My friend is trying in SC2 to get better but he's not getting much better. He's pretty much below bronze - his reaction time is slow, bad at macro, bad at hotkeys, bad at everything. How should I teach him? We do do 2v2's and basically it ends up being 2v1 against me most of the time (though we typically win anytime they don't rush very well).

English

United States475 Posts

August 25 2010 01:37 GMT

Have him play against the computer while you spectate/referee. Tell him to only use hotkeys.

echO [W]

United States1495 Posts

August 25 2010 01:41 GMT

I think the most important thing to do when it comes to improving at anything in life is to break things down into small pieces and address the issues one at a time. Bad macro? address that and have him play games where you specifically coach him on how to improve his macro (hotkey-ing, constant drone/probe/scv production etc etc), bad at hotkeys? (watch him while he plays and constantly remind him) etc etc.

It's too much of a challenge to address everything at once.

SagaZ

France3460 Posts

August 25 2010 01:41 GMT

tell him a basic overview of what beats what, make him play some ums with real unit stats so he can get a basic knowledge of units (nexus wars for example) and later introduce him to BO, not telling him one but asking him to create one.
Jumped my friend from bronze to plat

fabiano

Brazil4644 Posts

August 25 2010 01:43 GMT

Teach him the basics and explain the reason behind them

- Constantly build workers because it raises your income and eventually you will have to expand
- Why to build depot at 10 supply and why you should never be supply capped
- Why build marauders when you see opponent army stalker heavy
- Why its important to always scout

etc

this kind of very basic might be useful when teaching someone with 0 RTS experience

Elanshin

Australia216 Posts

August 25 2010 01:46 GMT

It really depends on if he really wants to get better or not. If he does then tell him the first step is to learn things one at a time. Teach him a simple build such as MM or stalkers or zergling+roach etc. Work on constant workers first. Ill take Terran as an example:

Teach him to hotkey his CC to something he likes to press, and have him for a few games just focus on building lots of scvs, from there have him keep building marines + marauders while building scvs. That should help quite a bit to understand the basics behind macro. usually that should result in wins once you have a bigger army in bronze.

zak

Korea (South)1009 Posts

August 25 2010 01:49 GMT

On August 25 2010 10:33 sikyon wrote:
My friend is trying in SC2 to get better but he's not getting much better. He's pretty much below bronze - his reaction time is slow, bad at macro, bad at hotkeys, bad at everything. How should I teach him? We do do 2v2's and basically it ends up being 2v1 against me most of the time (though we typically win anytime they don't rush very well).

one thing at a time. but instead of jumping into boring chores like remember hotkeys and BO's, the most important thing to do is to make it so he ENJOYS the game. Even though he sucks you gotta cheer him up and help him have FUN. Once you get this down he will take in everything much better and actually WANT to improve.

wizard944

194 Posts

August 25 2010 01:53 GMT

I want to stress that you should try to stay away from just telling people to do X if Y happens. Always give them reasons for things and try to teach them to think for themselves. If they can do that, then they'll improve without your help because that's how people originally became really good anyway

Onlinejaguar

Australia2823 Posts

August 25 2010 01:53 GMT

You can also get him to watch the day 9 daily. I found it such a good learning tool when i was new to SC2 and still do watch it.

Mikilatov

United States3897 Posts

August 25 2010 01:55 GMT

#10

I have found that best way to teach someone is to be there in person with them, standing behind them, telling them what to do while playing 1v1's. Sure it's a bit 'unfair' to do such things, but it's just ladder games with low level players, so it's no big deal.

I trained my friend to play protoss REALLY fast by doing that... Although he got a bit annoyed because I kept telling him to 'spend his money' over and over. He thanks me for it now, though. =P

Karliath

United States2214 Posts

August 25 2010 01:58 GMT

#11

Macro is much more important than micro in the beginning. Forget about building placement, and only a-move units.

IKenshinI

United States132 Posts

August 25 2010 01:58 GMT

#12

Play custom games that improve an aspect of melee game skill. For instance - if you are having trouble with micro, Marine Arena will help a lot with making good arcs (if you instruct him on how to do it). Games like battlecraft could help someone think about counters and the general architecture of units. Make learning starcraft 2 fun, and ease your way into melee games. Maybe completing the campaign would help as well.

Terrakin

United States1440 Posts

August 25 2010 01:59 GMT

#13

try not to get too frustrated, make sure he watches WoC or some of the Day[9] dailys. Also if he hasn't played single player yet, make him play on the highest difficulty setting he can, also the challenge missions are good for learning basic counters

sikyon

Canada1045 Posts

August 25 2010 02:00 GMT

#14

You know, I think part of the problem is that he's getting discouraged in bronze. I'm not going to lie - I coached him through a few games and noticed that the players were not exactly as bad I thought they were - they just used "cheese". Reaper rushes, allin scv + marine rushes, 2gate zealot rushes. Of course these are fairly standard for a skilled player to defend against but it will really give new players a hard time. Perhaps I should just put him through training scenarios? I do play random so I can just cheese him until he learns to get around it. Do you think that if I play terran and he plays terran in 2v2 he'll get better? Alot of hte games we play actually come down to me getting rushed (?!?!), me holding it off for a few min until I finally make a mistake and the pressure cracks me, then him macroing and me microing his units around.

I don't think he wants to do 1v1 right now after 15 losses in a row - do you think I should just let him play 2v2 with me or focus him more on specific strategies to defend against?

terr0r

United States90 Posts

August 25 2010 02:03 GMT

#15

I have been trying to help friends who have not had much background in SC.

Typically, if it's possible, I play them once and review the replay. This allows you to get a better look at their overall game. After that, you might have them ladder some and review replays with them to help them understand mistakes and holes in their game.

Usually, the tips you're going to give someone starting are pretty much the same as listed above
-Proper saturation of workers

-Building supply, without overbuilding them (new players tend to build 2-3 depots, pylons, ovies ahead for some odd reason)

-A friend I recently gave some tips to tried to go for DTs against a 4 rax push, I explained that he should have scouted me to see that I was doing something aggressive which means he cannot waste too much time teching

-Scout! Learn to see things like how fast are they getting gas, are they teching or just building mass tier 1?

-Repetition is key. Play a lot and you should improve.

Chesner

Iceland817 Posts

August 25 2010 02:06 GMT

#16

I wouldn't really tell him to emphasize on scouting this early on. Just let him focus on the macro, tell him to build stuff, constantly making workers and just massing up a big army. Micro/Scouting/Tactics can come laters. Macro is the biggest fundamental.

DeltruS

Canada2214 Posts

August 25 2010 02:12 GMT

#17

Tell him to always be building workers while always also building attack units with excess minerals.

Sentient

United States437 Posts

August 25 2010 02:13 GMT

#18

Watching casts aren't going to help him. Don't use terminology like macro or micro. Don't give him build orders. From experience with my friends, here's how you train a player like that:

1. Have them watch a game of you playing vs the very hard AI, but don't use hotkeys while you do it so that he can follow what you do. This gives him an idea of the tempo it's possible to play the game at.
2. Tell him to build more stuff. Be as vague as possible. Just build more stuff.
3. Have him never stop building workers, even if it means having 5 in queue.

But #2 is most important. Build more stuff. High minerals are bad, low is good. Build more stuff. Building more stuff got my friends out of bronze league, so I count that as a victory.

Kigari

Bahrain134 Posts

August 25 2010 02:17 GMT

#19

You don't. People who can't learn by themselves usually end up sucking terribly at whatever you're trying to teach them.

That or they'll just spend their time replicating stuff that's already been done with zero creativity/adaptation.

chakk

England43 Posts

August 25 2010 02:17 GMT

#20

i was in the same boat as ur freind.. i hadnt got a clue WTF i was doing

i watched day[9]'s back to basics video.

then i did 2v2 with a freind and he gave me a strat to do (build 4 warpgates and make a proxy pylon near their base) we obviously lost a few games but i kinda had fun teleporting a ton of zealots right into their base :D

and as day[9] says, mental checklist (1) am i making workers? (2) am i supply capped? (3) is my money low? (4) am i making units?

so i went from rank 82 [4-22] to rank 2 [47-45] :D
hope this helps

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