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I disagree that telling someone in silver league that he has bad macro is the only/best advice you can give because its simply not helping at all to tell them something they already know but cant fix easily.
Sometimes its the only thing you can say because if you didnt make any big blunders except that you were floating 2k / 1k and your opponent wasnt, that is the reason you lost.
Or if you have a replay of a game where everything is normal until you a-move infestors into siegetanks and ask what your mistake was of course you will get 10 people telling you your micro sucks , not very helpful but its to be expected if you ask the wrong questions.
But other than that its basically like saying get back to me when you have diamond mechanics until then just mass zealots or something who cares.
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On October 06 2011 23:05 Demonace34 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2011 22:51 Cirqueenflex wrote:There's a reason every looks down on low tier players, and just tell them to macro(and micro) better, and not worry about strategies as much. Multiple top tier players have shown that that you can basically do WHATEVER you want at low levels, and as long as your macro and mechanics are good, you will win most of the time regardless of unit composition. Players have 4 gated, 6 pooled, mass queened, mass marined, etc all the way to diamond and sometimes even masters, just by simply outproducing and out microing their opponents. Watch Destiny beat tanks, thors, High templar, etc, with queens, even vs people that were trying to stream snipe him, and knew what he was doing, and would still lose. That's why high level players say ignore strategies and unit compositions for right now.....because IT DOESN'T MATTER. If you're worrying about unit compositions while you have 3k minerals at 15 minutes into the game, you're worrying about the wrong thing. Having 4 less stalkers and having 3 more zealots and 2 more sentries instead just might possibly win you the game. Converting the 1500 minerals you have at the 10 minute mark to stalkers, and it wouldn't matter what composition you had, you're going to rofl-stomp your opponent.
i want to see a pro win vs fast DT playing zerg without a base trade and without getting any detection at all that's the things lower players have problems with, better macro wont help at all. Getting an overseer/spore crawler/infestor helps Obviously there are holes in just saying macro better. Bringing up cloaked units isn't actually proving you point too well though... almost everyone who plays Zerg should have detection built into their build to fend of 2 port banshee and DT openings. All I did to go from bronze to diamond in two months was know basic army compositions, watch vods of pros, try to keep my money as low as possible and strive to become better by playing X amount of games per day. I would say the biggest reason for jumping up so fast was due to focusing on my macro above all else and learning tidbits of strategy and timings along the way. Also when I say macro, I mean not getting supply blocked, constantly producing workers, expanding at the correct times, and keeping your money low. I think macro should always be the #1 priority at the start while eventually deliberately practicing micro and reading strategy from liquipedia (listening to some casters can also help your game knowlege of certain matchups). Either way, this is a game of economics first and foremost, if you can't gain money quick enough and spend it quick enough without worrying about micro, scouting, strategy, etc, then just think of how much harder it becomes after adding all that other stuff into your mental to do list. EDIT: By the way, my macro (while multitasking) still blows and is still the main thing holding me back from being master level player.
But the thing is that these lower level players as zerg don't know to have detection. They don't necessarily know the right army compositions. I totally agree that this is a game of economics, but you need to be able to focus those mechanics in the right direction.
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"Macro Properly" also encompasses the unit mix that you're creating.
Any properly executed macro build has a target composition to acquire, as well as properly timed (in the case of Zerg, which I play) scouting, lair/evo chamber timing (for detection and tier 2), upgrade timing, and hive timing.
So when Silver Player A asks "what could I have done better" after losing to tank/marine with 5 roaches, 3 banelings and 25 zerglings at 9 minutes. And Masters Player B responds "macro better", it's a very vague response and is not helpful to the Silver Player at all. The proper response would be something like "You missed your 3rd inject on both your queens, and you're floating 1000 minerals, but you're only on one gas. You need to take a second gas earlier, and don't miss those 2 injects, you could have easily won that game if you'd had 10 more banelings and 34 zerglings that those missed injects cost you."
You might also see a game where Silver Player C loses to tank/marine at 15 minutes, because all he has is 20 roaches. "Macro better" is not going to help him in this case, because he's making the wrong unit to deal with tank marine. In this case, you're helping him macro better if you tell him the standard ZvT unit composition, and that is "Muta/ling/bling" or one of the "Infestor/Ling/upgrade" compositions out there. Direct him to a Mutabling build, and remind him not to miss injects/overlords.
Tl;Dr "Macro Better" doesn't help if the unit composition is incorrect. You can help a player "macro better" when you tell them what build they SHOULD have chosen, and also point out the supply blocks, late buildings, and missed injects/mules/chronoboosts.
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I agree with OP and I get mad when people ignore their posts and say to macro better.
You don't just ignore important parts of the game and work on one thing blindly. Making your macro better will always make you better, but somethings there are more important things. Some player could be waiting until the 20 minute mark to attack every game and you could be telling him to macro better without looking.
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The whole "macro better" comment is really just a straight up "don't post until you're diamond". At bronze to gold level, "macro better" really means "be better at the game". I doubt you'll find anyone asking for help by saying "I just lost this bronze league game, do you think I should be better?"
Surely, if people respond to a help thread saying "well your decision making and unit composition were spot on, but he simply outplayed you", then great, tell the OP to be better. I just don't think that the advice for struggling bronze league players is "get out of bronze league".
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As a lower level player myself, I find that working on macro can be daunting when you don't have an overlying strategy in mind. It helps to have an idea of what you want to do going in to a game. Learning some openings and builds really helped my macro a lot. When things are timed out and you follow a build, you are required to build pylon/depot/overlord at certain times. This sort of timing helped me tons to remember to get pylons and probes and such (although I still slip pretty easily  )
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I think the reason that lower-league players get frustrated with the phrase "Macro better" is two things:
1. They don't understand what it means
and
2. They are looking for a magic bullet to fix their problems
A lot of people who try to get better at things look for easy solutions. "Macro better" doesn't sound like an easy solution to them. It sounds like it takes a lot of work (and it does).
I'm just a Bronze noob and I know that I need to "Macro better" but that doesn't mean that it isn't frustrating to be told "Well if you had 30 more food worth of army, it wouldn't have mattered that you a-moved your army into a siege line" when I am struggling just to get the army that I had at that point.
So that's probably what is causing a lot of frustration, at least from my perspective.
I do agree that "Macro better" is the solution 85-90% of the time (barring obvious counters like making a 200/200 food Phoenix army, which is a ridiculous example anyway).
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commentary on some previous posts
+ Show Spoiler +It's unrealistic for someone who is bronze/silver to get good enough at macro to get to plat/diamond on pure macro alone. Yes a pro/semi-pro player could get to a pretty high level on pure macro but a bad player can't suddenly play like them so it's a moot point. I started in Bronze in season 1 and 2 (not many games season 1) and am in Platinum now, only because I switched to Zerg BECAUSE i was following a plan and executing it over and over and over and working on my macro. (spanishiwa) Many lower-leage player confuse strategy with "suprises" and gimmicks. Going DTs is not a strategy. Just doing a drop is not a strategy. Going for a specific unit-composition is not a strategy.
Having a game-plan and being able to adjust it on-the-fly comes much closer to strategy - and this relies on macro.
Strategy has to do with possibilites of yourself, your enemy, adaption, timings and reactions, and all these become meaningless if the players don't macro properly. I would generally agree with this but a lot of strategery relies on macro until a certain point and then micro. Can anyone else remember BFH opening into 8marine + BFH drop?  + Show Spoiler +You shouldn't think of strategy as some sort of silver bullet. Strategy might help you "immediately" in your next ladder game, but only in that specific situation, whereas practicing macro will improve your overall game. Besides, you can find plenty of strategy in threads started on TL. If you can't find strategy that applies to your level, the answer is to get to the level of the strategy threads currently existing first. If you look at strategy as dependent on macro, strategy will never help you with your next ladder game, but it will help you with games 50 down the road.
Now for my content <3
For a strategy to play out properly, you need near perfect execution and a very full understanding of the game for it to work.
This is why I would recommend builds like a 4gate, a 3rax, or a 7RR in early leagues. Not because they're cheesy and they get you wins, but because they help you understand what you can get away with. A bad analogy is when i was playing SQUADRON TOWER DEFENSE and just did one thing and figured out what i could do to optimize the "build." The same concept goes for Starcraft II proper. You learn how to execute a build, and if you macro it well, you will understand the basic components of macro and places where you can get away with extra or where you need to do less of a specific thing. But you're not only learning the specific build when you're doing these- you're learning your race's macro mechanics, as to optimize it you must use them to the fullest extent of their abilities.
extra stuff that fits in, but isn't as directly relevant
+ Show Spoiler +As only a plat myself, I know my macro needs work, which is why the first game I play when I log in every day is a macro drill. My fastest max time is 11:10 but I'm sure it can be faster if a better player were playing. Macro is the foundation to everything in Starcraft. Don't think that it doesn't matter, that strategies are good or whatever. Strats are dependent on macro-oriented execution. Having a lot of silver-level friends who say their macro is good always makes me cringe. I say to them every time- I don't have good macro, and I'm two leagues above you. If I don't, then you don't. Whenever I watch the reps, I get after them for telling me that a) their injects were good when each queen has 75 energy b) they spent their money well when they're floating a few k minerals c) play smoothly when they constantly get supply blocked.
Poll: What is most important for lower level players to work on (bronze-goldMacro (34) 97% "strategy" (read silver bullet) (1) 3% Micro (0) 0% Other, please define <3 (0) 0% 35 total votes Your vote: What is most important for lower level players to work on (bronze-gold (Vote): Macro
(Vote): Micro
(Vote): "strategy" (read silver bullet)
(Vote): Other, please define <3
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i think its different for all the races. i play terran and the first thing i notice when i watch lower level terran players is that their builds are usually bad. you can macro all you want but you need a good build and a good plan to really have any effectiveness. I think for terran builds are extremely important more so than the other races a bit. only because of tech labs, reactors, bunkers and stuff. you need to be precise with what your doing. I once saw a platinum player open two rax with reactors against protoss with only one marine out , then just died to the first zealot stalker poke.
i think for zerg its ok to tell lower level players to just macro better. often i would play a lower level zerg and find that he made too many lings to start or put down way too many spine crawlers and then was behind the rest of the game. In that way it makes sense to just say "work on your macro".
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On October 07 2011 00:02 E.H Eager wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2011 23:05 Demonace34 wrote:On October 06 2011 22:51 Cirqueenflex wrote:There's a reason every looks down on low tier players, and just tell them to macro(and micro) better, and not worry about strategies as much. Multiple top tier players have shown that that you can basically do WHATEVER you want at low levels, and as long as your macro and mechanics are good, you will win most of the time regardless of unit composition. Players have 4 gated, 6 pooled, mass queened, mass marined, etc all the way to diamond and sometimes even masters, just by simply outproducing and out microing their opponents. Watch Destiny beat tanks, thors, High templar, etc, with queens, even vs people that were trying to stream snipe him, and knew what he was doing, and would still lose. That's why high level players say ignore strategies and unit compositions for right now.....because IT DOESN'T MATTER. If you're worrying about unit compositions while you have 3k minerals at 15 minutes into the game, you're worrying about the wrong thing. Having 4 less stalkers and having 3 more zealots and 2 more sentries instead just might possibly win you the game. Converting the 1500 minerals you have at the 10 minute mark to stalkers, and it wouldn't matter what composition you had, you're going to rofl-stomp your opponent.
i want to see a pro win vs fast DT playing zerg without a base trade and without getting any detection at all that's the things lower players have problems with, better macro wont help at all. Getting an overseer/spore crawler/infestor helps Obviously there are holes in just saying macro better. Bringing up cloaked units isn't actually proving you point too well though... almost everyone who plays Zerg should have detection built into their build to fend of 2 port banshee and DT openings. All I did to go from bronze to diamond in two months was know basic army compositions, watch vods of pros, try to keep my money as low as possible and strive to become better by playing X amount of games per day. I would say the biggest reason for jumping up so fast was due to focusing on my macro above all else and learning tidbits of strategy and timings along the way. Also when I say macro, I mean not getting supply blocked, constantly producing workers, expanding at the correct times, and keeping your money low. I think macro should always be the #1 priority at the start while eventually deliberately practicing micro and reading strategy from liquipedia (listening to some casters can also help your game knowlege of certain matchups). Either way, this is a game of economics first and foremost, if you can't gain money quick enough and spend it quick enough without worrying about micro, scouting, strategy, etc, then just think of how much harder it becomes after adding all that other stuff into your mental to do list. EDIT: By the way, my macro (while multitasking) still blows and is still the main thing holding me back from being master level player. But the thing is that these lower level players as zerg don't know to have detection. They don't necessarily know the right army compositions. I totally agree that this is a game of economics, but you need to be able to focus those mechanics in the right direction.
But that is an easy fix. It is called working detection into your build. We can nitpick losing a game because of no detection or because of lack of scouting too. Overall, the main problem is the fact that people don't build enough workers, get supply blocked and can't spend their money due to not enough production facilities.
Having a basic understanding of gameflow and gameplay helps, being able to read up about strategies on liquipedia and get a good build for each matchup and macroing your ass off is going to work more than learning how to perfectly blink micro etc.
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Lower-level players see "macro better" as a cop-out, but it is THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE ENTIRE GAME.
EVERYBODY can macro better, and it should always be THE thing you're working on ALWAYS.
The problem as a low-level player is that you have no baseline so you can't tweak small things. Well, get one!
When my low-level friends ask me how to get better at Starcraft, I don't tell them to macro better. I suggest they play 20-30 games, then get me 2 or 3 replays of game's they lost and we'll pick out 1 or 2 things to work on like "making sure I never get supply blocked". You work on that one detail for literally 3 days until you have fixed it, then you move on to the next small detail. This is how you "macro better" in the long term.
Those small things are part of the "macro better" cop-out, but it's what makes the whole game.
Doing cool marine-splits is neat and all, but it doesn't really mean anything if you have 4 marines and your opponent has 24 zerglings.
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On October 07 2011 00:27 RedMosquito wrote:
i think its different for all the races. i play terran and the first thing i notice when i watch lower level terran players is that their builds are usually bad. you can macro all you want but you need a good build and a good plan to really have any effectiveness. I think for terran builds are extremely important more so than the other races a bit. only because of tech labs, reactors, bunkers and stuff. you need to be precise with what your doing. I once saw a platinum player open two rax with reactors against protoss with only one marine out , then just died to the first zealot stalker poke.
i think for zerg its ok to tell lower level players to just macro better. often i would play a lower level zerg and find that he made too many lings to start or put down way too many spine crawlers and then was behind the rest of the game. In that way it makes sense to just say "work on your macro".
Well you could tell the first player that he needs a bunker if he wants a fast reactor and using 2 reactors early isnt a very good choice. The Zergs need to make less static defense or dont make too many lings early because they dont help against 1 base terran as he has a wallin. Pretty easy things to fix in both cases, I dont see the big difference. That would probably help out more than saying "your macro is bad" I would think.
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I'm a low level player and while I definitely agree "macro better" is always something that needs to be done, it's not necessarily the only reason a person lost. For example, I may lose because I failed to scout a roach ling all-in in response to my FFE. I didn't lose because my macro sucked; I lost because I played greedy by building only 1 cannon and didn't scout. Plenty of low level games end with copied timing attacks that while are much weaker compared to the real deal can still win games against the right strategy. What if I lose to a 2 rax when I do a 1 gate FE? Even at the highest level, this is essentially a build order loss; the 2 rax is going to do enough damage to eventually win the game if not winning right then and there. Protoss not having a robo when his opponent went cloaked banshee is another instant build order loss. Of course, Protoss should've scouted the marine count and assumed tech, but this is scouting and game knowledge, not macro. I've also played people with simply superior micro. In the typical 1 zealot, 1 stalker battle, I once lost both of my units and he kept both of his; this ended up costing me the game. Are you really going to say if my macro was better, I would've won that despite having 5 stalkers at 5:45 after losing my first 2 units?
Yes, in the end, all low level games are lost due to macro, or rather, inferior mechanics. However, there are still things that low level players can be told such that they won't lose in the same way again. Otherwise, we might as well only allow masters level players and higher to ask for help and have a notice to all low level players saying to "work on your mechanics."
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hm, difficult topic...
I can understand that lower league players think like that, but here is why I think that it is important that you learn to macro better, before you ask "what strategy should I use in this scenario":
Every strategy that works is viable in Starcraft, but a lot of times you will find people asking things like: "I'm playing baneling/muta but I can't stop 2base marine/tank pushes. Should I play something else?" Well, no. Muta/bling is capable of holding marine/tank pushes, you simply have to macro better, so you have more stuff overall.
Or: "how to engage with a 6gate" and then the replay shows that the protoss player could easily win, but is always late on his warp ins and the 6gate is 2mins too late...
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Every time I help someone who is a lower league I do tell them to know the popular strats that people try to copy and play at their level. However, you have to realize that the lower you are in the league ladder, the more economy and macro become a staple of how well you are going to do. While I agree that macro can not be something improved overnight, it is something that should be one, if not the, main focuses (foci?) that you improve on the most.
I do agree that macro isn't the only thing that causes a lower league player to lose and there are tips that can be taught to lower league players to help improve their game that don't involve macro. Like "set up your units here to block potential early reapers" or "if they siege up here, you can take this route to flank" or whatever. Again, I agree that sometimes macro won't save you if your opponent goes DTs really quickly and you are caught completely unprepared due to lack of scouting or whatever. However, macro is still should be the top thing you work on.
I say that because many times I am given a replay from a lower league player asking how they can beat X strategy. A lot of the time after watching the game it's clear that more units could of been there and could have won them the game. The easiest improvements to make, in my opinion, when I watch my own play is when I realize that I can have a certain number more of a certain unit when my opponents push comes if I just refined my macro a little bit or I could have more of something if I just of kept my worker production up. The times that you lose to a strategy straight up are usually strategies like cloak banshee, DTs, RR and things of that sort. On the contrary though people will ask "I can't beat chargelot archon here's my replay." and only to find out that chargelot archon isn't the problem, but it's the fact that you only have this many workers when you should have this so you only have 2/3 of the units you should or you don't have enough production to support your income so you're floating resources that could be spent into army/tech. Again, I know you can not improve those things overnight but there is little advice you can give players who have bad macro but want to focus more on micro, unit compositions and more "fun" aspects of the game. I guess I could tell you how you can deal with his chargelot archon army the best way possible with your current army comp and army amount but to me that doesn't really get the main point across in which lower league players need to learn which is macro. I always constantly bug lower league players to work on macro because if they don't hear it enough or understand the importance then they never contribute it to a loss but rather things like micro. Not saying you can't lose a lower league game because of micro but it has been shown time and time and time again that solid macro alone can get you to diamond/masters on NA.
Yes you can work on your slam dunk if you'd like but not many people will want to play with you if you can't dribble or pass the basketball well.
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People used to hate on SC:BW because it was "90% robot clicking and 10% REAL STRATEGY."
Well, 99% of real strategy is being able to do the strategy in itself. It doesn't matter if you've been learning Jiu Jitsu for 15 years if you can't lift up your arms to fight, right? That's what macro is the first step of: the ability to move.
In the translated words of NaDa: "APM is a measure of how quickly you can paint your picture on the canvas of the map." (In this case APM is synonymous with Macro... seeing as it was Broodwar and you needed 150 apm to be even slightly competent at macro on 3+ bases)
Often times I see friends in lower leagues pull off INSANE tactics that should by all rights be game ending. Crippling blows like killing a dozen pylons with a single marauder drop... and then I see them get splattered because the other player simply builds the pylons back up and rolls them... because they have minerals banked or got supply blocked a half dozen times.
If you can't lift a finger, how can you try to feint a punch -> parry -> counter?
When someone tells you to macro better they're telling you to learn how to move. And it's damn hard teaching someone how to move xD
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On October 06 2011 22:51 Cirqueenflex wrote:Show nested quote +There's a reason every looks down on low tier players, and just tell them to macro(and micro) better, and not worry about strategies as much. Multiple top tier players have shown that that you can basically do WHATEVER you want at low levels, and as long as your macro and mechanics are good, you will win most of the time regardless of unit composition. Players have 4 gated, 6 pooled, mass queened, mass marined, etc all the way to diamond and sometimes even masters, just by simply outproducing and out microing their opponents. Watch Destiny beat tanks, thors, High templar, etc, with queens, even vs people that were trying to stream snipe him, and knew what he was doing, and would still lose. That's why high level players say ignore strategies and unit compositions for right now.....because IT DOESN'T MATTER. If you're worrying about unit compositions while you have 3k minerals at 15 minutes into the game, you're worrying about the wrong thing. Having 4 less stalkers and having 3 more zealots and 2 more sentries instead just might possibly win you the game. Converting the 1500 minerals you have at the 10 minute mark to stalkers, and it wouldn't matter what composition you had, you're going to rofl-stomp your opponent.
i want to see a pro win vs fast DT playing zerg without a base trade and without getting any detection at all that's the things lower players have problems with, better macro wont help at all. Getting an overseer/spore crawler/infestor helps
There is a big issue with your post - you are using a very specific issue to try and support your point. And if a lower level player worries about detection / cheese and "strategies" to counter them, then that can be holding them back.
The advice I give to low level players if they lose to something specific is to just shrug it off. This is because trying to do something fancy to counter it (instead of macroing better) leads to worse results in the long run.
Thus, the advice "macro better" applies in all cases.
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What it comes down to... any "fun" strategy that you want to do in bronze league up to grand masters has to have a foundation in macro .... there's no logic in making them mutually exclusive.. Whatever cool strategy you are trying to pull off simply wont work if you are supply blocked and it makes no difference what league you are in or if the opponent has the "same level" macro as you (which makes almost no sense to begin with )
If you really have the attitude that you find clicking 4sdddd is soo boring then this simply is not the game for you . Nothing wrong with that of course but you are never going to enjoy the game if you don't have a passion for the basic mechanics of solid strategy.
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Macro is the most important thing for lower level players to work on, but to tell them that they shouldn't even ask questions on strategy is not helpful at all. Watching a master's level player win vs low level players with dumb strategies DOES NOT prove that only macro is needed. It simply shows that a player that is 100 times better than another player can win through mechanics.
But remember that the opposing player has bad macro too. If it is a ZvT and the Zerg has 1500 minerals at 8 minutes in the game and loses to a 1 base marine marauder medivac all in, you don't say LOL MACRO BETTER NOOOB ONLY MACRO IS IMPORTANT UNTIL GRANDMASTER LEVEL!!! You look at the replay and see that Terran was floating 2000 minerals and that clearly Zerg was not being bested mechanically. However you do see the Zerg making slow lings and roaches to try and win, and you realise why he lost. Then, you tell the Zerg to go mass sling bling and crush the force.
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I think the way to approach the "macro better" is to add on the one additional requirement: scout.
Most low level players that can't figure out why "macro better" wins are the players who play the game solely looking in their main, then move out with a 200/200 army.
If you try to reactively macro (defend your main, make workers, do not get supply blocked, make units - AND scout) you will have reached the mythical plateau of "macroing into diamond+"
The real concept here is that while you're making units, scout what is going on. You can never leave your base, make as many units on 3 base as you want, and move out if you've scouted their army and countered appropriately- and you will crush a player that could not macro the same. Tactics aside, if they can't make as many units, you will destroy them.
When a player reaches this level, they are considered to have figured out the concept of macro, and then they start working on the little things like cute harass techniques, better micro, two-base all ins, etc.
edit; These are all done once they have figured out the ability to, as day9 put it best, "always be making more stuff."
If you addend the words "and scout" to macro better you will actually see why the concept of out-macroing wins you games nearly all the time.
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EPT
