[ZoomDog]

After 6 months of procrastination, I've made a New Year's resolution to get into playing SC2 competively. I have stuff all spare time, no prior 'proper' gaming experience, and my age renders my fingers brittle and my mind slow, but I'm determined to give it a shot. :P When the game first came out I googled some build orders and cheesed my way to 4/5 placement matches so I'm in Gold League, but I really don't think I belong here and expect to go down to Silver soon. (From the 9 games I've played so far I've won 3). I could probably continue to cheese my way up, but that really defeats the point.

I've wrriten a simple site at http://rtg.novaseye.com/ to track my progress if anyone's interested, kind of like a Starcraft blog. Hopefully when I'm in the Grand Master's League in 6 months and have legions of attractive girls throwing themselves at me I'll be able to look back at my rookie musings and have a chuckle. Or at the very least, it'll help my improve my game a little more.

I'm mostly aware of where I suck (everywhere :P) and what I need to work on, but if anyone has any specific advice such as things I should focus on now, it would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and ignore the ugliness of the website. I was going to put some more effort into making it prettier, but figure the time would be better spent playing games.

(Thread copied from official B.Net forums, will probably get a more serious response from here )

[Xeen]

Good luck. Just keep putting in effort and working to improve your play and you can get to diamond (for a start) in no time.

[Brultze]

Good luck . I'm sure you'll get into diamond. If I could get from bronze to diamond. I'm sure you can get from gold to diamond. And then afther that aim to get into top 200 like me

[SkyBreaker]

Congrats dude on taking SCII seriously! I'll be checking out your blog regularly, I love progressive stories! I was hoping to actually make my own sometime in the near future, was going to start when I got to diamond, but it does seem smarter having it as a progression.

The general consensus of things to improve on at the BSG level of game-play are pretty much all related to macro; constantly building workers, supply, producing constantly out of your unit-producing structures, expanding and keeping your money low. Also, reviewing your replays and picking out your own mistakes does wonders, then rectifying said issues one-by-one to plug any holes in your game-play is also a great way to improve! While the other things are equally as important, from what I've read and seen it seems learning the aforementioned mechanics are a great way to start!

The best way to look at improving in SCII is the same fundamental rule that's used in advertising... improve on one thing at a time, i.e. focus on constantly building workers and supply until you've gotten a hang of that, then move onto the next issue. It's like, if you threw five oranges at someone, they'd fumble to catch a single one; throw one orange - and they'll catch it without a doubt :>

Also, don't let those ladder nerves get the better of you, I'm pretty sure it happens to everyone! The best way I find to deal with the nerves is to not go into the game wanting to win, because if you lose, it'll hit you hard and you'll not want to queue up again... instead, go into the game thinking "I'm going to play my best, and improve in this game" - then, if you do lose, watch your replay, see where you went wrong, and make sure it doesn't happen the next game :>

If you want a sparring partner along the way, add me in-game (SkyBreaker.895) and we can hit up a few games every now and then.

EDIT: Wow, saw your same post on the battle.net SCII forums... that place definitely needs some better moderation, sc2sea.com FTW :>

[ZergGirl]

Good luck with it all, don't give up.
Sky has some nice advice so try and utilise it

I was copper (bronze) when I first started :P I was having trouble with zerg; unable to inject.. micro.. macro ahhh all so confusing.. too much so soon.

My friends said the same thing as SkyBreaker and that is to just focus on one thing until you've 'perfected' (loosely used hehe) it to the best you can, then move onto something else. For a few weeks I was told to not even watch the fights, just a-move and go back to base building. I thought it to be stupid but it worked nice enough :O

GLHF will be checking back often ^^;

[Cute]

Oh, I love stuff like this!

GLGL, I'll be sure to keep checking back.

And the thing about no gg's made me chuckle

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by ZergGirl

My friends said the same thing as SkyBreaker and that is to just focus on one thing until you've 'perfected' (loosely used hehe) it to the best you can, then move onto something else. For a few weeks I was told to not even watch the fights, just a-move and go back to base building. I thought it to be stupid but it worked nice enough :O

Just to add to this, this holds true for learning the game in all ways. Pick a single, safe/standard build for every matchup, and mass games with it. This will help you learn to execute builds smoothly, and you'll learn how to make macro transitions to handle various scenarios, as well as winning through standard play. You have to focus on the fundamentals to really make progress.

Don't change builds on a whim, because you won't learn what works and what doesn't as effectively. Don't rely on 'strategic play' to win, because even if you cheese into diamond and win games, you won't improve (save those tricks for tournaments!). Definitely don't 'excuse' losses: 'oh he cheesed, never mind' - take something away from every game, you should be treating these as freewins.

[Satu]

My advice is be persistent as heck.

Your ability to improve will be evident early on, as you'll improve more and more as you learn the game. Eventually, the speed you improve at will slow and hit a brick wall. Then, it'll slowly creep back up and hit another brick wall. Each time you hit a brick wall, just remember you're going to rise over it if you keep at it. This isn't just from my own experience, this is what happens to everyone.

On another note, be more informative in your blog for a better read. It took me some searching around to find which race you actually play as! :P

Edit: Oh, btw, I'd be interested in being a practice partner for you. Add me, Zergtastic 610. I only ever play zerg and can help a bit there, I'd love to play games with someone who really wants to get to a higher rank.

[ZoomDog]

Thanks for the support all. I'm actually doing a bit better than I thought I would, I was expecting to get knocked down to Silver right away. Or maybe the ladder system is just slow and I'll get moved soon. :P

That's all great advice SkyBreaker, cheers. I've been trying to work on two things at once so far, constantly building units and supply depots. I'm failing miserably at the supply, maybe I should just focus on that for a couple of days. (Although after tonight's games I was thinking my scouting really needs work ).

Originally Posted by ZergGirl

For a few weeks I was told to not even watch the fights, just a-move and go back to base building.

I think that might actually be an improvement for me at times, I've made a few bad micro clicks. I can just imagine my units telling me to bugger off so they can do it themselves. :P

Originally Posted by Xeen

Pick a single, safe/standard build for every matchup, and mass games with it.

That's a pretty good idea. I still look at the loading screen after a game's been found and find myself thinking 'right, what shall I do this game?' I then throw down refineries and extra barracks at hap-hazard times, and if I don't scout something obvious to counter (like mass roaches), will just pick something on a whim.

Might do a bit of research on some good builds at work tomorrow. I've currently got a sticky note on my PC with the basic build that Oxygen posted here, but I definitely need more of a goal after that.

[SkyBreaker]

Originally Posted by ZoomDog

That's all great advice SkyBreaker, cheers. I've been trying to work on two things at once so far, constantly building units and supply depots. I'm failing miserably at the supply, maybe I should just focus on that for a couple of days. (Although after tonight's games I was thinking my scouting really needs work ).

Yeah trust me, I know what you mean, I try to do the following periodically throughout each game:

1. Look at the top-right, check supply; if it's nearing cap, drop a pylon.
2. Scroll through my hot-keys (3 - Robo/Stargate, 4 - Nexus, 5 - Warp Gates) and keep my eyes on the middle bottom of the screen to ensure things are constantly being produced and my warp gates are on cool down. (N.b. I use 5 as my hot-key for my warp gates as opposed to using the default 'W' due to the fact scrolling through "3, 4, 5" is easier for me than, "W, 3, 4").
3. Check the mini-map.

Just by being on-top of and checking those three things periodically I believe could help out macro immensely.

Originally Posted by ZoomDog

I think that might actually be an improvement for me at times, I've made a few bad micro clicks. I can just imagine my units telling me to bugger off so they can do it themselves. :P

Definitely begin getting into the habit of forcing yourself to look away from certain battles that are going on. It took me 3 losses in a row to realise that the only reason I had lost each of those games was due to letting my macro slip and not reinforcing my army.

[ZoomDog]

Originally Posted by Zergtastic

On another note, be more informative in your blog for a better read. It took me some searching around to find which race you actually play as! :P

Heh, oops. What would you prefer to see in it? More detailed accounts of the games played, or a bit more put down about the flaws I see in my games? (Or both?)

Oh, btw, I'd be interested in being a practice partner for you.

Cheers for the offer. I'll probably spend the first week or two just laddering; I've got a good idea of what my main flaws are at the moment and I think just playing more games will help. Once I've smoothed those out (or hit the first 'wall'), I'll be sure you be up for some prac games.

Originally Posted by SkyBreaker

[*]Scroll through my hot-keys (3 - Robo/Stargate, 4 - Nexus, 5 - Warp Gates)

That's one thing I'm currently unsure of, my hotkey setup. At the moment I'm using 1 main army, 2 casters, 3 secondary army, 4 CC, 5 Rax, 6 Factory 7 Starport. I'm finding 6 and 7 a bit too much of a stretch though. Reckon I should just get used to it, or ditch the secondary army and start buildings from 3?

Will also need to think about what other customisations I should go for when 1.2 comes along. Definitely need to find a use for ~, and should probably get the hang of F2-4 for map locations.

[Satu]

Originally Posted by ZoomDog

Heh, oops. What would you prefer to see in it? More detailed accounts of the games played, or a bit more put down about the flaws I see in my games? (Or both?)

Well your last post wasn't actually that bad. Talk about what you're working on, if you feel you've improved and why, what strategies you like or annoy you. I'd like to see your opinion of stuff in the website, it'd probably help show your progress over time.

For example, vs protoss I used to cringe when I saw a few zealots attacking my expansion SUPER early. Now I cheer when I see it, because I know they are dead meat and that my expansion is going to survive! This causes the protoss to be just that little bit more behind in resources, which adds up over the course of the game towards an easier win. Happy days indeed. :P

[MooZfY]

Hi zoomdog we have something in common anyway gl

[Maynarde]

Last Post = Wed, 5th-Jan-2011, 6:59 PM

Epic necro!

ZoomDog's last activity was back in April 2011, suffice to say his road to glory has most likely hit that no through road sign with the white and black stripes.

[inFeZa]

Originally Posted by Maynarde

Epic necro!

ZoomDog's last activity was back in April 2011, suffice to say his road to glory has most likely hit that no through road sign with the white and black stripes.

Bringing the smackdown to the hopes and dreams of a little nerd. Ouch! D: