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Best way to begin getting into Brood War?

Forum Index > BW General
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1 2 3 4 Next All
Requisition
Profile Joined April 2010
United States97 Posts
April 30 2011 02:43 GMT
#1
Hey all,

I'm a bad SC2 player(played Brood War over the years since release, but I was just a kid and never played too much online) that become increasingly interested in Brood War and was wondering, at this point given how developed Brood War is, what is the best way to start learning and playing? Should I just hop on iCCup and get puliverised again and again until I get it? I play Terran if that matters. Thanks for any advice.
Sero
Profile Joined October 2010
United States692 Posts
April 30 2011 02:50 GMT
#2
You can find build orders on Liquipedia, as well as pro games in which they're used. Try finding a standard build order for each match-up, and practicing only that build. You can watch the VODs to learn how to execute it correctly.

After you've picked out a build order and seen how to use it, try finding someone else who's new to practice with. There's usually a lot of people in channel "op teamliquid" - that could be a good place to start.
<3 FlaSh HiyA Stats HoeJJa
duncan.mc
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
United States231 Posts
April 30 2011 02:53 GMT
#3
Single player vs AI is underrated for beginners. Get a safe macro build for each matchup from Liquipedia and run through it a lot until you're comfortable. Gotta get used to those BW mechanics again.

And yes, once you're comfortable with your builds then ICCup is the best place to start. It will be difficult as hell just starting out. But once you start getting those wins it's soooo satisfying. Don't worry about losing, worry about improving.
There are two channels in ICCup you should be hanging out in. Most importantly is:

op teamliquid

There's usually people hanging out there of all skill levels that are willing to play you and give help. Secondly is:

op sGs

Which is the newly created clan mentioned below.

Lastly, if you want some BW friends to chat with you can also join the clan just recently created in these forums:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195780

And our website:
http://starcraftgenerations.webs.com/

We'll be glad to have you and help you out.
djm858
NicksonReyes
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Philippines4431 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-30 03:01:05
April 30 2011 03:00 GMT
#4
Download BWAI Launcher
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=80272

and practice your build orders against them. This is easier than practicing online and harder than Blizzard's AIs .

Btw, www.Broodwarai.com shut down?
"Start yo" -FlaSh
Release
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States4397 Posts
April 30 2011 03:02 GMT
#5
The first thing you want to learn are the basic openings.
Barracks expo/14CC vs zerg
Barracks expo vs protoss
barracks/gas vs terran.
☺
infinity2k9
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
United Kingdom2397 Posts
April 30 2011 03:05 GMT
#6
Terran is the hardest race to play at the lowest level in BW, it will take a lot of dedication before you can even hope to win games you realize. But good luck if you do try.
FyRe_DragOn
Profile Blog Joined November 2006
Canada2056 Posts
April 30 2011 03:10 GMT
#7
watch lots of progamer vods for entertainment and info. play on iccup because its the most active foreign server, but make some newb friends around your level so you dont get discouraged by the high level of play in ladder games and elsewhere.

most important is to make friends w/ ppl around your level
aka DragOn[NaS]
qzmpwxno
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Papua New Guinea152 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-30 03:15:59
April 30 2011 03:12 GMT
#8
A lot of people will tell you to read basic strategies on Liquipedia or play against the comp right off the bat, but I just don't agree. I agree that you should at least get a taste for what each race is about, but multiplayer is the spice of starcraft, always. Start by registering on iccup, get stomped in your first 30 games; the competition will inspire you to improve. Then look into progamer replays, pick a favorite player, and have fun.

Also don't memorize build orders, that's not the point. You should try to logically understand why you should be making a certain building or unit or researching a certain spell and the timings and stuff, instead of memorizing it like cramming for a final...

Remember, as much skill as it takes to play a management/macro/crazy multitasking game (and how impressive), it's always rewarding to cheese or allin once in a while too
Stand on one block but own the whole street~
awu25
Profile Joined April 2010
United States2003 Posts
April 30 2011 03:16 GMT
#9
If he's bad at SC2, what makes you think he's going to go and memorize build orders? I would play around with blizzard AI and see if you like the game, don't turn it into school where you're memorize build orders. When you get down the mechanics and stuff and feel more comfortable, then memorize build orders.
D4L[invd]
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
Canada110 Posts
April 30 2011 03:21 GMT
#10
Personally, I started off with UMS... that's where I figured I loved the game since it was so FUN!! and then I realized there was so much more like micro and macro, then I played with my friends alot... and became serious. but yeah, don't forget about the ums classics! lurker defense games ^^

+ Show Spoiler +
but srsly... burn sc2 first, that will help u improve!
Your average D Protoss that can't get out of D because it is full of Protoss and my PvP sucks.
meegrean
Profile Joined May 2008
Thailand7699 Posts
April 30 2011 03:21 GMT
#11
The best way would be to start playing frequently with somebody you know irl. If not, then try Iccup. Avoid Koreans if possible.
Brood War loyalist
numLoCK
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Canada1416 Posts
April 30 2011 04:16 GMT
#12
Find someone terrible at the game and play with them. People will give you good advice for getting better if you are willing to grind it, but a huge part of being able to get better at this game is loving it.
And as fun as BW is, getting macro stomped by D level players over and over is not gonna get you into it. Find someone you have a chance against and have fun.
I used to see a ton of players get turned of BW by the "do exactly what this build order says for 10 minutes straight over and over in single player, and then get crushed on iccup" mentality.
Play around, have fun, and learn as you go. As someone else mentioned, if you can find an IRL friend that is even better.
Requisition
Profile Joined April 2010
United States97 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-30 05:28:40
April 30 2011 04:28 GMT
#13
Wow, thanks for the response guys! I'll do my best to follow your advice. I'd like to have a IRL friend or two to play Starcraft with, but I've been unsuccessful so far for different reasons(some don't like the outdated graphics, some don't like a lot of the "old gameplay" which as best I understand is the combination of things like no MBS, no automine, small control group sizes, etc, and some just plain don't like RTS games). In fact, the reason I got into SC2 was many of those same aforementioned friends were getting into it and were getting excited about it, but I was never able to get them into the pro scene and they all just slowly stopped playing and moved on to other games. I don't like to just move on from $60 dollar game to game, I like to get one or two that I focus on, particularly one that is a game that is good to commit to, like Starcraft. Since I'm not very good at SC2 I figured now would be the time to look at Brood War before I begin to improve and then don't want to switch due to being at square one again.

On April 30 2011 12:21 D4L[invd] wrote:
Personally, I started off with UMS... that's where I figured I loved the game since it was so FUN!! and then I realized there was so much more like micro and macro, then I played with my friends alot... and became serious. but yeah, don't forget about the ums classics! lurker defense games ^^

+ Show Spoiler +
but srsly... burn sc2 first, that will help u improve!


Thats basically what my Brood War playing turned into. I would go awhile without touching it and then binge on UMS games for a couple months straight. Rinse and repeat. =D

EDIT: Anyone know if you can run Brood War in windowed mode while fullscreened? I tried the plugin with Chaos launched, but even the doubled size is too small for me.
By.Fantasy
Profile Joined February 2011
Thailand123 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-30 05:56:59
April 30 2011 05:56 GMT
#14
Hi, and Welcome to Broodwar. ^^ Unfortunately there is no way to play broodwar window mode in fulscreen. Except ofcourse if you go to 6xxx x 4xx resolution then you'll be able to play it in window mode. One place I can suggest to play Broodwar is gameranger(Most people there are as bad as AI). So you can practice there and then move on to ICCUP
My english is not very good.
phosphorylation
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States2935 Posts
April 30 2011 05:58 GMT
#15
watch some recommended pro games

you will become inspired and even learn a thing or two
Buy prints of my photographs at Redbubble -> http://www.redbubble.com/people/shoenberg3
ninini
Profile Joined June 2010
Sweden1204 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-30 13:34:22
April 30 2011 13:27 GMT
#16
Terran is the hardest race to get decent at, but in the end it's only dedication that matters. The gap between complete newbies and Iccup newbies is big...really big. Most of the Iccup D- players would beat 2 complete newbies at a 1v2.

I think the first priority would be to learn the shortkeys: b+b = barracks, v+f = factory, etc. Make sure you use proper finger placement too. For instance, when you build a Supply depot, you should have your thumb on B, your long finger on S and your little finger on SHIFT. Then you click B+S+SHIFT(hold), then you click on the minerals. That means, the SCV will return to the minerals when he have finished the building.

After that, you should adopt a set of hotkeys: 1->0 and F-keys. Make sure you write down the setup and then practice it. A tip here is to focus on the early/mid game production and movement. IMO, for Terran and Protoss, hotkeys aren't important for late game production. Building placement and APM are a lot more important. In the early and midgame it's however very important that you're efficient, so try and hotkey as many production buildings as possible, and then use them for units or other stuff later on.

To learn these things, I would recommend starting out with the Campaigns. Even if you have finished them a few times, practicing shortkeys and getting used to a hotkey setup is a lot more fun to do in the campaigns, and you don't feel that pressure to defend or finish off the opponent as fast as possible, so you'll get better quality practice. Don't worry about multi-tasking, focus on making the production as efficient as possible, focus on building placement, and then when you have a mid-sized balanced army, attack and don't worry about the production until all your units are dead. Since you're using smaller unit sizes, you'll also learn micro. So, macro, micro, macro, micro. Rinse and repeat. When playing the Standard Starcraft campaigns, I would recommend that you go mech in all matchups, because you'll not be able to get a good feel for mnm without the medics. Don't skip these campaigns entirely, because what I remember, the Terran BW campaign had quite a lot of non-macro maps, and a lack of TvZ and TvP, so you might get better quality training from the Standard Campaign. I remember there were a few really fun Dropship heavy TvT's in the BW Campaign though.

If you haven't seen much pro BW, it might be a good idea to do that first, so you know the basic unit compositions. And when doing the campaigns, try to keep your upgrades at the same level as the opponent, or you might get a skewed idea on your units strength.

When you are more comfortable with hotkeys and shortkeys, look at builds orders. But focus on the order first and don't worry about food, because at first you will not have fast enough hands to execute them at the right food count, but knowing the right order is great. Look at liquipedia for that.

Here's my hotkey setup:

F2 CC
F3 CC
F4 CC

and for TvZ (Bio)
1 CC/Medics
2 CC/Marines
3 Scouting SCV/Marines
4 Marines
5 Medics/Factory
6 Barracks
7 Barracks/Dropships&Vessels
8 Barracks/Tanks
9 Scan
0 Scan

The / represents transitions as the game goes on.
This is pretty standard hotkeys, although most Terrans use 1-3 for marines, and the Vessels and Tanks at 4-5~, but I rarely A-move Tanks when going Bio, so I think it's more convenient to have it close to O, where I can siege up/down faster, and Vessels are more convenient at 7 for the same reason. Ironically, hotkeying Tanks is a lot more important when going Bio than when going Mech. That's because Mech is "larger" and more resilient and can handle Dark swarm better, plus with mines, a larger tank count, and since mech have higher HP, lurker busts (when they run up next to your units with their lurkers and burrow) is not as lethal as when you're going Bio. And against Protoss, there's no lurker-alike unit that you have to look out for. So, hotkeying those tanks is extremely important, or you will lose them.

For TvP/T/(Z) (mech)
1 CC/Factory
2 CC/Factory
3 Scouting SCV/Factory
4 Factory
5 Factory
6 Barracks/Vultures
7 Dropships/Vessels
8 Tanks
9 Scan
0 Scan

I put my first Factory at 5, and then just move downwards. If I go drop heavy, I can hotkey the first Starport too, on one of the Factory keys. It's not as crucial to hotkey tanks alone as when going bio, but I use it at 8, for early pushes, where I would want 5 factories hotkeyed.
Later on you can use a handful of hotkeys and then just assign whatever you can find and A-move. That's what most pros do. I think 4-8 is standard for Factories, and 1-3 for units, but I use this setup because I find it more convenient.
Requisition
Profile Joined April 2010
United States97 Posts
April 30 2011 18:17 GMT
#17
What are some good places to find new pro games?
maybenexttime
Profile Blog Joined November 2006
Poland5621 Posts
April 30 2011 18:29 GMT
#18
http://www.teamliquid.net/vods/
http://www.youtube.com/user/nevake
http://sc.plu.cn/vod/

;]
Gann1
Profile Joined July 2009
United States1575 Posts
April 30 2011 18:35 GMT
#19
On April 30 2011 12:02 Release wrote:
The first thing you want to learn are the basic openings.
Barracks expo/14CC vs zerg
Barracks expo vs protoss
barracks/gas vs terran.


I wouldn't recommend 1 rax cc against protoss to a beginner. I'd recommend FD instead
I drop suckas like Plinko
FlaShFTW
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States10191 Posts
April 30 2011 20:07 GMT
#20
i say just learn the right unit combos and the basic build orders. also, AI won't be bad for a newbie, but they dont do the correct unit attacks... like some will go with a mass zealot attack when you expect goons... just find like a really bad person and play with them
Writer#1 KT and FlaSh Fanboy || Woo Jung Ho Never Forget || Teamliquid Political Decision Desk
TL+ Member
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