Everyone makes mistakes, but sometimes it is hard to learn from them and fix problems. This applies to several aspects of life, but in this blog I will be focusing mainly on improvement in Starcraft 2.
I am currently a top 5 platinum Terran on the NA server. I have been playing since official release, and did not have any competitive RTS experience prior to that. I have always considered and known myself to be a quick learner, although it seems things have been slowing down with age (I am 25 now.)
The purpose of this blog (like many others out there) will be to document my progress as a player and focus on improvement and correcting mistakes in my play. I will do my best to upload replays regularly, asking the community for help in analyzing and providing constructive criticism.
Entry #1 - 3/30/11
It has been a frustrating past couple of weeks. I haven't had as much time as I wanted to play due to work obligations, gf, etc. The times which I have had extended periods of time to sit down and play, I have had only moderate success.
Frustration would be a perfect word to sum up my sessions. Although I win some/lose some like everyone else, I notice these problems almost instantaneously during my games (Read: things I would like to improve on)
Poor decision-making on when to engage the opponent.
Very frequently it seems I rush into battle. I get into this mindset of "Ok I have lots of stuff, good unit composition.. PUSH!" Perhaps this is a result of not enough scouting, but I usually have a good sense of what I will be facing ahead.
Floating minerals during and after engagements-- then figuring out how to "catch up" / spend them in a good way.
Usually I end up throwing down a bunch of barracks at once and/or a command center in my base. I have tried Multitasking trainer and can use hotkeys away from my base to macro (at least for a little bit.) I don't know how much success in this area is a result of practice vs. innate talent/ ability to focus. It also would be worth mentioning here that I have ADHD-predominately inattentive type. This is the biggest area I want to focus on improving at (first.) I have read the CAP-TAP-MAP method of remembering things, but it is hard to implement it as more and more starts to happen going into the mid+late game.
Game sense
I think I simply don't have a good grasp on timing windows just yet. I would like to find an effective way to work on this because knowing how much wiggle room I have to work with will give me more to think about when I am planning actions.
Replays/Replay-fu
One of the reason I would like to regularly post replays here is because, frankly, I suck at watching them lol I don't seem to get much out of them and thus I rarely spend time watching my own or pro's. I can see openings in pro replays, but not much more beyond that. I know how important replay watching can be, but I get frustrated because I don't feel as if I'm getting anything out of it. This could be ADHD coming into play again, but I'd rather not use that as a crutch to fall back on when I can't do something I want.
I would love to hear any advice, tricks, or suggestions the community has for managing some or all of these things. Check back soon and I might have some replays up by then! I would love if someone would be willing to "coach" me via a stream or obs game. Thanks for taking the time to read (if you got this far )
Until next time... Peace! :D