[Meatex]

So heres the discussion thread on who would benefit from coaching and who wouldn't
What coaching should or shouldn't entail as well.
I will add my thoughts later and let others kick the discussion off
What are your thoughts about coaching?

[Next_rim]

Allow me to repost my thoughts from PiG review thread

I thought the point of coaching was to discover your strength and weaknesses as a player in general, and set a target to do a particular cycle of training to capitalize on that knowledge. That's what coaching is for in sports, anyways.

If I was to get a coach, I would ask for some kind of feedback on my style, and strength and weaknesses of that style. Passive or agressive? Micro or macro? Harass or timing push? This knowledge comes only from experience, which a pro coach has, and you don't. How do you play against an agressive micro harasser, if you are one yourself?

Working on mechanics (openers, build orders, unit comps, army ratios, timings, scouting) can be done w/o a coach imho.

When I tried to play wc3 at high level, I was constantly assessing situation in a following matter: I am a harasser and multitasker. I need to go out and kill whisps, while parallel creeping. He has 5 archers, and he is agressive creep-harasser. He comes with DH, which means I will lose at least 1 ghoul, so I need to kill at least 3 whisp, which means I can afford up to 4 death coils. If he was passive creeper, I'd have to kill at least 1 orange creep pack myself, which means I'll need to heal a ghoul, and can't afford to get manaburned or waste more than 3 death coils into whisps.

Smoothing openers doesn't get you into that state of mind. Knowing deep core mechanics and your style does. Don't think you should be paying to be read a lecture on something you can get from liquipedia. But you could pay to get a feedback on style and strengths.

Also I would like to add, that some pros comment on their thought process while streaming (WhiteRa is one example). It gives you a good insight into game core and mind set of a winner for free. Maybe not in a personal form though.

[Meatex]

Well its like tennis
Sometimes - even if its technique thing - its hard to tell what you're doing wrong
There are lots of places to get information about how you swing and even different styles and benefits. Some people may feel like they are doing it right based on tutorial videos or guides and wonder why it isn't working for them. Coach can help you see that which escapes you. They can add to your repertoire of techniques or help you refine basics that you don't understand why can't do right despite understanding or knowing what you're meant to do.
If you are at the point where all your basics are rock solid and you want to say work on aggressive style - say always rushing the net and dominating with volleys - then that is something you just need to practice with someone. A coach will help you refine such a style quicker but isn't really necessary

Like I said in my review if you're problem is just what build order or unit compositions or things like that there are plenty of resources on the net for free - that said a coach will be able to tell you all those things as well and help you adopt them into your play quicker.

[Next_rim]

Two rules to beating any game is experimenting and reviewing. Is it worth running 7 chargelots into 4 tanks? Should you split them in 2 groups or 3 groups? Coach won't answer these questions, unless you specifically ask for it. And I think these little knowledge is what really separates veteran player from an average player. It comes with mere experience. A pro has been playing games just to test these little things, and eventually comes with a baggage of knowledge.

Scenario A: You get a coach

...to train pvt. Coach says - you need to do 4 zealot drops. if you see more than 5 marines waiting, don't drop, and fall back. When you drop into scv's, put 2 zealots in mineral cluster on hold, and send two blocking exits. Then you are told how to set up the drop, what is the goal of it, and how do you determine if you succeed or fail. Then you play 2-3 games, where coach allows you to do the drop, then rolls over it, and lectures on opening and smoothing your build, sends you 10 replays to watch and agrees to watch your replays to tell you if you did it right. You admire your coach, go to ladder, and never see the situation you can use the drop in, because you forgot to ask how to read your opponent's build.

Scenario B: Average player

...watches GSL code-S finals, where MC does 4-zealot drops and ftwonwz terran. Goes to ladder to try it out, fails, and goes back to regular turtle-get 200/200-a-move

Scenario C: Advanced player

...watches GSL code-S finals, where MC does 4-zealot drops and ftwonwz terran. Looks what build T was doing, what army comp each had, what was the map control situation, upgrade and income situation, tries to figure out how was MC thinking and how he did the drop. Then goes on playing ladder till he sees a similar opportunity to try it out. Probably never sees such situation on ladder, but keeps this technique in an archive just in case.

Scenario D: MC

...has been getting ready to play that terran player for the past 3 weeks, has screened through 999 replays of that terran player, and used a drop only because he found a very narrow window of opportunity to exploit, if that terran goes XYZ build, and MC has lost no more than 2 zealots for entire game, had at least 1300 income and 7 gateways.

[Meatex]

well something I can say for PiG at least is the I forgot to ask about terran mech with the style he taught me to deal with marine tank so I gave him a message in game and he gave me an answer both on skype and in game ^^
You can definitely get to GM without coaching but its going to take you longer and its likely going to be more frustrating and there may even be times when you are just stuck and no idea what you should be doing. You look at the replay and analyze things and find that you could have been a second faster on injects, spread creep a little faster, micro units more efficiently. You might have been doing everything else right too, regular scouting and what have you but can't see any major problems that lead you to get so badly rofl stomped. Coach could help in that situation.
Coaching not for everyone but almost all who get coaching from a good teacher will come away with useful information and even more so if they identify their problem areas before they approach a coach.
I think its more than worth it as well because I'm not one of those guys that can sit in a dark room and play 100 games experimenting with a style or what have you - I would prefer to have that social interaction as part of the learning experience

[deL]

You should definitely advertise random one-off ladder wins over popular but only medium skill-level opponents in your achievements.

[Meatex]

well done del
you indelibly random irrelevant remark has given me a headache ^^

[Next_rim]

You might have been doing everything else right too, regular scouting and what have you but can't see any major problems that lead you to get so badly rofl stomped.

There are two ways this can happen - you did over 9000 little mistakes, that had a snowball effect, or you did one major mistake. If you lose, you MUST be doing something wrong. I have no doubt that coach can spot it faster. Coach is pro, and has went through same process himself, and has 100% made that same mistake.

HOWEVER, this doesn't teach you to look for mistakes. You get stuck on this one moment, and coach helps you. Then you get to next moment, but don't have experience in overcoming such a situation. What do you do? Hire coach again? Looks like good old marketing move - keep them consumers stupid and barefoot.

[Meatex]

well if coaching is not for you then so be it.
It is very useful for the majority of people and frankly I don't see a single person getting particularly good at sports without coaching - i'd like to see anyone be able to even gget to a half decent standard at tennis without coaching.
Like i've said 4 times now i believe - you can improve yourself with lots of time a diligence but frankly most normal people don't have that kind of time. I could sit down and analyze or just play 20-30 games a day but then I would lose my gf, my job, my friends and my visa.
fun times

Not to mention not everyone came to sc2 from sc1 or even an RTS background. I was an fps/rpg gamer prior to this

[Next_rim]

I wonder if coaching really saves time. Would be very cool to track a coached player and a regular player for a moths or so to see how far do they get.

Hey, coaches, go track your students, then bash forums with indisputable statistics on how much faster your students progress compared to average ladder chumps

[Meatex]

well thats not the point, different things work for different people.
Now most people will get a lot out of coaching - its just a matter of how much and whether thats worth the money to player.
Players who prefer the secluded cramming style to improving will not get as much out of it

[Next_rim]

Throwing in preference is not a well-rounded objective conclusion. Sorry, I'm a data analyst :P

Let's assume two players with equal desire to improve and at equal starting skill position. One prefers self-training, and puts time into watching own replays, reading basics, and focused ladder training. Seconds gets a coach, who directs him on what and how to improve. We have second - Meatex. Need test bunny One to compare. In addition, we need a coach in the discussion, who could share opinions on student progress, that would add some solid data. For a complete picture, we need a high-level player sharing his training experience.

What we already have is top level players sharing opinions. Slayers_Boxer has a coach, he said so in interviews many times. Team Liquid now has a starcraft house. And everyone knows about training houses in Korea. But they have it for a completely different reason I would have a coach. Basically, Boxer needs a training dummy, who would play certain (adopted) style of a particular future opponent, or crash-test Boxer's new build order from all different angles. I would separate this attitude as different from conventional coaching we are discussing here, though techniques might be the same.

[Meatex]

FXO has coach too
And sorry but data analyst or no there isn't any way to get accurate data to come to a conclusion so its moot. You cannot quantify desire, nor can you gauge a persons potential to learn and quantify that.

Not to mention that the player who gets coaching will likely also be reading guides and watching tutorials etc.

[Cosmos]

Essentially coaches nowadays are spoon feeding their students with information but not necessarily teaching their students HOW EXACTLY to improve as a player.

Yes, you can teach someone build orders, guild him through macros/micros and probably give advise on strategies and in-game thought processes. But honestly how much would these information given in short coaching sessions help a player? Maybe a little.

Starcraft is a competitive RTS game - just as excelling in any other professional field or skill, you need knowledge, experience and hardwork in the form of practice. Would a few hours of investment coaching from Warren Buffett make you a significantly better investor? No. While I acknowledge it could slightly improve your investment acumen, the real deal comes with analysis of portfolios and businesses (replays), lots of hands-on investment experiences (practice games) and through failures (losses) and reflection that one improves.

Ask any of the starcraft coaches around and I believe virtually none of them ever received any form of professional coaching. Then how did they get to their current level? You may ask. Through practice and hard work.

I still remember once sc2sea interviewed rLsEscapist when he recalled playing from bronze all to way till his current GM level. He said he practised and analysed tons of games to improve. As a fellow gm player, I too did the same. I started off downloading replays from sc2rep.com, analysing them and learning every possible build order against each race in all 3 matchups. Also paying attention to details such as scouting patterns, timing, unit compositions etc.

It would be impossible to sum up how to improve as a player. But things that I did include the following:

*Mechanics*
- Learn all basic build orders for all matchups and practise them in single player till perfection.
- Practise micro-management in maps such as unit-testers (I personally used this map for forcefield practice)
- Practise multi-tasking in maps such as multi-tasking trainer (downloaded from teamliquid forums)
- Customize your hotkeys to own personal preference. If possible, try to hotkey all production buildings.
- Execute the above in ladder games, rinse and repeat.

*Strategies and in-game decision making*
- Download replays by professional players and watch them in their perspective. Analyse their in-game decisions and execution while learning their build orders and stuff.
- Save replays of games that you lost on ladder. Watch them and find out your mistakes. Grubby once said in an interview on how to improve as a player and he said "Watch replays that you lost and never, ever lose to the same strategy/blunder again".

The above takes time, yes, and definitely coaching is like a shortcut to these as you are basically spoon fed with these information. Yet, the benefits of coaching are short-lived if you do not practise what you learnt and internalize them, not to mention coaching sessions are often insufficient to instill everything you need to know as a good player.

nGenLight became one of the best players in sea not because he's talented but he had an insane number of games. I would recommend coaching to players who do not have time to do what's necessary to improve. Then again, do not expect much improvement from coaching because how much you improve is proportional to the amount of time you invested.

Quick Comments

LennX:

In summary, I agreed with Cosmos. Time is one, if not most important, thing to a player improvement..

[Delraich]

This is a pretty interesting discussion! I'm just wondering how this may differ from studying anything that involves knowledge plus psychomotor skills. Some studies can be done via self directed learning and others by face to face teaching.

Now lets say i wanted to learn how to do CPR. Possible options could be:
Look it up online and read what i think is appropriate material and try it out/ practise what i think is right until the people stop dying

Someone informs me of a good text/ source of information to read and then I read that and keep practising until people stop dying

I get a face to face lecture on this topic that covers all the crucial bits (including what it is, when it is required, when to do something else, etc) followed by some directed reading and some practical assignments and an assessment at the end to ensure i have met the requirements to perform.

I wonder if/ how coaching could fit into this? Do you need to purchase a text book or equivilent? Are you directed to specific articles on the internet relevant to your learning requirements? How are your psychomotor skills determined, improved and tested? How are your outcomes measured (e.g. you can now perform a 4 gate in x amount of time; you can now kill x units with y amount of units)?

[Meatex]

I played a lot in my old place but was stuck in silver, i watched my replays and was 100% convinced that my inability to multi task (i'm old TT) was going to hold me back. I watched Mr Bitter coaching a gold-plat NA player one time and 1 thing he said got me from silver to plat
Now personally I have little time to play sc2 and i want to spend that time playing, not being anal over 1 thing until I get that 1 thing better and then finding the next thing to improve.
I have a job, gf, and a great many other interests and things i'm trying to learn.
I think many people are in similar boat. They may not be dedicated sc2 hardcore fans that actually believe the campaign was well done. They may want to dedicate their playing time to playing for the most part.
If i were to try the method cosmos described I would understand the game a lot better but likely still be where I am currently because I won't have been able to spend the time playing and practicing.

Its like science, some genius had to figure something out the hard way and of course you admire people like that but if I want to be a writer I don't have time to figure out how to make a lightbulb even if I was understood the basic but just had to find out which element i needed. I would simply never get to write.
You're also discounting some players are better at RTS' than others and many came from other strategy games. Most of the top players I know played broodwar or warcraft etc

I said this in my review of aLtPiG that if you know where your fault lies and can analyse and focus on improving that aspect yourself then you don't need coaching. It would help though.