Hi I'm a diamond Terran in SC2 and i have switched over to playing BW, mainly to develop more disciplined mechanics.
All I've done is play the vanilla starcraft Terran campaign, and already its like what the fu-hotkeys! If I'm not mistaken, you cant group hotkey buildings, meaning you need to manually click and build units? Also I'll have a ball of units, and separating them into hotkeys is painful, even splitting them for easier management is extremely difficult for me seeing as you can only have 12 units selected at once. The whole process takes forever for me, and then we come to actually controlling the army. Cycling between 5 hotkeys while right-clicking or a-moving into position is painful at best, and then microing in battle is pretty hilarious when i pull the wrong hotkey of units back/forward or whatever.
And you are supposed to macro during this mess! Jesus.
Dont get me wrong, the game is hella fun, but the hotkey style is killing me. My longwinded rant has basically come to, what are some ways to handle base management and hotkeys as the game progresses?
Finally, can somebody explain ICCup? Like how I access/play games on it and just give me a basic explanation or a link where I can read up about it.
Firstly, you can hotkey buildings, just not multiple buildings. This means if you're, say, terran in early game, you'd want to hotkey your ccs and raxes. Most people keep all their raxes and faxes on one screen so they can just quickly double tap a rax hotkey (or a screen hotkey) then quickly click on their raxes and do a production cycle then go back to their army.
Regarding army control, it's really down to personal preference how you hotkey all your army; I'm zerg so I tend to just loosely hotkey clusters of units together then drag select mid-battle if I want to micro my lurkers or defilers or such.
To log in and play on iCCup, you'll first want to register on iccup.com, then download the antihack launcher and the reg file. Then add the reg to your register (double clicking it should normally just work if you're on Windows), then the iCCup server should be on your server list. Then you can just login with your site username and password.
If you don't have the correct ports forwarded for BW, you won't be able to host games - people will just get latency too high messages. Basically you need to forward port 6112-6119 TCP and UDP, both out and in. Doing this will be specific to your router - most have web interfaces but they're different from brand to brand.
Use F buttons to bind location cameras above your production facilities/hatches - this will enable you to click on specific production facilities alot quicker. And dear lord it isn't hard to google ICCup to found out how to begin.
use Shift+F2-F5 to bind locations, then bind say F2 to where your production facilities are, then you can macro, you can also bind say F3 to any given location so that you can change rally points faster.
Ok screen hotkeys seem to be the way to go, thanks a lot guys. A fairly epic simcity might be required as well. And thanks for the ICCup explanation
Edit*
use Shift+F2-F5 to bind locations, then bind say F2 to where your production facilities are, then you can macro, you can also bind say F3 to any given location so that you can change rally points faster
Oh that makes so much sense changing rally points was a royal pain in the arse thanks
On October 01 2011 22:41 HystericaLaughter wrote: Ok screen hotkeys seem to be the way to go, thanks a lot guys. A fairly epic simcity might be required as well. And thanks for the ICCup explanation
use Shift+F2-F5 to bind locations, then bind say F2 to where your production facilities are, then you can macro, you can also bind say F3 to any given location so that you can change rally points faster
Oh that makes so much sense changing rally points was a royal pain in the arse thanks
It's only F2-F4, F5 won't work as BW only allows 3 location keys Just letting you know in case you've gone in-game to find your F5 location key not working
its cool that your picking up bw but if your doing it just to improve your mechaincs for sc2 i wouldnt recommend it. bw players who switch had great mechanics but they still had to learn how to play the game. i geuss im trying to say that playing bw wont make you better at sc2
On October 01 2011 23:56 love.less wrote: its cool that your picking up bw but if your doing it just to improve your mechaincs for sc2 i wouldnt recommend it. bw players who switch had great mechanics but they still had to learn how to play the game. i geuss im trying to say that playing bw wont make you better at sc2
I don't think that is true at all considering Yellow went from nub to beating people at the Code A qualifier in about a month (my time frame may be a bit off but you get the point). The mechanics themselves should transfer between games the strategies however, probably won't.
On October 01 2011 23:56 love.less wrote: its cool that your picking up bw but if your doing it just to improve your mechaincs for sc2 i wouldnt recommend it. bw players who switch had great mechanics but they still had to learn how to play the game. i geuss im trying to say that playing bw wont make you better at sc2
I don't think that is true at all considering Yellow went from nub to beating people at the Code A qualifier in about a month (my time frame may be a bit off but you get the point). The mechanics themselves should transfer between games the strategies however, probably won't.
yellow had been playing broodwar since release and was awesome on top of that you cant compare that kind of background to somebody in diamond sc2 starting to play a different game to improve
that sounded a bit offensive to the OP when i read it out loud. none intended my friend
An SC2 player getting mad at the gameplay design of BW hehehe...
Basically, 12 units to a hotkey (so you'll have like hotkey's 1-6 for units in late game) and one structure per hotkey (as terran, use comsat stations as hotkeys 7-0) f2-f4 hotkeys are great (can you really use f5? never tried it) f2 is something like your production facilities. f3 could be your rally point. f4 could be a base of importance of your upgrade area or depot making area.
1-2: early game: main building or first production buildings. later: spellcasters, VIUs, micro complement units (reaver, medic, ht, defiler, queen, etc). 3-5: army 6-7 army if needed. 8-9: center production building for double tap. 0: most important buildings (comsat, defiler mound, templar archive). This is usually for timing purposes, so i don't miss on the important timings in the game, whether my tech or to attack. f2: main production f3: rally f4: tech buildings
Remember though that throughout the game you will need to rebind hotkeys depending on the situation. it's never fixed,especially 1-6, but practice and discipline will give you the muscle memory and the feel later so that you become more comfortable and confident when you need to adjust and freestyle. This has always been a reason for me why I chuckle at 1a2a3a because my army has always started at 3. I mean, how can u 1a2a defilers, queens, arbiters, and vessels. Hahaha.
On October 02 2011 01:29 The Black wrote: My style, any race:
1-2: early game: main building or first production buildings. later: spellcasters, VIUs, micro complement units (reaver, medic, ht, defiler, queen, etc). 3-5: army 6-7 army if needed. 8-9: center production building for double tap. 0: most important buildings (comsat, defiler mound, templar archive). This is usually for timing purposes, so i don't miss on the important timings in the game, whether my tech or to attack. f2: main production f3: rally f4: tech buildings
Remember though that throughout the game you will need to rebind hotkeys depending on the situation. it's never fixed,especially 1-6, but practice and discipline will give you the muscle memory and the feel later so that you become more comfortable and confident when you need to adjust and freestyle. This has always been a reason for me why I chuckle at 1a2a3a because my army has always started at 3. I mean, how can u 1a2a defilers, queens, arbiters, and vessels. Hahaha.
On October 01 2011 21:44 HystericaLaughter wrote: Hi I'm a diamond Terran in SC2 and i have switched over to playing BW, mainly to develop more disciplined mechanics.
All I've done is play the vanilla starcraft Terran campaign, and already its like what the fu-hotkeys! If I'm not mistaken, you cant group hotkey buildings, meaning you need to manually click and build units? Also I'll have a ball of units, and separating them into hotkeys is painful, even splitting them for easier management is extremely difficult for me seeing as you can only have 12 units selected at once. The whole process takes forever for me, and then we come to actually controlling the army. Cycling between 5 hotkeys while right-clicking or a-moving into position is painful at best, and then microing in battle is pretty hilarious when i pull the wrong hotkey of units back/forward or whatever.
And you are supposed to macro during this mess! Jesus.
Dont get me wrong, the game is hella fun, but the hotkey style is killing me. My longwinded rant has basically come to, what are some ways to handle base management and hotkeys as the game progresses?
Finally, can somebody explain ICCup? Like how I access/play games on it and just give me a basic explanation or a link where I can read up about it.
Thanks guys
hi, im also a SC2 player, grandmaster. I read all you wrote and isn't all those things signs of BW beeing a better game? meaning it takes more skill to play? but we all have different opinions i guess~!hf
Playing BW to be better at SC2 is a huge waste of time and such an awfully stupid thing to do. It takes a f*ckton of time and effort to get anywhere near decent at BW, all of which would be much better spent on the actual game you're practicing for.
The mechanics transfer between games to an extent, sure. Not much else will. Also, I'm pretty sure you are able to improve SC2 mechanics in SC2, considering that's your goal. It is not like BW will magically make your fingers fast if you play it a while.
If you'll stay, though, I'd totally be glad for ye'. Here's some tips:
To group different types of units, be sure to ctrl+left click them, I guess this is used in BW a lot more than in SC2. Yes, you can't group buildings up like in SC2. The most preferred (and optimal) method is to have a production facility in 5,6,7 or something like that so you'd double-tap the key and macro, then double tap your army hotkeys again to go back. The screen hotkeys are mostly used for bases (with the CC/Hatch/Nexus in the center of your screen) but some players prefer to have the screen on production / rally point.
stop sending him on iccup lol... he can't hotkey or even separate/move units he has no place in iccup...read guides watch replays/vods then start 1v1 vs comp to exercise your mechanics whatever.. hf gl you will need it!
On October 02 2011 04:28 ThugTerran wrote: stop sending him on iccup lol... he can't hotkey or even separate/move units he has no place in iccup...read guides watch replays/vods then start 1v1 vs comp to exercise your mechanics whatever.. hf gl you will need it!
Well you can always jump onto iCCup and sink or swim, mostly sink, then lose the will to play BW online like I did because you have no chance of winning. I swear that's a good way to do it!
But seriously if you do go on iCCup, just play people on op teamliquid who will help you get better before you actually try laddering.
On October 02 2011 04:28 ThugTerran wrote: stop sending him on iccup lol... he can't hotkey or even separate/move units he has no place in iccup...read guides watch replays/vods then start 1v1 vs comp to exercise your mechanics whatever.. hf gl you will need it!
Yeah, if I were you, I would play on b.net for some time before installing iCCup. It’s hard to find games on decent maps on b.net but there is always Hunters etc. which many people find entertaining and it gives you the opportunity to familiarize yourself with hotkeys and basic build orders. That being said, if you are eager to play on iCCup now, then do so. There are a lot of noobs in the E/CPU (lowest rank). HF!
EPT
An SC2 player getting mad at the gameplay design of BW hehehe...
