Hi guys (and girls). I'm an average kinda gold Terran on the EU server. I'm ranked 27 or something but it's all because of bonus points. In reality I'm playing half gold half silver, more like, which means I'm probably in the lower bracket. My goal is to get to Platinum before the end of the year and I want to keep track of this to gain insights from this wonderful community and to make myself commit to the goal.
As for background info, I'm 28, work as a translator (used to be a lawyer), and am a former Warcraft 3 human player. In fact, the first RTS I played was Dune 2, before boxing was invented and your unit limit was 15-25, depending on your progress in the campaign. I played Warcraft 1, Warcraft 2 and played Starcraft 1 when it was released. I'm old. But I've always been a very casual gamer, especially in terms of skill, and never really developed any competitive RTS ability to brag about. It's rare that I focus on multiplayer gaming for a whole day like I did today. Hence, my game sense is lacking, I suck at build orders (especially the part about countering enemy ones and not getting my own countered) and my APM is 30-ish. At the peak of my Warcraft 3 ability, it was 70 average, 250 burst, without selection/move spamming, I played against >150 dudes and won. Right now I just feel there's a very limited number of things I can keep track of efficiently at the same time, plus, I certainly don't win against guys with double my APM (or even 150% of mine). I have a certain medical problem with coordination basically since birth, which isn't helping me in multitasking. Otherwise my micro isn't really abysmal, though it's far from good (I'm pretty sure, however, that you can be in plat or diamond with worse).
In SC2, I placed silver in December or January and then got demoted to bronze in winter and came back after two weeks of concentrated effort, including getting gold opponents (and not sure if I didn't get my first plat opponent back then). In season 2 I couldn't get out of silver despite playing gold opponents (even already back in bronze) and even platinum ones and winning. Placed gold this season to my great enjoyment, after a long long break in playing. And then I hadn't played since 29 May until today.
So here are the 24 games I played today (or rather yesterday, since it's 1 a.m. here), of which 22 without or almost without a break, when I forced myself to keep playing in order to break physical barriers (was aiming for 8 hours but couldn't do it) and the first two I played at night when I couldn't sleep (and was on sedatives). Filenames are numbers for easy reference. Each of the games comes with a description and a tiny bit of analysis of why I lost or won.
Abyssal Caverns, TvP, cross position, longer game, my loss.
(Botched build, botched battles)
Tried fast expanding and four-raxing the Protoss but he always had a small but consistent supply lead. I botched a battle in my expo due to positioning (choke was worse on me than on him) and another in his expo, getting my bioball in a Colossi concave. Later went out before maxing out, even though the Protoss, who had already maxed out, wasn't interested in battle and I could've waited. Lost a big battle, game over.
On the macro side, I probably botched the build. I also got the numbers of production facilities wrong. First too many, later not enough, no way to spend money. Couldn't spend while battling, it was too fast paced for me.
Shakuras, TvT, north spots (I was on the left), medium game, my win
(Proxy banshees, banshee control, Polt)
I wasn't feeling comfortable because it was 2 a.m., I was on heavy sedatives unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep, and hadn't played ladder or any normal multiplayer since the end of May. The previous game proved I wasn't really in a good shape. So I decided to proxy-banshee the Terran and see what happens. Survived an MTV elevator push by reacting faster than I've ever done when not sedated, sigh. Pulled marines from bunkers, pulled some SCVs, flanked with cloaked banshees, still had two banshees in or near his main. But I was slow and he put up towers before I could counter-attack. I decided I wasn't gonna half-sleep through a macro game and polted him (two PDDs). Nothing particularly wonderful since I had supply lead anyway. It was simply the rare moment I felt the accurate urge to attack and made use of supply lead instead of losing it. Had enough sense not to brute-force the turrets but it would probably have been doable with an additional round of banshees instead of ravens. Especially with some pull micro and quick repair. Nonetheless, polting him was quicker and less risky.
Went to bed, Battle.net would be down for maintenance since 3 a.m. anyway.
(Greedy opening vs sober-minded Prot => instadeath)
Shattered Temple, TvP, north spots (close spot), blitz game, my loss
First game since night. Botched a fast expand build by being too greedy or too slow or both. I had both a marine and a bunker in production. Seconds faster and I'd have survived, I think. Stalkers soon followed. I never understand how Protoss can get so many units so fast.
Shattered Temple, TvP, north spots (close spot), exact same opponent as the previous game, 10 minutes, my win
I thought no way I'm gonna expand. I'll do a one-basing Terran. Finished the game just under 10 minutes. He was faster and probably overall better at executing his build than I was. Perhaps he's a better player.
Shakuras, cross position, TvT, short game, embarrassing loss for me
Tried proxy-bansheeing him but he probably scouted/guessed it would be a banshee build, so I lost to a stupid all in with SCV and barracks and e-bay setting up in my nat and turrets going up. Butchering his workers helped nothing, couldn't save my base either, so I quit. I lost to a stupid all-in despite having supply advantage, so I got in a bad mood and told him it was bad manner. Sorry if he was offended. I still don't like that kind of approach to the game, even though I've occasionally done comparable things in Warcraft 3 myself.
Shattered Temple, TvP, north spots (close spot), fast game, my win
I wasn't going to try to be skilled and expand with a Prot in close spot. I'd have been eaten alive by superior numbers from a one-base fourgate or something, I thought. Turned out he was playing defensively, including expo and photon cannon in main, I had 20 supply advantage or something, couldn't have lost that no matter how poor micro. He got worked up about one-basing Terrans. True but switch race to Terran and try to pull off a macro build vs Prot.
Nerazim Crypt, TvZ, south spots (close spot), fast game, my win
Killed his scouting probe. Put up two facts. Fried his workers. He made lings (!) and went to my base, which was walled and there was a couple of hellions behind the wall. He quit. He may have won if he had put up a fight with drones and queens instead of trying to run away with everything, I guess, though I'm not sure (I'd have been getting Thors vs an econ-challenged Zerg, without good infestor play that'd have killed him anyway, I guess).
Shattered Temple, TvP, cross positions, longish game, my win
I probably shouldn't have gone two-port banshee on cross spots due to the need to circle the centre to avoid getting intercepted by stalkers. Still managed to do some damage despite being scouted. Those stupid observers, you forget they exist and see everything because you don't see them. I got two ravens to go for Polt with a bigger number of banshees. No surprise he went stalker sentry. I was able to play some micro on him (I cheesed a lot with banshees after first going on ladder, so my control of them is somewhat better than other units) and get him to back off from my base but couldn't expand. I chased him and messed up his mining in expo but lost a lot of stuff and he had photons in his mineral lines anyway. Banshees had to go. Now or never I thought, and pull my mineral-dump group of marines and pushed up the map. Killed him.
Taldarim Altar, north spots, TvP, my loss, survived 17 minutes thinking I was winning
He walled in and I was like what the heck? There are gateways behind the wall! I thought there'd be a warp prism drop (somehow the obvious, i.e. just plain old warp gate with a pylon from a probe locked outside didn't occur to me). Decided to elevator him instead with an MMTV plus raven (in case he had DA, since I expected something silly). Except he had a ninja expo cross-spot to where he had began and he cleverly camped middle. I made the elevator and he killed me. Judging by the consistent supply lead, he probably would have killed me using any build order. There was probably I could do to win at any point other than scout and kill his ninja expo. This is probably an example of very efficient Protoss play, at least on newbie Terrans like yours truly.
Rarely do I win a TvT on Xel'Naga. I wanted a fast two-port banshee opening. I knew I'd have to circle around a bit but banshees can be effective even in such circumstances. But he scanned me and upon seeing a tech port, he just went down and killed me with MT despite my big supply lead at some point. On the part of my opponent this is a good example of fast reaction to Terran cheese. Just go and kill him, like Day9 said. Vikings were crucial or banshees would have slaughtered a thin siege push.
Abyssal Caverns, cross positions, TvT, mid-long game, my win
The greedy getting out of gold league build worked and I had a consistent supply lead. He was trying three-rax. I had double his number of harvesters around the 8th minute. He tried some banshees. Scan-killed his sieged tank with bio but didn't want risky prolonged engagement in the neck of his base, so waited for my own tanks. Ninja expo didn't work for him and I had an awful number of marines compared to his.
(Loss due to a botched push and lack of map control)
Antigua Shipyards, close position, TvT, long game, my loss
Tried the greedy fast expo build, survived a bunker rush attempt (hey, how could I've placed a bunker like that? errr... waitasec, that's his). He also expanded. I wasted supply lead by bio-rushing him and dying to tanks I didn't suspect him of having. I almost made up in supply and he was a poor spender but he still had siege tanks and controlled the middle. I split my bio, scanned and tried to bust his tanks but hadn't seen or properly taken into account the other stuff he had not far from there, including a thor and banshees. I did well for that kind of thing but not well enough. Then he dropped in my main.
Taldarim Altar, east spots, TvP, 7 minutes and my loss
(Lost to a two-gate zealot rush)
He simply made zealots and I couldn't keep up with the damage with my repairing SCVs. Things happened too fast. I couldn't think of any other way of defending myself. I can't see how to win against that kind of thing other than having many rax and perhaps bunkering with repair. Still incredibly effective silly Prot rush.
Nerazim Crypt, east spots, TvZ, 7 minutes and my loss
I didn't know what he was doing... one base and no apparent business going on in his base. Put up a bunker with the idle scout SV, except then roach rush started and it was essentially gg. Maybe if I had moved the SCVs earlier to repair the bunker. Rarely do I lose against Zerg but roach rush is almost guaranteed to get me.
Nerazim Crypt, south spots (close spot), TvT, medium game, my win
Felt bad banshee-rushing someone I was having a pleasant conversation with. I'm glad he wasn't offended. I went for two-port banshee because of the fast distance in straight line to his mineral line as opposed to risky stuff like opening up base necks on that map. I positioned my ports as close as possible to the edge of the cliff over my nat so they'd arrive even faster. Decided to attack with two and split them rather than waiting for more or for cloak. Due to the loss of workers the game was basically won at that point, though I had to defend my base a while later against a token push with a couple of infantry and one tank. Had six banshees over his base at the time. He says he made some mistake and I think he probably did.
(Botched proxy two port banshee rush that still worked in the long run)
Shakuras, north spots, TvT, long game (38 minutes), my win
I went for proxy banshee and added a hidden expo behind the rocks in between us two. He killed that and had big supply lead. But I killed his elevator push with banshee SCV. I made sure he couldn't expo and wasted scans. Battle of attrition ensued with cost-ineffective but comfortable battlecruisers for me. I won because of air control allowing econ advantage. Could have done a lot of things better.
(Charm of low league TVT, botched macrogame on my part)
Abyssal Caverns, TvT, cross position, long game, my loss
I greedy-expoed but didn't gain supply lead. He MTV-dropped me around 11:00 and at that point the game was probably lost, although I hellion-dropped his expo around 19:00 and took supply lead (so perhaps the game had not been lost beyond repair). He went for battlecruisers and heavily fortified his third. I tried to bust it but I hadn't researched siege tech. My marines died between the ground fortifications and BC's, marauders and tanks survived but couldn't break his nat or do anything to BCs. Since the difference in supply was like 100. I held out for a while, tried taking gold expo but couldn't do much. In the final battle, he held his battlecruisers firmly above siege tanks and marines, I couldn't do anything. Could have won that despite the supply disadvantage (of 50) if I had seen that isolated part of his army near Xel'Naga tower while the rest was long-stretched on the move and I was already in position. Alas. Since my tanks survived actually, I suppose I could've tried sieging them closer, even with initial losses but probably there were too many BC's anyway. He outmacroed me, I guess. And there was a stupid bug by which I didn't have vision on units standing right next to me on top of that Xel'Naga tower and firing at me. Argh.
(Dedicated to all Prots complaining about one-base Terran)
Xel'Naga, TvP, short game, my loss
Tried to greedy-expand vs Prot with shortish rush distance. And died, obviously. I don't know if I could've done anything to win between his build and mine. I certainly don't know what.
Tried marauder-rushing him, didn't really work. I suppose I shouldn't open with marauders anyway. Hit and running his expo while taking two for myself did the job, I guess.
Stupid decision to thor-drop without knowing the exact build. Botched it. Did some nasty stuff to his mineral lines but couldn't keep up on supply. His denial of my expo killed me, as did a horde of marines up my ramp.
Shattered Temple, north spots (close spot), TvT, short game, my loss
I went for some form of MMT build but his two-rax-siege with air added later got the better of me. Didn't have a chance. I probably should write down his build.
I botched the push but survived and gained supply lead. Made a nice push in his nat but chargelots were so powerful I had to run away in medivacs. Was chased until I lost.
Total: 9 wins, 15 losses. Win ratio: 37.5%
TvP: 4: 7 (36.3%) TvZ: 1:1 (50%) TvT: 4:6 (40%)
Also:
Sedated: 1:1 (50%) Clean: 8:14 (36.3%)
Looks like I had a 37.5% win percentage and lost a lot of games to silver players. In fact, that's what I fear because I seem to do well against what gold players I get until that one point I lose and start getting silver opponents. Then it's a coin toss and if I get the wrong toss () I keep getting silver opponents, which is uncool because silver losses and lack of opportunity for gold wins may lead to demotion. Plus, it looks like I may be in Gold mostly due to BFH/Thor TvZ wins. And I wanted to get in Plat before the end of the year... Still hope I can do it, though. I suppose my Warcraft 3 skill level was more or less like Plat. I doubt I'll get to diamond (probably my mechanics won't allow it), but Plat seems like a goal I could reach if I tried hard.
If you want to comment, feel free to say what you think and not hold back, though I'd appreciate some positive feedback (such as what I'm doing right and shouldn't change or don't need to worry about right now) and constructive criticism. I know I'm bad about income vs production facilities, sometimes fail to spend fast enough, rarely but still sometimes get supply blocked, and I certainly know my APM sucks and I'm not good at experimenting, as much as it draws me. In my impression, my weakest point is build order losses or somehow losing touch and allowing the opponent to max out when I'm not. Because of some of these losses I feel dumb and it feels bad I can't avoid them. I'd be happy if someone were so kind as to provide a couple of helpful comments to help me avoid these kind of losses. Especially if you can trace concrete, tangible patterns of bad decision-making.
Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.
I'll be posting more games when I play more. As a side-effect, it'd make me very happy if they helped anybody (whether still in bronze or otherwise) learn something.
After reading your post there are a couple things that stick out to me. One is that you try a lot of different builds which you say several times that you don't know very well, and several times you say that your opponent has way more stuff than you. These things kind of go together.This also ties in with what you said about not being able to multitask well.
When you are pretty new to the game you have to actively think about every step of the game, such as making units and workers constantly but as you get better these things become automatic. Because you are trying so many different builds you are adding even more things you have to think about during a game.
My recommendation would be to find a simple build that you can focus on and do repeatedly until your mechanics become automatic. You could do pretty much any build you want but it would be best to pick one that is fairly simple and doesn't rely on tricks to win, such as a cloaked banshee rush. I would recommend doing the three-rax build for these reasons.
The basic idea is to make two barracks with tech labs and one with a reactor. Make a bunch of marines and marauders and attack when you have stim, expanding behind the attack. As you are playing your games the main thing you should focus on is your macro. Make sure you are constantly making workers from your cc, and constantly making units from your barracks, as well as not getting supply blocked.
If you get to the point where you never miss a worker or unit you should be able to kill most silver and gold players with your first push. From that point can work on other things but until you can get to the point where constantly producing from all your buildings becomes completely natural other areas of improvement aren't as important.
This isnt nearly as fun as doing other things like thor drops or banshee rushes but if you are serious about getting better you need to improve your macro so that you can make enough stuff to get these other builds to work.
Hope this was helpful. There are also a lot of other threads on TL with advice for improving in starcraft which I would recommend searching for.
I remember dune except I played it on Sega Genesis. <click> "Reporting." <click> "Acknowledged." <click> "Reporting." <click> "Acknowledged." <click> "Yes sir." (You always started with infantry...) <click> "Movin Out!" Anyway, you remember. After 3 minutes your 15 tank army gets to his base. Once you get the missle launchers, it's all over for them.
I'm also an infrequent-playing old (29) casual gamer trying to get to platinum. Therefore I was compelled to read your entire post. I sure won't be playing 24 games/day though, probably 4 =)
Okay i just watched game 24 as TvP is by far my most knowledgeable MU.
1) You scouted before your depot. Dont. There is no need. You wont even see anything but a pylon. Depot scout at the earliest. On 2 player maps I scout after rax, on 4p after depot. There is no point before depot. You just lose mining time.
2) Please make a marine before your tech lab. Sure in special cases its not what u want. But you really really need it. To deny scouts if not anything else.
3) Supply Blocked at 19. Not for that long as depot half way done. But still. Dont.
4) 4th and 5th rax off 1 base? Thats pretty much all in. After 3rd rax please drop an expo. In your base not outside. Almost nothing is going ot break 3 rax off 1 base.
5) SCVs. Please make them. You were a lot better than last time i looked at your replays. THere are stil huge gaps though. 24 at 10 min is dire. The Brotoss had 34.
6) Still no expo but you get it down at 11:30. Aim to always have it making by 8 min.
7) In the first fight you unspent went huge. Macroing while microing is hard. Just queue up all your money before a fight on rax scvs etc and rally your rax to somewhere. When the fight is over, oh look, another army.
8) You get an eng bay and a tech lab (???) on you factory and use neither. Upgrades. Youve made the eng bay which is good. Use it. Also on a side note. Youve seem charge so he has a TC. Make a turret or 2 in case of DTs. You have the eng bay for it.
9) This one is a biggie. Especially with an expo that late. TRANSFER WORKERS. You will be amazed at how much transferring 15 workers will help your eco.
Overall you were decent at keeping your unspent low. Not great but kinda fine. You lose cuz you didnt make enough scvs to support your buildings. Btw, its nice to see 5 rax and a reactor SP on 2 bases. Most low level players wont have that much.
Quick thing. Guess how many addon barrack you can support of 2 bases starport aside? 5? 6? No. its 8. Thats a lot.
Overall you lost cuz you didnt make enough scvs. And chargelots kinda rape terran. But ignore that. Its the Scvs. Scvs and upgrades.
LEARN A BUILD. LEARN A BUILD. LEARN A BUILD. I dont really care what. Just learn one. Its not hard. Find one you like and do it every game. You will learn it. 3 rax expo is fine. Just not 5 rax fac sp expo.
Game 4: All i can say is that when you attacked, your unspent went through roof. Just queue some shit. Also why build the 4th rax you didnt use it. At all.
Just learn a 3 rax. Its really simple. tech lab , reactor, tech lab.
If that 4th rax had been a CC youdve been golden. Overall not a bad game.
First off all. This is a double post. I will not appologise, as i hold this deserves bumping. 300 people have viewed. And only 1 post here isnt mine :/
Dont review all 24. Pick 1. Watch it on x8. Note what you see. 5 min of your life, thats all he asks.
Game 21:
1) Too early scout. Depot scout.
2) Lol you killed the probe. This isnt helpful but knowing this can be good. If they dont send another, you know they are in the dark completely until an obs timing.
3) 2nd gas so early? why? you dont even use it. You have so much gas for ages. There is no need for it that early.Notice you didnt actually mine from it, barely any at all. 1 scv then none. And you were not gas starved.
4) 20 scvs at 6:40, 10 min 23. See the issue? Please make scvs.
5) You dont expo for like a year. You then have the sense to double expo which is good. But still. Also you never make your expos OC. Do that asap.
6) I dont think you know what a marauder expand is That aside. Your build with 1 gas, Tech lab, reactor, tech lab is fine. maruaders are fuckinh useless against zealots, you need some marines.
7) Drop all mules you have onto a gold if you have it. Mega income. (If you have OCs not CC......)
8) Upgrades late, but they did exist this game so better. Tip for upgrades. Time your 2nd ebay and armory to finish as 1-1 finishes. You can then start 2-2 immediately
9) All that gas and sitll no tech. Get a Starport up quickly after your 3 rax pressure if you can. Meds really really help. And you neeeeeeed vikings against collossi.
10) You throw down 3 SP. Basically the game is over so i wont comment more. But you get the gist. Expo faster. Tech faster. You cant go pure rauder.
Thank you guys for all the support and the critical eye. And I'm really impressed with your ability to convey the necessary negatives in a way that doesn't in any way discourage me but helps me have a motivation to improve. It does wonders to how I feel about the game.
@Atheros: Your post really helped me and had a strong impact on what I decided to do. Thank you for that. The lesson about builds was duly noted and I decided to go for the three-rax build that you linked, which I had seen before and used before but somewhat failed in executing properly (and no wonder because it's not supposed to be a cheese build with weird success rates like total win or total fail). Seeing I can't really pull off a decent fast-expo build yet (you've got to take into account my maladroitness that not even gaming since age 7 to age 28 could help), and given the strategies that are used in lower leagues (or my problems scouting/defending them), I decided three-rax was the better way for me to go. I can still drop an expo while moving out, which used to be a stable feature in my game, especially on Xel'Naga (I was particularly proud of this feature) from the beginning but forgotten later on. (I seem to forget good ideas and practices after getting promoted.)
@Neo27: Yeah, those lovely unit calls. Remember having to stay off sand with your army to avoid getting eaten by the sandworms, to place concrete slabs (destructible!) for foundation before placing buildings or you'd lose half the building's HP, and at any rate being able to build only on solid ground, which was extremely scarce in some missions? And the atmosphere. It made me read the books. All of them. No other game ever had a similar impact on me but Warcraft 2 was close, especially due to the comic-style graphics, the clear good and evil, the paladins, the lovely music (classical but with a combat character to it). But the Dune 2 music was even nicer to me, heh, I can still bring it back. It's amazing how bad my micro is considering how I had to play and did play before boxing was invented.
I wish you a successful plat promotion. You might get it faster with 4 games a day than I or anybody with 24 since overdoing can be tricky and make you forget lessons. Well-digested four games a day tend to keep me playing better. But I also want to play faster, in which case you just have to spam games to force your endurance limits to budge. But it can still go wrong. Even in the academics overstudying can fail exams as opposed to reading the material with a clean head and fresh mind and getting yourself in a good shape and mood for the exam (or the right amount of motivating stress, whichever floats your boat).
@Squigly: Yup, I noted you were a TvP expert. That's my weakest matchup, I think, although it was my strongest for a long time but stopped being so as I got out of bronze/low-mid silver. Probably because the lower-ranking Prots aren't sure to have thermal lance and/or don't have that great of an army control or FF micro and/or just don't make so much stuff. I seem to die to any Prot with my MMR, though, and seeing crisp ball formation movement makes me feel like I need 20 supply advantage to compete.
Points 1 to 9 duly noted, all of them. And thanks for the tip on 8 addons. I totally didn't know that and wouldn't have suspected it. I generally am weak with guessing how much I can support off how many bases or with how much income. I'm bad about assessing opponent supply vs my own too, including army strength before engagement. This was so much easier in WC3 where your supply limit was 100 and only 80 was viable economically unless you all-inned. I would like to be able to look at a Prot army and say, "aha, he has this many stalkers, giver or take one, this many zealots give or take two, this many colossi, that's X supply and such and such factors affect the effectiveness of it (range, blink, charge, upgrades), I can front-bust it/force stand-off/defeat it if I really try/trade armies with a good chance of being faster to recover/gotta run like mad and can make it home/can't make home if I run so need to micro hard to kill as much as I can before I die." I acquire this kind of sense in games with time as a rule, so I hope I'll gain it in SC2 if I practice more. My chief problem here is being totally at a loss as to stalker counts (how many he can have, how did he get so many by this time in the game, how much damage they can, which smallest marauder force size can kill it assuming equal micro skills).
To those that don't know, Squigly has been very kind to me and has already commented on several TvP games for me when I requested help in the forums, which is why he mentions a previous time. Many thanks to him for that.
@EnderSword: Thank you! I really like your casting style and the professional, confident voice and way of talking. It instantly made me think you were a big time caster; you certainly have a better voice and way of using it than some of them or other voice professionals. I personally like the metallic reverb from your microphone because of the radio feel (I'm generally a fan of retro when it comes to voice recordings) but you might want to tweak microphone positioning/volume to avoid it.
The comments are really helpful: short, up to the point, intelligible, not exceeding the ability of a low league player to execute. You seem to cut to the meat of the issue, as Grisham would put it, in ways I couldn't think about.
Also, seeing the games on video, apart from being a great experience, helped me much more than watching replays did, even though replays are supposedly better than vods for improvement, maybe it's the opposite with watching one's own games. I couldn't see the same things in my replays but looking at the videos, they were strikingly obvious, even to me. I did clearly see flaws that shouldn't be there and felt like I was looking at a silver player playing. Not like there's much difference between that and gold, especially my bracket of gold, but it took me a whole season to make that difference, so there must be some and it should be maintained consistently by me. I feel like if I mass games for a while, I could overcome this Sunday gamer thing because even after long pauses, players who really reached that high level of mechanics do seem to keep much of it. Unlike my own occasional highs that go away with time and I never cross certain thresholds.
@Everybody now: Speaking of thresholds, I would like to overcome my APM threshold. I can touch-type on a keyboard with blank keys at 90 wpm or so (which is approximately 460 characters per minute). Not stellar but definitely not a 30 APM kind of thing. (Hitting the right single key without looking is harder than normal typing, though.) Nor do I suck at mouse control, though it's several levels worse and unexceptional. I could still beat the scores of higher ranked players in mouse accuracy/speed games, however. Things go downhill when I need coordination or when the time pressure is stresing me like in the first video, where I couldn't save the SCVs (should've pulled fewer and set some on auto-repair or even all of them after a surround but easier said than done and certainly easier said post-fact). I was noticeably bad at coordinated keyboard/mouse control in FPS as kid, generally unimpressive in arcade games and I'm a horrible underachiever in the Lost Viking with lucky, lucky 60K points at best. I make stupid moves and die, can't keep it up. Same with my micro-macro-multitasking in SC2.
The reason I scouted so early for proxies in the first game and did so so irrationally, was probably shock effect from my previous games, which is akin to my emotional overreaction to that single zealot in my expo in the second game (wasn't the first time I lost to early zealots vs early expo, and I did expect stalkers to follow). I realise I can't do that because it's silly and I need a way to get those emotions out of my decision process and still maintain the ability to make fast decisions (just better ones). I probably wouldn't have done that if I had taken a little rest and got some fresh air to my head. I was pulling off a marathon on purpose, to heighten my speed and improve my limits of physical endurance in playing, but this is no excuse, it certainly means a lack of skill/experience or even thinking. The reason I didn't scout for expos in the second game is precisely what EnderSword said, I had no clue what was going on. I basically prepared for some sort of one-base warp prism drop. But I do sometimes forget this scouting, which I try to combat by sending SCVs to all mineral patches on the map. But I fail to do so enough.
As for the gas SCVs in the second game, I kinda wanted to avoid overgassing, which is a problem I typically face because I'm kinda greedy for early gas but and end up having tons of it unused as opposed to minerals.I was trying to balance that out but by having four unsaturated refineries rather than two fully saturated ones. Apparently, later on, I forgot to saturate them fully or failed to see the need to do so, or a mix of both. And still ended up with 3000 (!) floated minerals anyway, being gas-starved as EnderSword point out. I won't pretend it doesn't happen because it does (except maybe not as many as 3K minerals every game).
I'll try to remember to cycle through refineries from time to time or, better, avoid partially saturated refineries, as well as improving SCV production (any sort of unit production is my weakness on the point of timing). And I generally do hotkey all CCs to one hotkey but I still need to remembeer it on purpose, so I forget sometimes. Seeing it highlighted as a feature in the videos will greatly help me remember it, it is a sort of anchor that makes things stick. Then there's the mid-game scouting that needs to improve, as mentioned before.
Wasn't able to play until 8 p.m. today but I'm still going to log in and play if my computer doesn't overheat and glitch on me, but only after watching other games on EnderSword's channel. I'll post my games tomorrow morning or, if I can't fall asleep, at night. And that definitely won't be a round of 24.
Please keep your comments coming, guys. I need them.
@Squigly (last post especially): Hey, thanks a bunch! I really appreciate the support. And thank you for going through more games for me. I do suck at SCV production and any sort of production. Dunno why. Maybe too much singleplayer in my life. This needs to go. Even if I shall need to bite at an SCV production training map (if there's any) for a week. SCV production used to be my strong point (relative to the rest, not objectively) in bronze and silver but I started cutting it for some builds. Gotta unlearn it and instead adjust production to SCV flow. Definitely first thing on my list.
Expos are my other weak point. My expos are like busses... Either they aren't coming at all or six at once. Again, this is a result of single-player gaming for many years. You went for an expo when your main ran out. Several years of multiplayer couldn't fix it for me.
Upgrades/tech: same as SCVs. Coming into SCV-Craft 2 from WC3, I was an upgrade nazi (hotkeyed two human smithies etc.) and if anything, I'd tech too early rather than not at all. Something went wrong afterward, at some point.
I probably need to stick a timing sheet next to my monitor or on my second monitor (need two for work on the same computer sometimes, can position the second one comfortably for that kind of glancing). Apart from "MAKE SCVS!!!!111one" in 72 px font. Hmm... sounds like a plan.
On September 23 2011 03:25 NewbieOne wrote: @Squigly (last post especially): Hey, thanks a bunch! I really appreciate the support. And thank you for going through more games for me. I do suck at SCV production and any sort of production. Dunno why. Maybe too much singleplayer in my life. This needs to go. Even if I shall need to bite at an SCV production training map (if there's any) for a week. SCV production used to be my strong point (relative to the rest, not objectively) in bronze and silver but I started cutting it for some builds. Gotta unlearn it and instead adjust production to SCV flow. Definitely first thing on my list.
Expos are my other weak point. My expos are like busses... Either they aren't coming at all or six at once. Again, this is a result of single-player gaming for many years. You went for an expo when your main ran out. Several years of multiplayer couldn't fix it for me.
Upgrades/tech: same as SCVs. Coming into SCV-Craft 2 from WC3, I was an upgrade nazi (hotkeyed two human smithies etc.) and if anything, I'd tech too early rather than not at all. Something went wrong afterward, at some point.
I probably need to stick a timing sheet next to my monitor or on my second monitor (need two for work on the same computer sometimes, can position the second one comfortably for that kind of glancing). Apart from "MAKE SCVS!!!!111one" in 72 px font. Hmm... sounds like a plan.
Seriously a s couple post-it notes its surprisingly helpful. It might have been tyler who said for a week every game he played the whole time hed say probes and pylons every 5 seconds. Do you see him miss probes or get SB? rarely.
I find the main thing i used to miss was upgrades. Theres no tell like, ah im low on gas, take more. I still find that i get upgrades becuase i know i should, but i have no clue how good they really are. Like would i rather shield or +1 def. I have no idea (Imma guess shield).
Have one note saying upgrades, another saying expo and a third saying scvs. And im pretty sure you will get better quickly GL
EDIT: Hahahahahahah. "I noted you were a TvP expert" I am no such thing. Its just the one i know most about. I appreciate the confidence though XD.
I actually laughed when i read that. But yea Its definitely my strongest, the only MU where i regularly beat masters. (Dear god my TvZ is so bad it makes me cry, banelings, banelings everywhere)
Sticky notes are gonna be there. Will get you a picture.
@Squigly:
EDIT: Hahahahahahah. "I noted you were a TvP expert" I am no such thing. Its just the one i know most about. I appreciate the confidence though XD.
The fact that WhiteRa could defeat both of us without plugging in a mouse doesn't mean you aren't an expert compared to me.
***
Guys (and girls), this short post is to let you know I haven't lost steam. Real life caught up with me for a moment, including a family member carried off by ambulance and still in hospital, I've only just visited him (after sleeping till a bit past noon). Now there's a wedding to attend. I'm gonna play some tomorrow night and on Monday.
Meanwhile, I've grabbed a barely used G9X for half the price. Too short for my fingers but so pleasantly flattened and controllable. I think I might end up selling it but so far it's great for precise control in small movements at large dpis. Even on a cloth pad (and better so than my current optical mouse). It's possible it could reduce my RSI and increase my gaming comfort, leading to a better condition like six hours into it. Been thinking about playing in headphones to isolate myself and get better immersion, plus, it seems I need to experiment with keyboard positioning, as resting it off the edge of the desk seems to improve things a lot. Will keep you updated.
Gotta be going! See ya as soon as I can.
Edit: PS. EnderSword's replays are so darn enjoyable. Especially the bronze league ones. So much different from watching tournament replays and so refreshing.
Okay, guys. Seems I can forget about plat. Just got demoted to silver after losing too many games to silver players.
As a wonderful gift from Battle.net on the occasion, I got matched against a Protoss noob who made more cannons than I could count, and avoids. And lost after 30 minutes. Just couldn't keep up with the turtling. I'm probably going to hit bronze before I stop losing, it seems. The lower MMR opponents I get, the worse I lose. Same as when I first got demoted from silver to bronze. Just one loss too many to a lower league player, then a streak of low MMR players defeating me. The moment I hit bronze, I'm uninstalling this thing.
EPT
I'm glad he wasn't offended. I went for two-port banshee because of the fast distance in straight line to his mineral line as opposed to risky stuff like opening up base necks on that map. I positioned my ports as close as possible to the edge of the cliff over my nat so they'd arrive even faster. Decided to attack with two and split them rather than waiting for more or for cloak. Due to the loss of workers the game was basically won at that point, though I had to defend my base a while later against a token push with a couple of infantry and one tank. Had six banshees over his base at the time. He says he made some mistake and I think he probably did.
) I keep getting silver opponents, which is uncool because silver losses and lack of opportunity for gold wins may lead to demotion. Plus, it looks like I may be in Gold mostly due to BFH/Thor TvZ wins. And I wanted to get in Plat before the end of the year... Still hope I can do it, though. I suppose my Warcraft 3 skill level was more or less like Plat. I doubt I'll get to diamond (probably my mechanics won't allow it), but Plat seems like a goal I could reach if I tried hard.
GL
