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In silver and gold league, the macro of both players is imperfect, else neither of them would be in silver or gold league. One could assume that both players have about equal macro. (If a gold player would play against a diamond player, things would be differently of course).
This would be the case where strategy and build order start to kick in. If in a TvP the terran 1-1-1 all-ins since he has seen this on some tournament. He would most likely not have the same execution of Puma for example. He would have less marines, get supply blocked etcetera.
Thus it can be stopped, even if the protoss in question has imperfect macro. The thing is, if he does not know how to stop it, he can't.
And YES one solution is to macro better, but this cannot be done overnight. If the other solution would be: get an extra sentry out instead of a stalker, use guardian shield instead of forcefields, delay the attack with a few stalkers, etc could be. Then he can hold off the 1-1-1 all in, of course, always work on improving a macro. But this he probably already knows...
Just my 2 cents.
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Frustrating to hear yes, but the answer usually isnt gonna be a build that just straight up counters ur opponent unless ur losing to something gimicky. That being said, I have always been an advocate of "improving based on your level" meaning perfect 1 base play first then perfect 2 base play, dont do the fast expanding if ur not comfortable cause its detrimental to your play if u cannon have the drone/worker micro and or reads on your opponent to comfortably use it right. Also been as a zerg a huge advocate of the macro hatches which teach you to inject better plus are functionally good anyways.
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as long as you dont go hellion only vs mass colossus youre good to go
(of course you dont go for hellions vs colossus cuz you undertand the game a bit)
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When they tell you macro better its just not just 'macro' but mechanics generals. In the end, strategies/builds are a simple matter of remembering when to put down certain builds, it is Mechanics that you need to execute those strategy and win with them.
.: At lower levels I still say mechanics > strategy. I think destiny at some point did a special experiment, trying to beat bronze/silver players with just pure queens. For a strategy that's about as dumb as it gets but with decent mechanics, it still works vs people with no mechanics.
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United States7483 Posts
On October 06 2011 21:01 marvellosity wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2011 20:48 Sm3agol 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.
TLDR: It's not that strategy is bad, but improving macro will generate far better results than improving unit composition and tactics. Congratulations, you are one of those ppl the OP was talking about even though you were trying not to be. These players are NOT dia/master + and he *already acknowledged this*, saying it's not something you can improve overnight, although of course they try to. So in the CONTEXT that these players are forever striving to improve their macro, it seems entirely reasonable that they should be wanting to improve their strategical knowledge too. Especially as it's the strategical aspect that's more fun than "4eee 5c wzzzssee"
It's pointless to be concerned with strategic decisions when neither you nor your opponent are properly executing on their strategy decisions. Strategy doesn't matter if you can't execute, it doesn't start to matter at all until the players start to execute fairly well.
We're not saying strategy doesn't matter at all, but it's the only response to a low level player who comes to the strategy forums to ask "why did I lose?" or "how could I have won?". In general, the answer is "Have more stuff by spending your money." Do they like to hear it? Apparently not, but it's the only reasonable answer.
Timings, for example, don't exist at low levels, because the crisp execution of play from both players required to have one player be strong consistently while the other is consistently weak doesn't exist. Instead, at low levels, the strategy is almost entirely guessing because people play badly, and make bad decisions, and execute poorly. For example, in masters, if you scout your opponent going fast double gas after one rax, you can be 95% sure he's doing a tech build, but at low levels, it's possible that he's just going bio and is going to have a lot of extra gas floating around because he's bad.
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I'm a Master league Protoss (high Master at that) and all I do is just make sure I'm always producing out of my Gateways (basically using them as efficiently as possible, even before warp gate is done) and attack when I think I have enough units to do damage. I expand when my minerals allow it, and tech depending on what I see 99% of the time going the same composition in ever matchup.
Guess what? It's all in the macro bro. Don't ever make something a production facility if you aren't going to be using it and make sure to always use what you have whenever it can be possibly making something. Also learn to just attack when you have a decent amount of units and do some kind of harass if you ever think you are slightly behind (for example, warp prism harass a zerg mineral line). You also need to develop the very important skill of knowing when micro is more important than macro. This is something that come with experience, and although at my level I normally prioritize keeping units alive, mainly because I am quick enough to have it barely hurt my macro, do the opposite at low level play as that is the only way you will learn. Obviously always want to try and save large groups of units.
Another big tip... NEVER commit to an attack that can be too risky. Poking with your army and killing a few things here and there is always great, but you need to pull back if you think that you are pressing your luck. Try you absolute best to keep as many units alive as you can when you attack and do not be afraid to pull back to save some. Once again, try your best not to all-in (all-in plays are really bad in my opinion), and pull back when you begin pressing your luck. Attack to gain an advantage, not to completely destroy your enemy... unless of course you gain such an overwhelming advantage that it would be stupid not to just end it..
I know that it sounds too simple, but all you really need to do to get into Master league is just use your production facilities efficiently and spend your money. There is this common misconception that it takes a lot of skill to get into Master league when in reality anyone can get in as long as they just build things and attack.
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I get annoyed when people talk about macro. In my view macro is only a piece of your mechanics and a low level player needs to improve his mechanics, not only his macro. You shouldn't be worrying about the minimum you can do to improve but the maximum potential.
Improving mechanics isn't just about playing, it's also about removing bad habits and doing this efficiently
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On October 07 2011 00:08 Nemireck wrote:
"Macro Properly" also encompasses the unit mix that you're creating.
<snip>
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.
I kinda agree with this, although many people earlier in the thread have disassociated good macro from unit mixes. I'm inclined to agree with them, its a Knowledge(what X counters his Y) and Information(is he building Y or Z this game) issue. But if you are going to give macro advice, specifics are always better.
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The question is why should you use a bad strategy just because you have bad mechanics.
If you use a good strategy you cant execute it well at first but when you practice it, it will be effective and you might get wins right away because your opponents arent great either and maybe use a terrible strategy
Also someone said Destiny didnt get very far with mass queens and mass queens with good transfuses and creep spread ( which is easy with a ton of queens ) arent even that bad because how many silver players will feedback and EMP them and stuff.
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I had a very long discussion about this with a few lower level friends. I finally figured out how to make it make sense. You have to address the issue of "What is Strategy?"
Strategy is the applied use of macro, micro, timing, and scouting in a decision making structure.
Macro is the most basic element in that equation. Several examples centered around a marine tank push opening vs Zerg in TvZ.
1) Push hits at 10:00 with 4 Tanks and 17 Marines.
2) Push hits at 10:00 with 2 Tanks and 10 Marines.
3) Push hits at 8:30 with 2 Tanks and 8 Marines.
4) Push hits at 8:30 with 3 Tanks and 13 Marines.
There is problems with 3 of these.
1 - Fairly good macro, you are hitting at the wrong timing though. You are going to have to deal with mutas that will be available for counters and/or to pick of tanks. If the Zerg has worse macro than you he will lose even if he already has mutas out.
2 - Bad macro and you are hitting at the wrong timing. You are going to most likely lose your army then be at a huge disadvantage.
3 - Bad macro but correct timing. The battle's result are completely out of you hands in this situation. Its up to the Zerg. If the Zerg macro'd correctly he will automatically win even if he made the wrong units. If he has subpar micro and the correct units it will be a reset situatuion where its even and comes down to who "plays better." If he is awful at macro he will crumple to the fact that this timing is a very good one.
4 - Good macro combined with perfect timing. This is the first example where strategy happened. You hit with the largest force of the correct units at a timing that enemy is teching to mutas. You have the units needed to win the battle even if he macro'd perfectly and are hitting at a time that allows you a nice bit of time to hurt him. The only true counter to you doing this is for the Zerg to not do a 2 base muta strategy or to do something that messes up your build or push (clever counter attack).
Most Gold - Plat players are doing examples 2 and 3. Diamonds are doing number 1 and Masters number 4.
Read the examples and then read the bullet points on each. It is clear that Strategy is actually only important in the 4th example. In every other example the Timing or the Macro was off and the deciding factor became which player had better macro.
TL;DR = There is no Strategy without macro. Strategy is applied macro.
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I'm gonna have to side with plexa on this one. It is true that macro is the most important aspect that a low level player should focus on, but he still needs a general sense of strategy, like what works and what doesn't work, to play out the game.
With my own example, when I first switched to sc2, my first 1-2 zvp games I just massed pure hydra because i did it in bw, and I was out macroing my opponent by a ton due to superior macro mechanics developed from years of playing zerg, but my hydra army was getting shredded by collossi/sentry/stalker even when I was 50 food ahead. Of course, having played for so many years, I adjusted instantly and tried other units, and started winning easily because of better macro, but a low level player who haven't played bw have no experience in this game, they may not be able to adjust their game play after 1-2 games, so they come here to ask for help. And although hydra vs collossi is an extreme example, a silver player who doesn't know collossi > hydra and instead focuses only on producing more hydra (macro) is gonna run into a wall. Again, extreme example.
I think what lower level players need to do is
1. get a general sense of how the game should be played out, not specific build orders, but a generic understanding of how this game should be played.
2. macro, macro, macro
3. when you hit high masters, start deviating from your generic build and try specific build orders, powered by your already developed macro habits.
Few days ago I read another help thread, a zerg asking about how to deal with collossi, when the true problem was that the zerg player tried to do too many things at the same time, he was getting many drones, getting a fast third, and trying to attack the protoss to deny P's third expansion with a silly small army. I told him that he should not be attacking when he's making drones, cuz obviously if you are making drones you are not making units, resulting in a weaker army. If he wants to get many drones, he should wait for his econ to kick in, out produce his opponent, then attack. This is a simple strategic advice that can improve his game right away. Now that said, at his level the most important thing to focus on is still macro, but that doesn't mean other advices won't help.
Edit: I think when people say strategy doesn't matter, they are talking about specific build orders, unit counters, and timing pushes, and they are correct, those things should not be focused on until high masters at least in my opinion. And from what I'm seeing on TL threads, those are the typical questions that lower level players love to ask, "how do I deal with collossi?", and it can be frustrating for a higher level player to give advice when the lower level player is supply blocked half the time. However, knowing what questions to ask comes from experience that lower level players don't have. "how do I deal with collossi?" rarely means collossi is the actual problem, it could be that the player just don't know how to play zerg in general, such as attacking with a small army while he is making a ton of drones, losing all the units to a superior enemy army and then have nothing to defend his new expansion.
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On October 07 2011 01:56 Whitewing wrote:
Timings, for example, don't exist at low levels, because the crisp execution of play from both players required to have one player be strong consistently while the other is consistently weak doesn't exist. Instead, at low levels, the strategy is almost entirely guessing because people play badly, and make bad decisions, and execute poorly. For example, in masters, if you scout your opponent going fast double gas after one rax, you can be 95% sure he's doing a tech build, but at low levels, it's possible that he's just going bio and is going to have a lot of extra gas floating around because he's bad.
Timings always exist. I believe you are talking about preplanned timing attacks used to kill a certain strategy. These might not work if they are extremely insular . You still have your own timings. Like attacking or pressuring just after upgrades finish instead of before etc. Timings aren't some set in stone thing.
It will always be a good thing to learn about timings regardless of your level. It's just another layer of understanding you can apply to your game.
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On October 07 2011 00:15 LawGambit wrote:
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 think that's valid. Advice like "practice your build a few dozen times in YABOT till you can execute it flawlessly" is great for an aspiring Masters player, but absolutely lousy for a fairly casual few games a night after work player. Because like you said, that's work and not fun. Whereas advice like "when a protoss goes blinkstalker colossus, make sure to have 3 corruptors for every colossi and then try and use your roachling force to protect them from the stalkers" is much easily to incorporate in your next game.
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I feel somewhat compelled to post because I love to macro :D
I played BW for years hitting C+, and after I bought SC2 about 8 months ago I went on something like a 30-5 rampage up to gold league from bronze with zerg in my first 2 days of playing... without making queens so no larva inject because I didn't know at the time. I then went on another xx-x win/loss ratio rampage to high plat in another few days with Terran, and for most of those games I manually ordered each SCV to mine as they finished, and hotkey'ed individual barracks so I could 6a7a8a9a0a and "macro better".
This is not a disguised brag post because my point is that, having had ZERO game knowledge (playing from a MASSIVE disadvantage every game having no queens, didn't even know about MBS or automining), I managed to win more than 85% of my games from purely marco'ing somewhat properly. You honestly cannot even begin to compare the value of macro to strategy.
Up until mid-platinum, there was NO timing to speak of, and strategy/unit composition plays a very tiny part. Basically every game I would just decide to myself on a unit composition that I want to build and do it. Once I massed up what I thought was a good amount of units, I just A-moved into their base and:
- 60% of the times I just killed them outright because I had way more shit.
- 25% of the times they built too much static defense/pulled workers to hold ramp/etc., in which case I'd just expand again and kill them with air about 5 minutes later.
-15 % of the times I'd have an inferior army due to a combination of unit quantity and composition and fail the attack.
An analogy to getting better at SC2 is becoming a better fighter; you can spend all day watching fighting videos, identifying fighting styles and developing counter styles, analyzing the best moves/actions to perform when in a certain situation - you can do that all day, everyday, 16hr/day, but you're still going to get destroyed by someone 2x bigger and faster than you, 99% of the time.
I got my roommate into SC2 and here's his story. He had zero RTS experiences, and was failing hard in the bronze leagues for the first few weeks. Then reading week came, and he wanted to really improve so he asked for my help, asking me to look over his play, identify weaknesses, etc. I didn't do any of the things he asked; instead, I told him to create a single player match, wrote down a simple ~8 minute marine/tank push build order, and told him to execute it. He couldn't, not even coming close to 1/3 of the "normal" number of units he should have had at the 8 minute mark. However he wasn't discouraged, I explained how useful, albeit terribly boring this training exercise was and he sat down, for the next few days, spending more than half his free time everyday just practice the build order. Unsurprisingly, the first online match he played, he dominated. In fact, he continued to dominate all the way into platinum league with such a simple yet effective build order at lower levels. From bronze to plat in a week with no previous RTS experience, all because he spent his time doing the right things; he was power leveling, if you will.
TLDR: For bronze/silver leaguers: why spend 20 hours watching, understanding and imitating a strategy, why you can't even execute it at 10% efficiency? If you had spent those 20 hours executing a single all-purpose build order playing in single player against a computer, you would most likely be two leagues higher than you are now.
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On October 07 2011 02:11 vaderseven wrote:
I had a very long discussion about this with a few lower level friends. I finally figured out how to make it make sense. You have to address the issue of "What is Strategy?"
Strategy is the applied use of macro, micro, timing, and scouting in a decision making structure.
Macro is the most basic element in that equation. Several examples centered around a marine tank push opening vs Zerg in TvZ.
1) Push hits at 10:00 with 4 Tanks and 17 Marines.
2) Push hits at 10:00 with 2 Tanks and 10 Marines.
3) Push hits at 8:30 with 2 Tanks and 8 Marines.
4) Push hits at 8:30 with 3 Tanks and 13 Marines.
There is problems with 3 of these.
1 - Fairly good macro, you are hitting at the wrong timing though. You are going to have to deal with mutas that will be available for counters and/or to pick of tanks. If the Zerg has worse macro than you he will lose even if he already has mutas out.
2 - Bad macro and you are hitting at the wrong timing. You are going to most likely lose your army then be at a huge disadvantage.
3 - Bad macro but correct timing. The battle's result are completely out of you hands in this situation. Its up to the Zerg. If the Zerg macro'd correctly he will automatically win even if he made the wrong units. If he has subpar micro and the correct units it will be a reset situatuion where its even and comes down to who "plays better." If he is awful at macro he will crumple to the fact that this timing is a very good one.
4 - Good macro combined with perfect timing. This is the first example where strategy happened. You hit with the largest force of the correct units at a timing that enemy is teching to mutas. You have the units needed to win the battle even if he macro'd perfectly and are hitting at a time that allows you a nice bit of time to hurt him. The only true counter to you doing this is for the Zerg to not do a 2 base muta strategy or to do something that messes up your build or push (clever counter attack).
Most Gold - Plat players are doing examples 2 and 3. Diamonds are doing number 1 and Masters number 4.
Read the examples and then read the bullet points on each. It is clear that Strategy is actually only important in the 4th example. In every other example the Timing or the Macro was off and the deciding factor became which player had better macro.
TL;DR = There is no Strategy without macro. Strategy is applied macro.
QFT
There are many things you can improve on if you are low level. Basic things like Macro, Micro, and execution.
Strategy is not one of those things. As stated in the post I quoted, you can't learn anything strategy-wise from the result of a game where at least one of the players didn't macro well.
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To elaborate on having good macro mechanics another way, lets say two players execute a 2 base Ghost push in a TvP. One is a Gold league player, the other a Master league player. Lets just say that both players want to push out at ~9:30.
For the Gold league player at ~9:30, he has:
stim, combat shield, and concussive shells, 24 SCV's, 15 marines, 6 marauders, one ghost, and his expansion Command Center is about %50 done.
For the Master league player, at ~9:30 he has:
stim, concussive shells, while combat shield is ~%80 done (and will be done by the time he reaches the Protoss base), 37 SCV's, 17 marines, 8 marauders, 2 ghosts, and his Command Center has been done for almost 5 minutes.
Also for the Master league player, the Barracks producing marines has a reactor while the Gold league player does not have the addon.
If the Gold league player say wanted to push out with the same number of units, his push is no longer at 9:30, but around 11:00.
Edit:^^vaderseven explains this idea very well.
This data was taken from actual replays of people in those leagues
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On October 07 2011 02:50 HardMacro wrote:
TLDR: For bronze/silver leaguers: why spend 20 hours watching, understanding and imitating a strategy, why you can't even execute it at 10% efficiency? If you had spent those 20 hours executing a single all-purpose build order playing in single player against a computer, you would most likely be two leagues higher than you are now.
You're really overestimating the amount of time they spend on watching strats and underestimating their general macro efficiency. A gold level 4gate or 4rax mass marine push might hit 10-20 seconds later and with 1 or 2 less units, but it'll still be plenty difficult to hold off. And Zerg don't *have* an all-purpose build order to practice apart from cheese plays.
Edit : Also one nice thing I like when getting advice, is when I'm given info that lets me seperate "your strat is fine, just macro better so you have more stuffs" and "that's a bad strat, you'll probably lose unless you have WAAAY better macro".
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I'm really fat and out of shape at like 350 pounds but i wanna be a good runner. I know I'm really fat and I have to lose some weight but are there maybe some better shoes I can wear so I can start running 5 minute miles before I try to lose my fat?
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When your macro is bad there are too many variables present. You can't just try to pull information and put it towards understanding the game. Good macro is the only way you can make educated decisions on what is a good and bad strategy.
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On October 07 2011 03:14 TheYellowOne wrote:
I'm really fat and out of shape at like 350 pounds but i wanna be a good runner. I know I'm really fat and I have to lose some weight but are there maybe some better shoes I can wear so I can start running 5 minute miles before I try to lose my fat?
And if the fat guy just wants to lose a bit of weight and go for a jog now and then would you just tell him to "gtfo fatty, no shoes for you?". Your analogy is stupid. If he wants to lose weight *anyway* then having better shoes WILL STILL HELP.
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EPT
