got placed in platinum I don't care about you - you are not relevant for my argument. I'm thinking about the guys placed in bronze that has to work their way up. You need time to practice your skills and time to win matches after your skills have been improved. How is time not THE factor for advancing up in the leagues? Time played is definitely a factor, but not necessarily that huge of one. When I started playing (with no real competitive RTS experience), I was in bronze. By the end of my first season, I was in silver. Currently I'm in gold. I play at most a couple dozen games a season. The main thing that makes a difference for me is choosing to focus my efforts at improving in a specific area. A couple dozen is 24 games.. I do not believe you advance from bronze to silver to gold if you play that much every season. You would just have to win every single game because you are a good player which happened to be placed in bronze by accident.
Its perfectly possible if he improved quickly, and didn't spend long enough in bronze to "solidy" his MMR at that level. But the longer you stay at given MMR, the harder it is to shift it later.
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On March 29 2012 00:10 Gajarell wrote:
While reading this thread i couldn't stop myself from comparing sc2 to chess. You [average guy] only need to train hard, focus on solid openings and one day you will beat Magnus Carlsen, not.
Greetings
I'm reminded of something my old running coach liked to say. "I love cross country [racing]. As long as you've got 2 functional legs, you can make yourself good at it."
This applies to SC2 or chess as well. There's not a giant physical limitation like, for example, in basketball. Even with games like basketball, there are outliers in people who completely lacked the physical traits you'd normally associate with excellent players. Dedication and effort will take you far.
Yeah, the bronze players and sub 400 elo chess players probably aren't going to be hitting grandmaster (in either game) or winning tournaments, but they can certainly dig themselves out of the hole they're in.
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Just to clarify the point about time not being the most important factor:
Obviously time works as a multiplier (with diminishing returns). And if two players are mid-ladder, and know what they need to focus on, then time invested will be a very effective separator.
But if someone doesn't 'get' the game, or is focusing on the wrong ways to improve, time invested becomes very poor at separating them from other players. And I strongly believe this to be true in the case of the long-term bronze.
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Do pro players think starcraft mathematically? I just play from gutfeeling
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On March 29 2012 02:07 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 01:51 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 23:34 Dranak wrote:On March 28 2012 21:57 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 20:09 Umpteen wrote:On March 28 2012 19:37 Zythius wrote:On March 28 2012 19:05 Leargle wrote:
You're satisfied with being in the lower 20% of active players...
I wouldn't be. Never settle, push yourself to improve I LOL'd. We may have some bronze/silver players that are stuck AND are putting in a lot of time, but I still maintain that the big reason is time. Nobody is satisfied with being bronze, but most might have other stuff to do than SC2. It takes time to improve and time to win matches. These are the ONLY two relevant factors to advancing up the leagues. I don't see how this can be 'the big reason'. SC2 is my first competitive RTS and between family, work and other interests I have few opportunities to play. In a really exceptional week I'll get ten games played; often weeks go by with none. I know I would do better if I played more, sure, but games played cannot possibly account for much - if any - of the difference between myself and those who find themselves trapped in bronze. More often than not they describe themselves as more active than I am. Well, I'm talking about getting out of a league. If you played your placement matches well and got placed in platinum I don't care about you - you are not relevant for my argument. I'm thinking about the guys placed in bronze that has to work their way up. You need time to practice your skills and time to win matches after your skills have been improved. How is time not THE factor for advancing up in the leagues? Time played is definitely a factor, but not necessarily that huge of one. When I started playing (with no real competitive RTS experience), I was in bronze. By the end of my first season, I was in silver. Currently I'm in gold. I play at most a couple dozen games a season. The main thing that makes a difference for me is choosing to focus my efforts at improving in a specific area. A couple dozen is 24 games.. I do not believe you advance from bronze to silver to gold if you play that much every season. You would just have to win every single game because you are a good player which happened to be placed in bronze by accident. Its perfectly possible if he improved quickly, and didn't spend long enough in bronze to "solidy" his MMR at that level. But the longer you stay at given MMR, the harder it is to shift it later.
Not true. MMR is as strongly affected by each game regardless of how long it has stayed the same.
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EPT
