[Zanderax]

When I lose a game I go to the NA server where I am plat and just stare at my badge for a while. Always helps me remember that I am in fact awesome.

Custom games are also good because they give you some practice in micro, macro and unit comps while shaking things up a bit.

[maximusPrime]

It's all about the macro. I just watch my replays and make sure I'm always producing workers and always spending my money. If I'm waiting for money to produce units I watch the replay and see whether I'm building too many structures and cant support them with my current income. Same thing though you don't want to have an excess of money but cant spend it because you don't have the buildings.

I try to keep that balance correct and then I feel that I'm improving if i do get it correct. Even if I lose I'm usually happy if I can keep that balance and if you do lose then watch the replay and see where you went wrong, whether it's unit composition or micro or just being outplayed in general.

Watch old replays and then some new replays and see how your play style has changed you should be able to pick up on things you do better. If you don't see any changes you just need to pick out what you think you are doing wrong and work on improving that.

[Azure]

Nice article enjoyed the read especially liked nirvana post.
I also agree that most people are in g2 myself included.

The problem I face is that with a GF + full time work and friends it is hard to dedicate the time to be in group 1. I usually log on mass as many games as I have time for them log off and thats it until next time.

I also agree that blizzards ladder does not give you as the player much indication that your getting better or not most people sit around 50% w/l and because of bonus pool will always get higher on the ladder it makes you feel your getting better but your not.

[Next_rim]

I also agree that blizzards ladder does not give you as the player much indication that your getting better or not most people sit around 50% w/l and because of bonus pool will always get higher on the ladder it makes you feel your getting better but your not.

Same. I actually manually count my wins and losses and keep a record in excel, just so I can track my win/loss. I've also tried to keep a record of map and race matchup, but too lazy for that :P

Add: Whoa, I've been doing pretty good in the last 2 weeks :P

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spre...gLLyEwHg#gid=0

[Nofan]

I'm high plat on na and was doing pretty good with my win rate till i hit diamonds. I think i've fell to an even 50% and are vsing high plats and diamonds now.

I feel like every win i had to play really well. And alot of the tricks or gimmicks i used to do don't work anymore. Most of my losses are to one bases. And i realize that it's okay. I just need to learn how to better identify all ins.

The higher in ladder i seem to get the harder it gets. But that's expected. I just think with solid practice and determination you can progress and develop yourself. Personally I've been shying away from anyone one base play. And aiming to win once im on my 2nd or 3rd base. It's been improving my macro and apm!

[FSDarkNemesis]

Sigh..... I've yet to win any 1v1s, 2v2s and 3v3s in Season 2 in the Silver League... (gold league for 2v2)

[Melite]

Next_rim, that's an awesome way for those not in masters. To be honest, I think Blizzard should bring the loss coloumn back. Those losses motivate people too you know...

[Next_rim]

Melite,

I'm now using sc2 gears, it pulls good statistics form a replay database, very useful to track progress by map and matchup.

[PanDMonium]

So, I had been struggling to get out of silver for months now. Watching replays, playing when I can, paying for guides and coaches. Today when I played for my season 4 placement, I got demoted all the way back down to rank 75, when before I was rank 10. I'm beginning to wonder if there's not just something wrong with me as a person that is inherently incapable of being good at this game.

After 500 wins, and working on my mechanics, I can confidently say that I don't generally loose to not building enough drones. I loose to shit like phoenixes picking off all my overlords, rows of stalkers I can't kill no matter how many zerglings and upgrades I get. I've played against zergs that consistently get more shit out and have a stronger economy no matter how much I try to only build units when I scout an attack or tech switch. I die to marine spam, no matter how many fungals, or banelings, or mutas I make.

I'm not getting utterly rolled over. I'm just not winning. I don't know what to do. I feel terrible for dedicating so much time to something and never seeing any improvement. I hear that there are little kids that make it into masters league, and it makes me feel like I may be developing some kind of inferiority complex.

[neon]

Originally Posted by PanDMonium

So, I had been struggling to get out of silver for months now. Watching replays, playing when I can, paying for guides and coaches. Today when I played for my season 4 placement, I got demoted all the way back down to rank 75, when before I was rank 10. I'm beginning to wonder if there's not just something wrong with me as a person that is inherently incapable of being good at this game.

After 500 wins, and working on my mechanics, I can confidently say that I don't generally loose to not building enough drones. I loose to shit like phoenixes picking off all my overlords, rows of stalkers I can't kill no matter how many zerglings and upgrades I get. I've played against zergs that consistently get more shit out and have a stronger economy no matter how much I try to only build units when I scout an attack or tech switch. I die to marine spam, no matter how many fungals, or banelings, or mutas I make.

I'm not getting utterly rolled over. I'm just not winning. I don't know what to do. I feel terrible for dedicating so much time to something and never seeing any improvement. I hear that there are little kids that make it into masters league, and it makes me feel like I may be developing some kind of inferiority complex.

While I'm no expert myself, I believe rank is just based on how many points you accumulate, when you do your first placement, win or lose you get 0 points, so you will have no points till your next win, and you will be with all the other people doing their placement, so I would not let this worry you and keep playing.

In regards to your losses, post a replay or two and get some feedback, there are some very nice community members here who can give you tips and help analyse your play, you mention you've gotten coaching, I guess maybe try remember what you have been taught and watch the replays and ensure you are doing all of those things. (write down the things you were told are most important, then watch the replay so it's clear when you do and don't nail it, many people just say yeah I was doing it and cheat themselves!)

It's important to have fun also, so try not get too disheartened, watch your own replays and try focus on improving one or two main things and if in say 5 games time you can compare the replays and notice a visible improvement in it, take merit in that, win or lose!

Quick Comments

Nemo:

@PanDMonium : do what neon says

[JordsKeen]

Heres a small tip. Get your worst match up and ask around to builds that work or stratergies that work. Then grab a mate and play him say... 10times. Do this stratigy/ build everytime and let him try and beat it. What this does is a few things -
1. Shows you what it works against
2. Makes you refine timinings and become acustomed to doing it, eventuall you get really good ^_^
3. If you have a mate who's better than you watching game on skype he can make small comments on it to refine it. That's what I've done and and am doing... working well ^_^

[Next_rim]

Get your worst match up

That's pretty hard

Right now I have 68% PvZ winrate (down from 70%), 44% PvT (down from 45%), and 36% PvP (up from 33%). In total, I'm sporting almost perfect 50% (294-290 record).

What I've really noticed is my average apm slowly going up. It used to be 70-80, now it's steady 90+ for every match up.

[Volition]

Originally Posted by PanDMonium

After 500 wins, and working on my mechanics, I can confidently say that I don't generally loose to not building enough drones. I loose to shit like phoenixes picking off all my overlords, rows of stalkers I can't kill no matter how many zerglings and upgrades I get. I've played against zergs that consistently get more shit out and have a stronger economy no matter how much I try to only build units when I scout an attack or tech switch. I die to marine spam, no matter how many fungals, or banelings, or mutas I make.

I know where you are coming from - i also love the game and just never seem to be going anywhere. i have swapped races because i believed they are OP, and then found the problems of that race, felt that no matter how hard i worked or how much i knew opponents builds etc, i would still get pummelled and was losing more than i thought i should be.

There will always be the people that say "learn to macro blah blah blah" and not actually provide any thoughtful or useful help to you. Like other posters have said, throw up a replay if you want some tips from the boss zergs on this site. in general, i find the people on this site are much better than other sc2 forums

I know where you are coming from in relation to gauging whether you have improved or not. this thread:-
http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=2252
contains a pretty useful thread (and discussion afterwards) about measuring your macro and it provides a number. As the posters in the thread state, there are limitations in using it, and it isnt the be-all-and-end-all of determining whether you are getting better, but it is still pretty interesting stuff and able to at least provide a bit of guidance as to your ability to macro. I know that after every game now i check my resource collection rate and average unspent resources because of reading this. you can set it all up in a spreadsheet so it is super user friendly - if you need a hand doing this PM me and i will help. I think that if a person was to input say 10-20 games worth of data every two weeks, there could only be an improvement in a player's ability to macro - and if it suddenly starts to drop, you can ask yourself why, but as opposed to other times (when you feel like crap and have no idea what is happening that is causing you to lose) you have some data at least.

I found taking a break from starcraft really reignited my desire to play. these days I want to play, i dont play because i feel that if i stop i will lose skill and mechanics and play even worse. If you are still feeling the same way in a week or two weeks, and the advice from these other good people doesnt help, post up here again and I will try again.

best of luck

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

[lolwut]

Originally Posted by Xypha

Yeah, i definatly feel like im improving all of those areas, and im seeing the odd plat player being matched againts me.
i guess for me i don't tend to improve unless i'm playing someone i know is better then me, (feel like i have to step up to the plate, just motivates me more). so maybe im improving and go up in blizzards background rating so it places me againts progressively harder where i continue to win and then hit my wall where i level back out to 50%, ( well i hope thats whats happening and im just not backstepping to old spot)

If there are any Plat/Diamond players who are willing to give me a 1v1 every now and then let me know, i think that would greatly improve my play

I could play against you. lolwut/901 plat/diamond level zerg. I can play all races at platnuim level though

[zealous]

whats the diff between gold player with 100 wins with a gold player with 1500 wins?

[Maynarde]

Originally Posted by zealous

whats the diff between gold player with 100 wins with a gold player with 1500 wins?

1400 wins!

... Honestly though I'm not sure what you're asking here.

[nirvAnA]

the difference would be learning attitude, the person with 1,500 games doesn't have the right one, or probably just doesnt know any better. For e.g he probably doesn't know of sc2sea or gsl or tl or youtube VODs, forums, or anything that could improve his game. hes just cut off in his own world doing everything wrong or learning at a very slow rate.

or perhaps he was previously a portrait farmer!

[mGMUSE]

Originally Posted by PanDMonium

So, I had been struggling to get out of silver for months now. Watching replays, playing when I can, paying for guides and coaches. Today when I played for my season 4 placement, I got demoted all the way back down to rank 75, when before I was rank 10. I'm beginning to wonder if there's not just something wrong with me as a person that is inherently incapable of being good at this game.

After 500 wins, and working on my mechanics, I can confidently say that I don't generally loose to not building enough drones. I loose to shit like phoenixes picking off all my overlords, rows of stalkers I can't kill no matter how many zerglings and upgrades I get. I've played against zergs that consistently get more shit out and have a stronger economy no matter how much I try to only build units when I scout an attack or tech switch. I die to marine spam, no matter how many fungals, or banelings, or mutas I make.

I'm not getting utterly rolled over. I'm just not winning. I don't know what to do. I feel terrible for dedicating so much time to something and never seeing any improvement. I hear that there are little kids that make it into masters league, and it makes me feel like I may be developing some kind of inferiority complex.

i would like to try and help you, add me on skype mgmuse

btw for the people in lower leagues, dont give up, dont spam games either, if i used the same level of analysis(of both in-game issues and psychological issues) of my games now as i did in lower leagues i would have jumped from silver league to grandmasters in 50 games.. not kidding.

now i'm lazy to type, but it's all about learning properly

[dippa]

The dreaded skill cap.

I hit a plateau about four or so months ago around the Masters level so I bought some coaching in a bid to try and help me breach the gap. I've never been particularly good at analysis; I watch replays, but I'm poor at learning from my mistakes. On top of that, my mechanics are good up to a certain point, but my SCV production slips in fights (although my unit production has improved a little) and my army movement is non-existent.

Still, I managed to scrounge some wins here and there and after taking a week off work, I got into GM around Grandmaster. I reached about 130th, which was good, but then I went on a losing streak, which kind of pissed me off.

That streak ended up damaging my MMR to a point where I couldn't recover it until towards the end of season 4, where GM was full and I couldn't get back in anyway. I played 460 ladder games in season 4 (not including customs) - that's nearly 8 games on average a day - but I couldn't tell you where exactly I improved.

Sure, I was able to pick up some wins here and there: I got a couple of good wins in the CO's, won some games in practice against Pinder and picked off a game against Deth ( proxy rax/factory), but this was more down to their mistakes than mine if I'm being brutally honest.

I'd hit as big a brick wall as you could possibly imagine. I had no capacity to beat Zerg in a standard game, let alone how to play out a standard game in my head (despite watching replays upon replays upon replays). Protoss I felt comfortable against - thanks largely to Pinder, Light and Champi, who were happy enough to smash me repeatedly in practice - and Terran was, well, mixed; some weeks I'd have a 60-75% win ratio, other weeks it would drop to 30% or less.

Still, I'm keeping my spirits up. My record's looking GM worthy for season 5, partially thanks to a couple of people bombing their MMR and a little win streak of my own. I beat Jerry the other day, which I'm really proud of: not only because he's a decent Zerg, but because he's someone who I lost to before in the Masters Cup (a series that I thought to myself, how on earth can I possibly win) and because I used a style that was completely out of the norm for me.

I've gotten other wins, but the reason why I'm highlighting Jerry is because it's those little battles that you have to identify and target to keep yourself going. Everything isn't going to just suddenly come together. SC2 requires a long, hard slog. It's always going to be a difficult game if you're always looking to improve.

Rather than picturing a wall and breaking it down, perhaps a more apt metaphor would be to imagine climbing over the wall instead, moving up one step at a time, occasionally losing your grip on the coarse bricks before finally reaching the summit.

[iM yang]

As people on TS can confirm I often have bouts of great confusion in a certain matchup, having no idea how I am supposed to take wins off people. It just rotates around for me, used to be PvZ then PvT and now phoenix is PvP.
You just have to know what you want to learn whether it be standard TvZ or ZvP and just obsess over what you want to learn. Read teamliquid, watch stream VODs, ask people you know, bug random people who are better than you (I bug pig and glade a LOT over pvz).

What is especially helpful is if you can find somebody of your race who streams and commentates, pig is a great example. I'm constantly surprised how much I learn from Axslav's stream.

Not sure if that helps anyone but hopefully so.

Quick Comments

Eldrid:

you deserve +10 rep points just for articulating "obsess over what you want to learn" +1