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This thread is inspired by and is hopefully an updated version of http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/f7e8j/seriously_guys_if_youre_in_platinum_or_below_your/
which was a thread about how macro was all one needed to get diamond (the highest league at the time i think... maybe masters was fresh) this is my updated and Build Order oriented version. someone told me to put this in stratagy section and I can see the merit in that. This is in no way a bragging thread please do not misconstrue what i am doing here.
After todays homestory cup I have read a ton of stuff and heard a ton of people tell me that Goody has horrible macro and he shouldnt beat pros with one strat. I have also heard many many times before similar comments about sc2 in general. Comments like...
The all too famous "Macro better"
My mechanics are not good enough
My micro isn't good enough
My thoughts on sc2 are simple. It's more of a build order game then it is a macro/micro game. I think that while you need a certain level of macro skill, often times then not your avg player on ladder would do better having less of the right unit then more of the wrong ones. There are many pros you can watch without naming names that are actually very slow, its not just goody. Even many korean players in GSL even have terrible micro and i mean terrible and poor overall speed but they have just enough to play the game at a certain level.
Here is my proposition. I am going to play Z or P with the following rules.... and the goal of just a masters promotion
a) Under 50 apm
b) No complex successful a move style armys for example....
- If protoss is the race void ray collosi vs z is out of the question
- If zerg is the army no i guess ultra infestor broodlord? or broodlord corruptor infestor
c) If I am zerg i never spread creep or use superior inject methods such as....
- backspace shift v (too fast a method)
- keybinding queens (better then keybinding hatches)
d) no drops harassments or anything of any kind. If i am going to win its from beating someones army and then the following A move to victory
e) overall I will practice poor mechanics (aka at a lower speed) and micro with a focus on just making the right units while maintaining my apm cap
Think thats all I'll edit if needed
I'll let everyone decide what race I should play. Reconsidered a friends point about zerg BO and in a total 180 considering terran as my only option since yes its the most micro req race but its BO are by far the best at direct countering and in doing so will further prove my point
Games will be streamed and recorded at justin.tv/eosgreen. When I get my new mic I will most likely try to talk and explain what I am doing as a result of what I am seeing. I hope that if you dont even give a #$(# about what I am doing that if you maybe are looking to get into masters you can take what you see and learn from it.
To clarify I have been doing coaching lately for all races and the common problem they tell me is "my mechanics are too bad." My common response is as long as you know what to do you can go further then you are selling yourself. This along with many other topics and comments spured this experiment
To further clarify on my goals since it may seem a bit confusing. The goal of this is to prove that to get masters all you need is mild macro with proper unit choice and you can have bad mechanics and micro. For example. If i pick zerg and never use proper/fast inject methods (shift backspace method) and i go to each base click queen click inject this would be poor mechanics. If i never spread creep or used overlords to position for scouting this is bad mechanics. Hope this better helps, its just an up to date version of that thread made on reddit all that time ago but in todays metagame/highest league
Further further clarification is simply a sittuation like this....
Protoss A goes blind blink stalkers
Zerg B goes blind mutas
Protoss A auto wins because of strat
The account I will be using is Purple 492
Adding posts to bottom for easier reading. Read this if you have any questions ill post all answers here
+ Show Spoiler +Greenmachine - imo mechanics will still get you way farther
Response - i agree that mechanics takes a player the furthest BUT if we compare say mechanics and strat in such a way as....
in a scale from 1-10 1 being bad and 10 being good, my strat level can be only 5 to get masters while my mechanic level needs to be 8. i think its harder to be more mechanically sound because not everyone can be fast at video games. mechanics are generally viewed from the speed at which you operate. how fast you do this and that is good mechanics or bad mechanics. when we look at players who do not play often, they will say well i dont play enough to learn the proper mechanics to be masters or diamond or plat. they attribute the lack of play to lack of speed. my claim is that if you do not play a lot but you KNOW a lot then you dont need the mechanical skill that is derived from mass gaming or consistant gaming each day.
the theory is that someone with not a lot of playing time but can still read watch and learn will be able to succeed to a level of masters just like the guy who plays every day.
post - People have literally 6-pooled into Master League. I'm not 100% sure what this is attempting to prove. There are a lot of ways to win matches. You don't have to learn complicated strategies-- nor do you have to learn solid macro or micro. I think the biggest thing holding people back and the easiest thing to improve is macro
response - here is an example of where it doesnt matter what you do strat beats you.
its zvp and im going mutas. you blindly do a 2 base blink stalker build. i win. u cant do anything about it sorry i win
strat > everything else in this scenario.
lets say its zvz u go bane i go bane roach, i win strat > everything else
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I dont see how lowering APM shows bad macro? I've seen people execute builds perfectly at 45apm.
If you wanna prove that you can win with strats instead of good macro. I suggest that you float minerals instead, maybe at least 400 unspent at 6mins and 100 more with every passing minute. that means youll have about 800 unspent at 10 mins, which sounds about right when I macro badly (lol).
If you can win consistently with timing attacks & mid game pushes then i would say you have proven bad macro but good strats work too. surviving to late game makes no sense because once maxed even good players will almost surely have to float resources.
Nonetheless, this is a very interesting experiment to prove/disprove common wisdom.
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I just want to do an updated "macro better but do it with the right strats thread" similar to the topic i linked
but it would be bad mechanics to not have overlords spotting drops or any creep spread as well as slow injects. i imagine zerg would be the best race to display bad mechanics especially at lower apm which i think ppl have agreed time and time again when refering to thorzain who has like 80apm that "80 apm is all you need"
i also think that 50 apm is rather low maybe i need to lower it further. once i start gaming i will find out right?
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Thorzain doesn't have 80 APM to begin with. And Korean pro players all have a reasonable speed.
And I don't understand the concept of purposefully being bad in one area of SC2's gameplay (speed of execution, multitasking, all that good jazz).
Do you just want to show that you can get in diamond (which is very low and bad in itself) while playing bad (basically), even though everyone else is bad at that level. Your experiment is to get to diamond while being worse than the average diamond guy mechanically?
That's rather short sighted. I like the "I'll show that you can be promoted by working purely on [something]" type of thread more.
"I can be promoted even though I'm bad and I force myself to stay that way" is not a very good mindset.
Regardless, good luck.
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i almost feel like ^ u didnt read anything i said in the post... ANYTHING at all
the goal of this experiment is that knowledge, not multitasking and speed is the most important aspect of the game for any player in sc2. In broodwar often times a superior macro player beat a better micro player with brute force but in sc2 this is the opposite
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On January 07 2012 13:27 ohokurwrong wrote:
i almost feel like ^ u didnt read anything i said in the post... ANYTHING at all
It wasn't very clear to me tbh. You're trying to show that decision making is better than mechanics or something?
But what you describe is kinda ridiculous. Not spreading creep as Zerg? Not doing drops for the sake of...not doing drops? It's also decision making, and you don't need to be that fast to shift drop banes in a mineral line anyway. And you will try to maintain the cap on your APM? How does that work exactly? You'll force yourself to stare blankly at your screen if you feel like doing something useful instead?
Edit: Ok, but my problem actually is that you'll compare yourself (platinum if I understood well) to other platinum and diamond, which have already generally bad mechanics. I guess you would need to set your goals higher for it to make sense. Like beating high master players with 50 APM or something. I can bet that even if you force yourself, the poor guys in front of you won't have higher APM than you anyway, which renders your experiment utterly pointless.
Edit2: Ok sorry I don't know how I infered that you were platinum. You could precise your original level of play, that would be useful.
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no what....... the point is simply mechanics do not matter as much to the avg person as ppl say it does. Game know how will get you further then anything else. By lowering my apm to below 50 i hope to make speed never the reason i win a game. i want to never win because i was faster then my opponent. if 50 is too high ill lower it. by doing this exp i hope to find the minimum EAPM a person needs to have with the best possibly scouting someone can do to get masters
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On January 07 2012 13:37 ohokurwrong wrote:
no what....... im masters but my point is that you do not need good mechanics to get masters just make units, the right units
Ok, that's fine then. Will you force yourself or do you already have low APM?
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no my EAPM is actually rather high. as well as multitasking. im actually a huge advocate of BW rather then sc2. i think sc2 is easy physically to play and it turns me off a bit. so for me to be such a huge advocate of high speeds and good multitasking i find it fitting that im attempting to prove that the thing i cherish about RTS is not even a factor in the current "most popular rts"
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Instead of using ridiculous rules such as "no drops, no proper lategame unit composition, no apm over 50", you could play the game using only the mouse to limit your apm. You could aim a webcam at your keyboard / mousehand to show that you're not putting forth a whole lot a physical exertion into your games.
I wouldn't disregard using Terran in this experiment if I were you. By stating that you don't believe you can pull Terran into masters without high handspeed / good multitasking, it kind of...I dunno, contradicts this entire thing?
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wow zenith at least read what he is saying to respond
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Ok, I understand now, but you could precise all that in the OP.
I still think it's pointless, that's like if I proved that I can get into masters by always missing my forcefields or missing shit on the minimap.
At this point I almost hope that it's a veiled "Protoss OP" thread, to conclude that you tried with Zerg and it seems impossible to play slow and still win at a decent level, whereas you succeed easily with Protoss with glorious a-moves and no multitasking 30 APM. Would make the whole thing at least funny.
Good luck.
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On January 07 2012 13:52 Ooshmagoosh wrote:
Instead of using ridiculous rules such as "no drops, no proper lategame unit composition, no apm over 50", you could play the game using only the mouse to limit your apm. You could aim a webcam at your keyboard / mousehand to show that you're not putting forth a whole lot a physical exertion into your games.
I wouldn't disregard using Terran in this experiment if I were you, also...
i like that actually. the thing about no drops is, not only do i not want to tax my own apm but i dont want to EVER mess with my opponent. i want to beat them when they are macroing to the best of their ability. drops might stress or beat a low level player
the idea is basically what you are saying. im looking to omit the physical labor part of it so maybe thats what i gota do. ONLY use mouse. tho id kinda have to then be fast and now how do you measure the speed that way?
its most def in line with my thought process.
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On January 07 2012 13:09 silverstyle wrote:
I dont see how lowering APM shows bad macro? I've seen people execute builds perfectly at 45apm.
If you wanna prove that you can win with strats instead of good macro. I suggest that you float minerals instead, maybe at least 400 unspent at 6mins and 100 more with every passing minute. that means youll have about 800 unspent at 10 mins, which sounds about right when I macro badly (lol).
If you can win consistently with timing attacks & mid game pushes then i would say you have proven bad macro but good strats work too. surviving to late game makes no sense because once maxed even good players will almost surely have to float resources.
Nonetheless, this is a very interesting experiment to prove/disprove common wisdom.
this. low apm is not bad macro, macro is not multitask. it seems you are arguing that strategy is more important than multitask, rather than macro. people don't give advice to lower league players saying multitask better, they say macro better. This thread makes 0 sense to me. You are saying with hardly any multitasking you could still macro decently and win the game that way? yes I agree.
it seems like you're suggesting say when hydras arent a good idea for your composition an army of 30 roaches and 20 zerglings is stronger than an army of 30 roaches, 20 zerglings and 10 hydras. this is just not true.
when i say you i meant OP
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On January 07 2012 14:03 ThePianoDentist wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2012 13:09 silverstyle wrote:
I dont see how lowering APM shows bad macro? I've seen people execute builds perfectly at 45apm.
If you wanna prove that you can win with strats instead of good macro. I suggest that you float minerals instead, maybe at least 400 unspent at 6mins and 100 more with every passing minute. that means youll have about 800 unspent at 10 mins, which sounds about right when I macro badly (lol).
If you can win consistently with timing attacks & mid game pushes then i would say you have proven bad macro but good strats work too. surviving to late game makes no sense because once maxed even good players will almost surely have to float resources.
Nonetheless, this is a very interesting experiment to prove/disprove common wisdom. this. low apm is not bad macro, macro is not multitask. it seems you are arguing that strategy is more important than multitask, rather than macro. people don't give advice to lower league players saying multitask better, they say macro better. This thread makes 0 sense to me. You are saying with hardly any multitasking you could still macro decently and win the game that way? yes I agree.
like i said its a modified version of that thread, which is about just macroing to win. i took it a step further and simply say that with decent macro but bad mechanics and low apm, as long as you choose the proper units you can get masters league which is much harder then diamond was when that guide whats written
mechanics are things like creep spread overlord positioning and queen injects for zergs. if i use a bad inject method never overlord scout and never spread creep i would call that having bad mechanics. agree?
i think good macro is not as important as good strats/builds. many times in sc2 the right build just is too much to handle no matter how bad the macro/mechanics are. an example is FFE. if i determine he is doing an 8min voidray zel timing to kill my 3rd and i defend it without any losses thats an example of a perfect build counter that will put me ahead
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On January 07 2012 14:06 ohokurwrong wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2012 14:03 ThePianoDentist wrote:On January 07 2012 13:09 silverstyle wrote:
I dont see how lowering APM shows bad macro? I've seen people execute builds perfectly at 45apm.
If you wanna prove that you can win with strats instead of good macro. I suggest that you float minerals instead, maybe at least 400 unspent at 6mins and 100 more with every passing minute. that means youll have about 800 unspent at 10 mins, which sounds about right when I macro badly (lol).
If you can win consistently with timing attacks & mid game pushes then i would say you have proven bad macro but good strats work too. surviving to late game makes no sense because once maxed even good players will almost surely have to float resources.
Nonetheless, this is a very interesting experiment to prove/disprove common wisdom. this. low apm is not bad macro, macro is not multitask. it seems you are arguing that strategy is more important than multitask, rather than macro. people don't give advice to lower league players saying multitask better, they say macro better. This thread makes 0 sense to me. You are saying with hardly any multitasking you could still macro decently and win the game that way? yes I agree. like i said its a modified version of that thread, which is about just macroing to win. i took it a step further and simply say that with decent macro but bad mechanics and low apm, as long as you choose the proper units you can get masters league which is much harder then diamond was when that guide whats written mechanics are things like creep spread overlord positioning and queen injects for zergs. if i use a bad inject method never overlord scout and never spread creep i would call that having bad mechanics. agree?
maybe its just confusion with wording, maybe you used macro instead of mechanics in OP a couple of times, I don't know?
but I agree with this post from you.
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Goody exists, why would you need to bother with this?
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On January 07 2012 14:14 ThePianoDentist wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2012 14:06 ohokurwrong wrote:On January 07 2012 14:03 ThePianoDentist wrote:On January 07 2012 13:09 silverstyle wrote:
I dont see how lowering APM shows bad macro? I've seen people execute builds perfectly at 45apm.
If you wanna prove that you can win with strats instead of good macro. I suggest that you float minerals instead, maybe at least 400 unspent at 6mins and 100 more with every passing minute. that means youll have about 800 unspent at 10 mins, which sounds about right when I macro badly (lol).
If you can win consistently with timing attacks & mid game pushes then i would say you have proven bad macro but good strats work too. surviving to late game makes no sense because once maxed even good players will almost surely have to float resources.
Nonetheless, this is a very interesting experiment to prove/disprove common wisdom. this. low apm is not bad macro, macro is not multitask. it seems you are arguing that strategy is more important than multitask, rather than macro. people don't give advice to lower league players saying multitask better, they say macro better. This thread makes 0 sense to me. You are saying with hardly any multitasking you could still macro decently and win the game that way? yes I agree. like i said its a modified version of that thread, which is about just macroing to win. i took it a step further and simply say that with decent macro but bad mechanics and low apm, as long as you choose the proper units you can get masters league which is much harder then diamond was when that guide whats written mechanics are things like creep spread overlord positioning and queen injects for zergs. if i use a bad inject method never overlord scout and never spread creep i would call that having bad mechanics. agree? maybe its just confusion with wording, maybe you used macro instead of mechanics in OP a couple of times, I don't know? but I agree with this post from you.
well i am sorry if my wording was confusing 
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Ok, please.
what is the point of this?
Just macro as best as you can, you can't possibly argue that SPECIFICALLY MACROING WORSE will in any way benefit you at all. Cant you do strategy while having good mechanics wtf?
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point is some ppl have bad macro or strat or mechanics and my point is that knowledge is the most important skill in sc2
i had to of said this many times...
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EPT
