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This is going to be a lengthy post and is going to include a lot of mindless venting. It may also contain some curse words, so excuse me for that.
As some of you may know, I started a series of blog posts called the Improvement Logs and have so far published 4 of them, namely 1, 2, 3 and 3.5.
However, I am feeling very demotivated and am tempted to discontinue the series. The reason is that after almost 8 months of playing the game somewhat regularly.(about 1 to 3 hours a day or several matches daily), I don't feel like I am improving at all.
Yes, I may have ended Season 1 with a Rank 1 Bronze League status but almost everybody else in my division was somewhat less active and I exceeded them by about 1,300 ladder points despite having a Bonus Pool of 300 left by the time Season 2 started.
However, since then, it took me another fifty games before I got my Silver promotion and another few hundred games over the space of about 8 weeks to finally get my Gold promotion, and this was after many ups and downs.
But to give an idea of how demotivational the SC2 league system is, imagine if you will these circumstances:
- A very random map pool where the very nature of your play could get completely screwed by it. For example, have you noticed why tournament organisers have disabled close spawns on Blizzard maps used in their tournaments like The Shattered Temple, Metalopolis etc? Because close spawning is a nightmare, The Xel'naga Watchtowers which were essential for spotting any early game pushes or cheese are suddenly useless because the path between the two close spawns do not intersect the vision of a XNW, or other things. Season 3 looks like Blizzard are going to try and piss around with this even more, even having a "rush" map with destructible rocks crudely scattered around it.
- I know TL discourages this act in their Strategy Forum as long as you know what you're talking about but league bashing is quote rife in the SC2 community. Because of being in the third worst league in the game, I apparently have no opinion.
- There are players who have hit the leagues that I have grinded hundreds and hundreds of ladder games to get to just by getting lucky on their first few Placement Matches and knowing somewhat how to play beforehand. That's right, some players were just spoon fed Gold/Platinum league because they had some RTS experience and knew how to make units and got lucky without MMR clamping them down into place.
- In order to not get knocked out in the first round of a minor open tournament (like I have been three times in a row without winning a single game), you pretty much HAVE to be Master League material and that is in the top 2 percentile of the active player base on your Battle.net region. I realised this after being fucking all killed by none other than Master Leagued players every time I've entered a tourney.
What have I realistically managed to do in the last few months? Well in my personal opinion, all I've really managed was:
- Refine a build slightly well, namely the Ice Fisher build Spanishiwa created.
- Lost many games due to cheap early game rushes like 8 pool speedling, 7 Roach Rushes, baneling busts, double gas 4-gates, 4 gate blink stalker pushes, 3 rax, 2 rax, 2 rax scv all-ins, 3 rax scv all-ins etc.
- I have made several race switches because I've gotten frustrated with playing one over loss streak after loss streak.
- Analyse only a few games, either because I couldn't be bothered to analyse the rest closely because of the time it actually takes to refine your play, or because I didn't want to see my ragequit.
There is also the issue that I get frustrated and badmouth people whenever I lose, a habit which I've tried controlling but it just gets more and more annoying to get decimated and have your ladder points stolen by cheese after cheese after cheese.
 
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Damn... 8 months and still gold... I feel like after that amount of time with consistent practice your mechanics should be at diamond level. I'm all for trying out new builds and such even if you aren't masters, but I typically feel if you are under high platinum you have a lot of room to improve as far as just macroing goes. Do you watch a lot of games/streams? It can really help sometimes for your macro to just watch how people are keeping up with their injects/etc.
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On July 21 2011 11:20 Itsmedudeman wrote:
Damn... 8 months and still gold... I feel like after that amount of time with consistent practice your mechanics should be at diamond level. I'm all for trying out new builds and such even if you aren't masters, but I typically feel if you are under high platinum you have a lot of room to improve as far as just macroing goes. Do you watch a lot of games/streams? It can really help sometimes for your macro to just watch how people are keeping up with their injects/etc.
I sometimes watch them, just not very regularly.
And see? Even if you're saying "Damn" at this revelation, it's proof of how crap at the game I am.
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Sometimes there's much more efficient ways to get better. If you don't know what the hell you're doing wrong and you just blame it on cheese or close spawns then you can't really improve. It's the same for everything. If I pick up tennis but I have really bad form and I don't correct it, then there's just going to be a certain point in time where it'll be impossible to get to the next level. You have to make mental notes of everything you're doing wrong and take it into the next game. I really don't know how you're approaching the game so I can't heavily criticize you, but sometimes just playing blindly won't be enough.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Sounds to me like you aren't focusing when you practice. 1-3 hours/day or a few matches doesn't really cut it if you want to improve (it's good to keep a baseline skill or improve slowly). Moreover, you say that you've switched races a few times - another sign that you aren't focused. When I was still a real noob in SCBW I sat down and grinded out 17ish~ games/day with a friend of mine who was extremely good (on top of games vs others) - and yeah, I lost every single game. You need to focus, mass more games, and work on something every game.
Oh, and pick a race/progamer and mass watch their replays. Watching generic replays generally doesn't help because there are so many styles, but if you watch one progamer then you'll learn his style which will focus your play.
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dammit Plexa beat me to it
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first up i wouldnt use any gimmicky builds if i was gold league and tryign to learn the game, use really standard builds like 14 speedling expand pvz cant comment on non protoss match ups
my thoughts about low level players and cheese:
your priority as a gold league player should be, in my opinion, to focus on defending early game cheeses. use a very middle of the road, well rounded build, scout your opponent, and react to what he's doing.
i think a lot of players make the mistake of thinking that a passive macro game = standard starcraft, when in reality starcraft is a back and forth game where you're going to have to fight your opponent constantly, you have to be able to deal with pressure and optimize your defense, dealing with stupid shit builds is just part of this process of optimizing your builds. losing to "cheese" is no excuse, it probably just means that you're not scouting enough and playing way too greedy.
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On July 21 2011 11:48 Plexa wrote:
Sounds to me like you aren't focusing when you practice. 1-3 hours/day or a few matches doesn't really cut it if you want to improve (it's good to keep a baseline skill or improve slowly). Moreover, you say that you've switched races a few times - another sign that you aren't focused. When I was still a real noob in SCBW I sat down and grinded out 17ish~ games/day with a friend of mine who was extremely good (on top of games vs others) - and yeah, I lost every single game. You need to focus, mass more games, and work on something every game.
Oh, and pick a race/progamer and mass watch their replays. Watching generic replays generally doesn't help because there are so many styles, but if you watch one progamer then you'll learn his style which will focus your play.
Whoa, wasn't expecting an admin response, but thanks.
I guess by "focus on one pro" and aim to focus your gameplay around their style, you mean that there isn't a right or wrong way to open in a game?
But how much does replay analysis of each game you've played go into account of this?
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I really see what you're saying. And what you're going through is one of the many reasons why I haven't touched the game in a while myself.
I've been stuck in plat league myself and no matter how much I play or try, it just doesn't matter - it's a "plat forever" situation where I'm fighting anywhere from gold - diamond players. When I start to see match after match where I'm beating gold players, I'm realizing the message the game is sending me:
[Hmm. I need to test you. Maybe you shouldn't even be in Plat. So I'll throw these gold players at you. Prove to me you can beat them.]
With the odd exception, I do beat them, and the game continues on, pairing me against other plats and even throwing in the occasional diamond player. But here's the problem. I don't celebrate my victories for too long. Oh no, I can't afford to do that. Because eventual defeat is just around the corner.
The most insane thing though is this - the diamond players I'm beating...were easier opponents than the gold players. Then I talk to these Gold players, and guess what?Many of these "too good to be true" players are actually smurfs. They just have separate accounts for off-racing, and by no means do they suck at the off-races.
But once again cold reality sinks in. People on these forums and other forums love to posture "this game is too easy, I'm masters and I only play 1 game a week". These same people love to say "everyone's opinion below masters doesn't count" or similar stuff like that. This is discouraging, condescending, and you know what?
I'm quite simply losing interest in the game. When you're up against a brick wall and the level of skill that you need to grow by, is leaps and bounds away - the game is simply no longer fun anymore. It becomes a game which is frustrating, unrewarding, and stressful. For a few months the only game I played - was Starcraft 2, nothing else. Now I'm beginning to go back to other games which make me burst out laughing when I die, and cheer when I succeed.
Instead of the gradual grind which leads to defeat, causing you to berate yourself, the psychological impact of losing more points than you're gaining - at this point now I'm just a casual observer of pro-level games. I no longer feel I must at least be somewhere near their level to be taken seriously. I simply no longer care. I just want to play a game, and have fun.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On July 21 2011 11:51 Clbull wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 11:48 Plexa wrote:
Sounds to me like you aren't focusing when you practice. 1-3 hours/day or a few matches doesn't really cut it if you want to improve (it's good to keep a baseline skill or improve slowly). Moreover, you say that you've switched races a few times - another sign that you aren't focused. When I was still a real noob in SCBW I sat down and grinded out 17ish~ games/day with a friend of mine who was extremely good (on top of games vs others) - and yeah, I lost every single game. You need to focus, mass more games, and work on something every game.
Oh, and pick a race/progamer and mass watch their replays. Watching generic replays generally doesn't help because there are so many styles, but if you watch one progamer then you'll learn his style which will focus your play. Whoa, wasn't expecting an admin response, but thanks. I guess by "focus on one pro" and aim to focus your gameplay around their style, you mean that there isn't a right or wrong way to open in a game? But how much does replay analysis of each game you've played go into account of this?
There are certainly wrong ways to play the game  but chances are progamers aren't playing in a wrong way! For instance, in PvT prior to the templar nerf there were a number of styles floating around - Nightend was doing dual stargate phoenix/colossus midgame, Mana was going immortal/stalker/templar, Adel was going mass gate dual forge mass unit style and then there was the "standard" colossus/stalker players - each of those styles works, but of course they have their faults and their strengths. It's a matter of finding one that works with your own style.
When I was learning SCBW I followed PuSan's replays because I liked his style and he won a lot in the games that were posted. He wasn't the best pro in the world, not by any means, but he was still a ton better than me and could go toe to toe with the worlds best at the time. That gave me solid builds and an idea about how to continue them into the midgame, and of course midgame strategy as well. The same principles apply in SC2 - watch for their openings, how they transition into the midgame and how they react to scouting cheese (early round go4sc2 reps are a goldmine for this)
Watching your own games can be useful - you can use it to compare to a progamers timings or to work out where you went wrong in a game. All in all I don't find analysing replays that useful =/ maybe I'm in the minority about this, but there is a lot more value in sitting down and practicing than watching over your games. Unless you can't figure out what you're doing wrong/why you're losing games - in those cases definitely watch the rep and work out why - then go back and not make the same mistakes!!
Just remember that generic watching of streams and replays won't ever compensate for raw practice.
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I think you bring up some sad but valid points of the league system as a demotivator for those who are trying to seriously improve their gameplay. Blizzard injected this mechanic (oh my terrible puns) into Bnet 2.0 to make skill ratings less transparent and to group up players into general skill ranks. When you have no idea whether you've won enough games to reach the next level, it can be pretty hard to keep playing, hoping you'll go up at some point.
When I was trying to grind up from diamond to master, I felt like it was taking so many games that maybe I just wasn't cut out to be master league. Eventually I got there, and it was really just a long process of refining and improving my gameplay.
With that said, if you are stuck in gold, you definitely can improve your mechanics, and it's definitely the first thing you should be worrying about before even strategy concerns. Plexa gave some very good advice on how to do that, and I hope you have the guts to pull through. Sometimes the community can be very harsh to ppl stuck in middle leagues, but keep in mind that by working on your gameplan you will definitely improve and you can silence the haters.
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In my honest opinion, you shouldn't be losing to cheese too often, especially if you are playing so much. After you lose to a cheese, you load up the replay, find the tells that would've let you scouted the cheese, then tell yourself you will never again lose to that cheese because you will look for those tells when you scout.
Cheese sucks, but there is a reason why its called cheese: because if you scouted better or played better you would've had that game easy but instead you were "made the fool" so to speak by the person cheesing you. Cheese can either be easy wins or silly losses, and if you aren't going to take the easy wins then people will just steal your ladder points all day long. And yes the ladder system is seriously a pain in the ass compared to the ICCup system, but if you are gonna let that demotivate you to not play then you won't ever get to Masters.
Anyways, you might have only hit Gold after eight months, but that doesn't mean you have to improve at the same rate. You aren't confined to improving at a set rate, and who knows, maybe if you do something different or find your groove, you will hit Masters in less than a month (not likely, but definitely possible, you won't ever know if you don't keep trying!).
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On July 21 2011 12:17 vindKtiv wrote:
In my honest opinion, you shouldn't be losing to cheese too often, especially if you are playing so much. After you lose to a cheese, you load up the replay, find the tells that would've let you scouted the cheese, then tell yourself you will never again lose to that cheese because you will look for those tells when you scout. This is somewhat wrong. It's always possible to lose to cheese even when you're at masters level. You're right about looking for the tells though, knowing your facing it is the first step to defending it. That doesn't mean you're going to defend it 100% every time. I mean, I've played high masters zergs who 6pool every pvz and win. Moral of the story is that dont get down if you lose to cheese, it happens! But try to learn something from the loss.
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On July 21 2011 12:20 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 12:17 vindKtiv wrote:
In my honest opinion, you shouldn't be losing to cheese too often, especially if you are playing so much. After you lose to a cheese, you load up the replay, find the tells that would've let you scouted the cheese, then tell yourself you will never again lose to that cheese because you will look for those tells when you scout. This is somewhat wrong. It's always possible to lose to cheese even when you're at masters level. You're right about looking for the tells though, knowing your facing it is the first step to defending it. That doesn't mean you're going to defend it 100% every time. I mean, I've played high masters zergs who 6pool every pvz and win. Moral of the story is that dont get down if you lose to cheese, it happens! But try to learn something from the loss.
Speaking of fending off early pools, do what white-ra does and build 1st pylon+gate next to nexus. It makes it much easier to defend and you can wall off ramp w/ core+2nd gate to stop slings.
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On July 21 2011 12:03 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 11:51 Clbull wrote:On July 21 2011 11:48 Plexa wrote:
Sounds to me like you aren't focusing when you practice. 1-3 hours/day or a few matches doesn't really cut it if you want to improve (it's good to keep a baseline skill or improve slowly). Moreover, you say that you've switched races a few times - another sign that you aren't focused. When I was still a real noob in SCBW I sat down and grinded out 17ish~ games/day with a friend of mine who was extremely good (on top of games vs others) - and yeah, I lost every single game. You need to focus, mass more games, and work on something every game.
Oh, and pick a race/progamer and mass watch their replays. Watching generic replays generally doesn't help because there are so many styles, but if you watch one progamer then you'll learn his style which will focus your play. Whoa, wasn't expecting an admin response, but thanks. I guess by "focus on one pro" and aim to focus your gameplay around their style, you mean that there isn't a right or wrong way to open in a game? But how much does replay analysis of each game you've played go into account of this? There are certainly wrong ways to play the game but chances are progamers aren't playing in a wrong way! For instance, in PvT prior to the templar nerf there were a number of styles floating around - Nightend was doing dual stargate phoenix/colossus midgame, Mana was going immortal/stalker/templar, Adel was going mass gate dual forge mass unit style and then there was the "standard" colossus/stalker players - each of those styles works, but of course they have their faults and their strengths. It's a matter of finding one that works with your own style. When I was learning SCBW I followed PuSan's replays because I liked his style and he won a lot in the games that were posted. He wasn't the best pro in the world, not by any means, but he was still a ton better than me and could go toe to toe with the worlds best at the time. That gave me solid builds and an idea about how to continue them into the midgame, and of course midgame strategy as well. The same principles apply in SC2 - watch for their openings, how they transition into the midgame and how they react to scouting cheese (early round go4sc2 reps are a goldmine for this) Watching your own games can be useful - you can use it to compare to a progamers timings or to work out where you went wrong in a game. All in all I don't find analysing replays that useful =/ maybe I'm in the minority about this, but there is a lot more value in sitting down and practicing than watching over your games. Unless you can't figure out what you're doing wrong/why you're losing games - in those cases definitely watch the rep and work out why - then go back and not make the same mistakes!! Just remember that generic watching of streams and replays won't ever compensate for raw practice.
This all looks like very solid advice, even despite the contradictions (namely in terms of replay analysis)
Though I won't have the time to put so much practice into my play, thanks for posting this.
I assume that by 'focus your play' you mean building up the general gameplay mechanics you need for the high leagues?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
By focus I mean take one aspect of your game, and focus on that while you're practicing. For instance, "this game I'm not doing to get supply blocked" and do everything in your power not to be supply blocked. After awhile it will become habit!
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It helps to take breaks if you've been laddering hardcore for a few weeks, and just not play SC2 for a week or so, or just play casual 2v2s. Whenever I come back from a break I find I focus really well on my ladder games and my win rate spikes.
I agree with Plexa, in that you should focus on certain things like not getting supply blocked, but you can do this vs the computer, also trying to keep up your macro by building enough unit producing structures, keeping your money low, and expanding as needed.
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I skimmed quickly through your last log to get an idea where you are at so far.
- I get the impression that you are too strategic-minded. You can't get yourself in a chess game until you have your mechanics down. You can't be playing 1 move when your opponent does 2. I assure you if you go and watch your replays and click on your nexus and warpins there will be severe hiccups all game long.
- Defending basic 1 base cheeses is really elementary if you want to improve. As protoss you should feel really comfortable against all forms especially if you send out early pylon scout.
There's alot of ways to gather information early on in the game which will limit the surprise factor of a 1 base all-in to almost nil. Scouting probe(s), poking stalker, observer, pressure. All these can gather information for you. When you will apply these without much thought, dying to an all-in will most likely be execution related rather than improper scouting.
More dangerous is you overcompensating on defense from a good fake.
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On July 21 2011 11:07 Clbull wrote:What have I realistically managed to do in the last few months? Well in my personal opinion, all I've really managed was: - Refine a build slightly well, namely the Ice Fisher build Spanishiwa created.
- Lost many games due to cheap early game rushes like 8 pool speedling, 7 Roach Rushes, baneling busts, double gas 4-gates, 4 gate blink stalker pushes, 3 rax, 2 rax, 2 rax scv all-ins, 3 rax scv all-ins etc.
- I have made several race switches because I've gotten frustrated with playing one over loss streak after loss streak.
- Analyse only a few games, either because I couldn't be bothered to analyse the rest closely because of the time it actually takes to refine your play, or because I didn't want to see my ragequit.
There is also the issue that I get frustrated and badmouth people whenever I lose, a habit which I've tried controlling but it just gets more and more annoying to get decimated and have your ladder points stolen by cheese after cheese after cheese.
Hi there, fellow (high) gold leaguer posting
It doesn't sound like you're getting the most out of your practice. Changing races will definitely do that to you, so it's best to go with what you enjoy the most and plug at it. Lack of success is temporary, though it is easy to get discouraged.
I know it's been mentioned, but this is the method I use to find strategies:
* See a pro game that fits a style I like to play
* Find replays of said pro or another pro executing the strategy. I prefer 3-4 to check consistency.
* Watch for general building order, sim city, upgrades, tech, and unit composition
* After practicing that last step for about an hour I start making a mindful effort to have the buildings and unit the pro has at given time junctions.
So whenever I play a game that felt bad (which is a lot of them - let's face it, I'm still gold league!) I go in and check what I have at 5-6 timings and look for reasons why it may not match.
I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that a daily followed a similar formula (get inspired, practice general building order, practice buildings with unit mixes, and then refine the crap out of it).
Lower leagues feature a lot of players who lack the skills to handle a long macro game, so they instead opt for a quicker victory. We see a lot of weird crap in the lower leagues and a lot of times it works due to our inexperience. It's ok. We got this! Whenever I die to a cheese I go back and watch the replay. The first thing I look for is what their strategy was. Then I move the time bar back and see what I scouted. I then ask "what do I look for to tell me what is coming my way?". That's it - a couple minutes tops! Pick ONE thing to change for the next game and try again. Losses are very important to the improvement process - without them it is more difficult to locate your problems!
As an "in general" ALWAYS be suspicious of ANY one base play. Their options are limited so you're probably facing shenanigans.
Stop BM'ing people. You just make yourself look stupid. If the game upsets you that much then turn it off, or leave the room and go outside for a few minutes.
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On July 21 2011 12:03 gamecrazy wrote:
I think you bring up some sad but valid points of the league system as a demotivator for those who are trying to seriously improve their gameplay. Blizzard injected this mechanic (oh my terrible puns) into Bnet 2.0 to make skill ratings less transparent and to group up players into general skill ranks. When you have no idea whether you've won enough games to reach the next level, it can be pretty hard to keep playing, hoping you'll go up at some point.
When I was trying to grind up from diamond to master, I felt like it was taking so many games that maybe I just wasn't cut out to be master league. Eventually I got there, and it was really just a long process of refining and improving my gameplay.
With that said, if you are stuck in gold, you definitely can improve your mechanics, and it's definitely the first thing you should be worrying about before even strategy concerns. Plexa gave some very good advice on how to do that, and I hope you have the guts to pull through. Sometimes the community can be very harsh to ppl stuck in middle leagues, but keep in mind that by working on your gameplan you will definitely improve and you can silence the haters.
I also agree that it would be an immense thing if the system somehow - even if it's just a progress bar - show the player, how much further he needs to go, in order to make his promotion.
If i'm losing repeatedly but the system is telling me...everything's fine, just win X more games, don't worry about it - it would go incredibly such a long way towards keeping things positive.
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EPT
