So I've bought Starcraft a few days back and right now I am focusing on playing through the campaign of all 3 games.
Soon I want to get started with multiplayer and not only for "fun" but also to improve my game and get as good as I can, with the time I have available.
I am wondering on where to start with getting good and up to date information, picking the best race for me and get off with a good start.
If you wanna start learning the game, you don't need anything at all. Just play the game, whether its vs AI or team games or even 1v1 (I don't recommend it tho). The most important thing at the start is to get a feeling what the different units can do and how to actually play. Noone here can say which race will suit you/ is most fun for you. You will have to try out for yourself!
Just playing the game. I recommend starting against computers in custom games to get used to playing. Try all three races for a few games and see which one excites you the most. That's how I got started, as well as my friends too. There's quite a few resources out there once you simply get used to the games. Streams, tournaments, but my favorite is getting my hands on replays and going through them. It might be a long ways before you can make use of them. Finding a friend who's interested in learning the game would be really helpful too.
if you think you won't get frustrated losing vs people (people play unorthodox weird styles even in the lowest league), jumping straight into 1v1 2v2 is good experience.
getting the very basics right before playing vs people, like which unit counters what, getting detection, will save you many troubles at the start.
1) Try to find the race that fits your playstyle the best (if you can't, play random). Terran is the agressor, Zerg the defender and Protoss is middle ground (very simplified).
2) Once your race is decided, watch a few replays of pros of said race so that you can acquire one build order for every matchup (you don't need more than one at the start)
3) Reproduce that one build-order over and over in lots of ladder games to see yourself improving.
1) Play through the campaign(s). 2) Play vs computer. - increase difficulty until you get bored. - do macro exercise. Play vs easy computer and try to max out at 200/200 supply as quickly as you can. 3) play coop. There's a 2 humans vs computer mode that actually is kindof really fun! Try it out, and it allows you to compare your skills to other people without having them stomp on all your stuff. Start at low difficulty and step up as you learn to play. 4) team games. try 4on4. At low level, people dont really care (or even notice) if you don't get stuff done as fast as you could, or do other mistakes. 5) As you get more comfortable with human vs human team games, go down to 3on3, 2on2. This will gradually increase the load of responsibility to you. 2on2 can be really intense actually. 6) Gogo 1on1!
You can skip any of these steps if you don't feel like, but this is the smoothest path into competitive 1on1 I think.
Regarding race, just go for the one that appeals to you. They are all equally strong and fun to play in different ways. But I'd recommend trying each race at least once in step 2 before deciding for one. Or you can of course continue swapping between them, or even play random, but that will probably slow down your progress a bit, as you need to learn the mechanics and timings of three races.
First you must choose your race. Take your time, you can test vs IA, vs players, seen SC2 tournaments.
When you find it, well you must learn the macro.
Macro means : How the economy of my race works, how could i get as much money as i want, them spend all my money and build the strongest army. You don't have to discover all by yourself, you will use a build order.
Then you learn it, and you will learn to excecute it as well as you can. To do this, you will need to use hotkeys, control-group, choice the best sensitivity for your mouse.
It's a bit personal, but you can ask what others use, see the hotkeys of the pros on stream, etc... You will refine them when you will get better.
Well if you do this, you will skip bronze league, and maybe silver.
With good macro you can climb ladder really fast (a lot of people are stuck into low league just become they don't know how to macro, never take the time to learn, and while they spend a lot of take playing the game, they never learn it really).
It's important to say that you will learn or be ten more times better if you spend an hour analysing in depth a replay/vod from a pro player, rather than playing one hour on ladder, whatever your level.
So if you really wants to be good, you need to spend your SC2 time half playing, half learning to get better.
Of course you need to play too.
You need mecanisms, that means making a lot of action really fast.
But, don't focus on "I need to be fast", "I need high APM", it will come alone with practice, repeating your build order, better focus on what you need to do, if you have good macro and decision you will go really far before you must need to be fast. However, you need to learn some tricks to get faster.
The best video i know about this :
It's old, the game is a bit different know but the principles are the same. Other interesting VODS :
Well after, you will learn the strategy, it will take more time.
You will must know what strategy the other is using, scout it, do the counter strategy, and it will be all about tatics (where i take the fight, how, should i retreat ? i counter attack ? i trade base ? do i make a diversion ?)
Then it's all about : making better decision than the other, playing faster, countering him, having better micro, better strategy, or trick them with trap/gamble, etc...
So training everything you have learnt macro, BO, micro, strategy, to get better and better
Just push the botton and do whatever for the couple of games, you can do game against computer but I fell like the computer is actually not that bad, I think low level bronze are much more fun to play against they probably won't be any better then you so just try it.
If you want any other indication I would say just go watch 2-3 pro games just to see how it should look, but it can be resume to just one thing build some stuff and go kill the other guy. I don't think you should get build order it just kill the fun of discovering strategy or way to solve problems. You don't need them anyway before at lest top gold.
You will also learn better by yourself then by just doing build without thinking about it.
Just start playing ladder right away, fastest way to learn. After your first few games, if you think you don't understand enough, read about the 1v1 game on liquipedia or here on TL, or youtube or whatever, so you can relate to what you experienced ig. Rinse and repeat.
Thanks for the big amount of helpful replies. I've almost finished the campaigns and so far my favorite race is Terran. Though I will be playing a few games Vs AI as the other races aswell.
Last few days I've watched a lot of streams and trying to understand the basics of multiplayes. Since I feel like this is a lot different from the campaign.
A lot of thanks @Tyrhanius for the long and insightful post! I will make sure to watch all the video's you've posted soon. Can't wait to get started.
If you want to improve quickly I would suggest you start with a focus on mechanics. Learn to use hotkeys. Learn how to make workers and units consistently. I think the biggest mistake a lot of new players make is focusing to much on strategy and micromanagement these are important but not as much as your ability to build stuff. It's a lot like learning to play an instrument, you might want to make music or play your favorite songs but first you have to learn how to play all the notes. Macro is the basis of sc2 everything else is layered ontop..
The other important thing when learning the game is to approach loses with the right mentality. Don't get mad about a loss, try to identify what you did wrong and fix it.
However this advice only applies if you want to get good at the game. I'd say dive in first play some games have some fun. than work on building the right habits.
On December 31 2016 05:20 Tyrhanius wrote: If you really want to play competitive,
First you must choose your race. Take your time, you can test vs IA, vs players, seen SC2 tournaments.
When you find it, well you must learn the macro.
Macro means : How the economy of my race works, how could i get as much money as i want, them spend all my money and build the strongest army. You don't have to discover all by yourself, you will use a build order.
Then you learn it, and you will learn to excecute it as well as you can. To do this, you will need to use hotkeys, control-group, choice the best sensitivity for your mouse.
It's a bit personal, but you can ask what others use, see the hotkeys of the pros on stream, etc... You will refine them when you will get better.
Well if you do this, you will skip bronze league, and maybe silver.
With good macro you can climb ladder really fast (a lot of people are stuck into low league just become they don't know how to macro, never take the time to learn, and while they spend a lot of take playing the game, they never learn it really).
It's important to say that you will learn or be ten more times better if you spend an hour analysing in depth a replay/vod from a pro player, rather than playing one hour on ladder, whatever your level.
So if you really wants to be good, you need to spend your SC2 time half playing, half learning to get better.
Of course you need to play too.
You need mecanisms, that means making a lot of action really fast.
But, don't focus on "I need to be fast", "I need high APM", it will come alone with practice, repeating your build order, better focus on what you need to do, if you have good macro and decision you will go really far before you must need to be fast. However, you need to learn some tricks to get faster.
Well after, you will learn the strategy, it will take more time.
You will must know what strategy the other is using, scout it, do the counter strategy, and it will be all about tatics (where i take the fight, how, should i retreat ? i counter attack ? i trade base ? do i make a diversion ?)
Then it's all about : making better decision than the other, playing faster, countering him, having better micro, better strategy, or trick them with trap/gamble, etc...
So training everything you have learnt macro, BO, micro, strategy, to get better and better
Thnx for linking some of my vods up there, though for a fresh player this one might be the most important.
If you're enjoying playing and want to refine your mechanics more definitely watch those other vods linked before - for my daily #10 on fundamentals watch it while in game and actually test the stuff out as I talk about it - also probably watch it in sections since it's a big one!
On December 30 2016 20:02 ApatheticSchizoid wrote: I recommend starting against computers in custom games to get used to playing.
With the way Blizzard has been improving the AI's build orders/behavior... I'd say this is a seriously underutilized tactic when it comes to learning this game.
It's how I learned, and after my first placement matches, I easily made it into platinum.
The way I did it was to just play a game against a normal AI, then hard, then very hard. Work your way up. Once you can consistently (and I do mean consistently) beat the computer on very hard, you'll have a very solid foundation with which to jump into 1v1 and start using those skills against actual humans. Make sure you're comfortable playing against all three races, especially mirror match ups.
You may be wondering, "but how do I know what do, and when?". That is where this site and others like youtube, come in. Pick a race you're comfortable with, then a build order that suits your play style, and just hammer it to death. Do that same build order over and over until you can repeat it in your sleep. That'll give you a better idea of the flow of the game and create a spring board so you can branch off into other more advanced build orders.
-also-
though it isnt nearly as crucial when playing against AI.... get yourself used to scouting. It'll save your ass more than you know, and add a lot of wins to your record that would've otherwise been bitter defeats.
The point of all this is to get you used to playing the game. That way, when you're in a tough match against a human opponent (sometimes things will get tense and you will get anxious and shaky while playing), you'll be more focused on what you should be doing to help you win, versus wondering what the hot key for such and such command is.
All you have to do is have an average i internet connection and patience to play multiplayer. I see a lot of good advice already in the thread, pig and old day9 videos can really help breaking down stratagies and mechanical questions. I will say from personal experience to NOT JUDGE YOUR SKILL BASED ON YOUR RANK. I obssesd over my rank for a long time in sc2, only playing games on ladder after practicing a build vs AI multiple times and taking ladder losses very personal. I quickly ranked up to diamond, but realized i had very little knowledge of the game since i played so few games vs actual players. Sure i was a decent rank, but i honestly had the same game knowledge as i did when i was in silver. I just had alright mechanics in a couple builds that carried me to an abnormally high rank for my skill.
In my opinion the best way to experience the ladder is to just play the game. Watching streams can be fun. But watching a high level player doesn't explain a fraction of their knowledge. They do the things they do because they've got tons of experience against a variety of opponents. Just try and get an understanding of the game from the ground up working your way through the ranks. Try and be positive and remember it is just a game that has 0 bearing on anything else in your life.
At the risk of being a necromancer, I have some thoughts. I figure this kind of thread never goes out of style.
Playing against A.I. will make you garbage against people. I should know. My strategy for learning SC2 was to play campaign, then custom multiplayer and then see how I stacked on the ladder.
I am now a level 50 zerg that can school the hardest (which is actually 2nd hardest) ai. I even intentionally hang back so it can survive to late game. It's gotten a bit dull.
So every once in awhile, I'll poke my head into the ladder. I am instantly decapitated. Last week I played a game and my opponent was so confused by my 'playstyle' that they were convinced that I was away from the keyboard when they attacked. I had a solid 3 base economy, army and build, but a marine drop killed like 20 drones.
I do think that playing A.I. could give you some useful skills, but doing multiplayer amounts to learning a whole new game.
On April 10 2018 12:10 Wanderlost wrote: At the risk of being a necromancer, I have some thoughts. I figure this kind of thread never goes out of style.
Playing against A.I. will make you garbage against people. I should know. My strategy for learning SC2 was to play campaign, then custom multiplayer and then see how I stacked on the ladder.
I am now a level 50 zerg that can school the hardest (which is actually 2nd hardest) ai. I even intentionally hang back so it can survive to late game. It's gotten a bit dull.
So every once in awhile, I'll poke my head into the ladder. I am instantly decapitated. Last week I played a game and my opponent was so confused by my 'playstyle' that they were convinced that I was away from the keyboard when they attacked. I had a solid 3 base economy, army and build, but a marine drop killed like 20 drones.
I do think that playing A.I. could give you some useful skills, but doing multiplayer amounts to learning a whole new game.
I`m not a zerg user but you can see probably if you watch streams of grandmaster zergs (first person) they make 6-8 queen, you need creep between all your bases, queen it`s not a fighting unit, but still they could give you time to protect your workers and spent money on fighting units.
1) And you have multiplayer without ranks, it`s better i think rather then with A.I. 2) Watch more first person streams of high ranked and famous zergs like Stephano, or with comments on your own language, maybe PiG`s tutorials because his main race is zerg and he explains little details.
http://sc2unmasked.com could help to find streams of high ranked players, they stream ranks depends on players rank. (but at this minute site does not working, i hope they will fix it quickly)
3) Watch all your replays where you lost game and, and not just watch but try to understand what was right and not right and change this at future games. Yeah and also Progamers replays.
Sorry if i wrote something not correctly English it`s not my first language)
I have been in masters league for years and have never completed any of the 3 campaigns. I started in bronze league, and didnt even understand what warp gate was and Id have about 1 zealot while my bronze opponent came to me with a massive army every single game and crushed me. Must have been atleast 50-100 games like this. Eventually I discovered the day9 daily and I started to actually be able to play the game properly. in my opinion, his dailies are timeless. They are not focused on specific build orders, but rather the strategy. youd still learn a lot from them even if they are for wol or hots.
The most important thing for you to learn is try to experiment with mastering every cheese by every race. This will teach you what units can and can't do.
Including (but not limited to) Terran: Bunker Rush, Reaper Rush, Banshee Rush, Ghost rush, Marauder Rush, Cyclone Rush, Liberator Rush, etc. Protoss: DT Rush, Cannon Rush, Shield Battery Rush, Proxy Gate, Proxy Stargate, Proxy Robo, Sentry Rush, etc. Zerg: Drone All-in, Zergling Flood, Baneling Bust, Ravager Bust, Proxy Hatch, Fast Muta, Mass Queen, etc.
After that, forget everything you learned and learn to macro.