|
Section 0.1: Foreword + Show Spoiler + This is a guide I essentially wrote for myself, about a month or two ago. After writing it for myself, I decided maybe some other people would get something out of it, so I rewrote it for uploading. If you find something you think is wrong, please feel to point it out (preferably without the use of ad hominem arguments ^_^). I have not used external sources, and as such all definitions are my own. I do this because definitions, even if slightly inaccurate, make things much simpler. So if you don’t like the definitions, feel free to suggest improvements but just remember they were designed with this article in mind.
Some of this guide is super simplistic, I find it gives a good grounding and makes the later sections make a lot more sense but they can probably be skipped if you find them boring (sections 1 and 2 essentially).
Section 1.1: Strategy – Who should learn it? + Show Spoiler +Everyone should learn strategy because;
You will play fun and interesting things more The more you play, the better you will get at both mechanics and strategy Learning strategy makes the game more fun and interesting, and can be very rewarding
A lot of people say to those trying to improve or get out of bronze ‘practice mechanics, just build probes and pylons then win, simple as that’; ‘just macro, that is all you need to get into diamond’; ‘bla bla bla, herp derp derp’. It’s true that you can beat a player with poor mechanics, every day of the week, without any strategy at all. Mechanics take practice; that is all. You can’t learn mechanics by reading them in a book, you just have improve them by playing the game. If you play a lot of games, your mechanics will get good. Great. Now let’s suppose you reach the stage where you can’t improve your mechanics anymore. Now you want to get better, so you have to learn strategy because you can’t just beat players with perfect mechanics by being better mechanically, you have hit your skill ceiling. The problem with this method is that you can learn strategy in parallel to mechanics with very little detriment to your mechanics, so you may as well. It is also very boring to simply practice mechanics all day long, without having the fun of developing new strategies. If something isn’t as fun, you won’t do it as much, and therefore, will not improve as much. Also, consider this, if all you do is practice mechanics, you can only beat players of lower mechanical skill than you. If you learn strategy in parallel, you can beat players of equal or slightly greater mechanical skill than you.
Also, while mechanics only change minimally over time, they fade quickly when you stop playing. Strategies fall in and out of favour, but strategy does not. If you can’t play often, your mechanics can not improve much, but your strategy can.
There is nothing more satisfying, than finding a build you have trouble with, designing a strategy to beat it, and then crushing the next person who uses that build on you. That alone, will make you play much more, and you will improve.
Section 2.1: Fundamental Ideas of Strategy + Show Spoiler + A strategy is simply a set of loose instructions that we follow to achieve a goal, or perhaps more fundamentally, a strategy is a set of smaller strategies that we can follow to achieve a goal. Given this, a strategy makes no sense without a goal. So we should define our goal clearly. For our purposes, our goal will be ‘get better at SC2’. To achieve this goal we can follow these instructions 1) Understand what strategy is 2) Improve our SC2 mechanics 3) Know our opponents (strengths/weaknesses/favoured playstyle) 4) Develop an effective in-game strategy Once again, we should note that these instructions do not need to be followed in order, and in fact, can all be executed in parallel. Section 2.2: Understand what strategy is Anything that can be called a strategy game must meet the following fundamental criteria (or at least, this is the definition that I like to use, it’s not perfect, but it is useful). 1) At least 2 characters, who both want the same goal, but only one can achieve that goal.* 2) An initial playing field that is close to balanced. 3) No optimal pathway that ensures victory regardless of the opposing characters actions (i.e. you need to either force your opponent to do something, or know what they are doing and adjust your actions accordingly, in order for something to be called a ‘strategy’. 4) A number of possible advantages to be obtained. 5) A method of achieving an advantage through skill over chance. 6) Once an advantage is gained, this should be able to be used to a. Win (i.e. kill the other player) b. Convert into another advantage c. Leverage a larger increase in said advantage 7) The maximum advantage possible should allow for an easy conversion into a win, without chance being a major factor. * + Show Spoiler +There are some exceptions when the goal is not a super limited resource. Such as money in real life, sometimes the goal is to get a lot, but fundamentally, it is getting more than everyone else. This is analogous to our division rank, but it is not so important for us in terms of our goal of improving at SC2. It is easy and accurate enough to say that the goal of our in-game strategy is to win the current game. With this in mind we can see that in SC2, we follow a set of instructions in simple form 1) Start the game 2) Gain an advantage 3) Convert or increase that advantage 4) Convert our advantages into a win So we can see that gaining an initial advantage, leveraging more advantage and then converting that into the win is fundamental to Starcraft 2. We are going to start with the following initial assumptions; which while aren’t always true, are the best way to start developing a strategy. 1) Both players have perfect mechanics and zero knowledge of their opponent beyond race 2) The initial conditions (races and starting positions) in the game are perfectly balanced (perfect balance in this context means equal opportunity to gain an advantage; equal ease to execute and gain said advantage; and equal ease of converting that advantage into a win). So starting the game is easy. Click ‘Find Match’. Now we want to gain an advantage. Section 3.1: Gaining an Advantage + Show Spoiler + To do this, we will break it up into steps; 1) Learn the possible advantages 2) Decide which advantage is the best one to get 3) Learn how to get that advantage 4) Figure out how to convert that advantage into either a larger advantage; another advantage; or a win. Section 3.2: Possible advantages There are many possible advantages in Starcraft 2. Some are easier to obtain than others, some are more successful. In fact; there are so many possible advantages in sc2, that I don’t feel comfortable saying my list is complete, but it is a nice starting point. Suffice to say, some are more important than others, and some are easier to convert into a win. A lot of these have overlapping themes, so it is hard to make a nice orderly list, but I have tried my best (i.e. cloak could be under tech or tactical etc.) So let’s list all the ones we can think of, in no specific order 1) Army a. Size b. Composition c. Mobility 2) Economy (applies to both gas and minerals) a. Total Available (number of bases) b. Rate of collection Minerals c. Production speed 3) Technology a. Upgrades b. Tech Tree Advancement 4) Tactical a. Map vision b. Expansion control c. Army Positioning (arc, on a cliff, behind a wall, surface area etc.) d. Micro e. Detection and Cloak 5) Information a. For all of the possible advantages, knowing your opponents advantage in each of these creates a mirror advantage in information. i.e. knowing your opponent has no gas, gives you an information advantage of the type Technology(3a and 3b) (this 5th type of advantage is the fundamental difference between games of perfect information and games with imperfect information i.e. chess versus starcraft) Section 3.3: Decision making – What advantage do I want? Decision making comes down to which advantage you should get, or press, given what you know.
One way to figure out what advantage you want to go for initially is to look at the games you win, and decide which advantage won it for you. Not the advantage that won at the end, because that will nearly always be army size, but the advantage that you first gained.
Example 1: I often gain an initial advantage by fast expanding as Zerg; my initial advantage is economy (available and rate of collection). If my opponent does not fast expand; his advantage is going to be army size or technology. So, in order to maintain my advantage, I need to prevent his tech or army size from being effective. From there, we work out what our opponents advantage is, and do our best to nullify it or sidestep it. Example 2: I am zerg; my opponent is Protoss. I have double upgrades while my opponent only has a single forge. If I start upgrades early, I can gain an upgrade advantage all game long. From here, it is a matter of either increasing our initial advantage, converting it into another advantage, or winning with it. There is also the possibility of maintaining your advantage while nullifying or eliminating their advantage. Some examples are given below
From Example 2: 1) Increase initial advantage: Use the upgrade advantage to execute a timing attack with the goal of killing the opponents forge while continuing your own upgrades (use this decision if I scout a forge upgrading or double forges) 2) Convert my upgrade advantage into a economic advantage by expanding , knowing that your upgraded army can protect you if your opponent attacks even if you cut army production (use this decision if your opponent is trying to gain an army size advantage) 3) Just go kill the opponent because my army is of similar size to his, but has upgrades so will kill their units faster than they will kill mine (use this decision if opponent is trying to gain an economic advantage by expanding).
Put simply, we want to gain an initial advantage in some way with our opening, and then use our scouting information to make a decision as to how we should gain further advantages. This is why keeping that scouting worker alive as long as possible is so important to top level players. If you can keep your worker alive longer than your opponent can, you already have an initial scouting advantage that you can exploit for a further advantage.
Fundamental to any strategy is to play to our strengths, while avoiding any confrontation that exploits our weaknesses. What this means in context, is we want to make our advantages count and our opponents advantages to not count and conversely, we want our weaknesses to be meaningless or hidden, and our opponents weaknesses to be exploited. So when making a decision; 1) Determine the advantage(s) we have 2) Determine the advantage(s) our opponents have 3) Determine the weakness(es) we have 4) Determine the weakness(es) our opponents have 5) Choose a course of action that will allow 1 and 4 to have the greatest determining effect, while minimizing the effects of 2 and 3.
Section 3.3: How to get an initial advantage This is relatively simple at first glance, but can become immensely complex. In fact, the method of gaining an initial advantage is often what distinguishes the greatest players. Essentially, for us newbies, if you want an economic advantage, fast expand; Army advantage, cut economy; Upgrade advantage – start them early; Tech advantage – get earlier gas. The main point is, if you get an advantage, you want to exploit it. So many games I see players get early double upgrades and start +1/+1 but then not attack as soon as the upgrades are done. If your opponent starts +1/+1 about twenty seconds after you do, your army is only stronger than his for 20 seconds after that upgrade completes, so you MUST attack then, or your advantage means nothing until 2/2 is done.
Section 3.4: Converting your advantage The key to Starcraft 2 is economy, everyone knows that or has at least heard that. But, what does this mean? If we have a better economy, we win right? Wrong! And this is a concept a lot of players have trouble with. The statement “Starcraft 2 is a game of economy” means ‘An economical advantage in Starcraft 2 is the easiest advantage to convert into another advantage’. This is not to say that an economical advantage is the easiest advantage to gain. It is also the case for the most part, that in order to convert one advantage into another, we must go through the intermediate step of converting it into an economic advantage first. The concept of converting advantages is extremely complex, due largely to the vast number of possible conversions. Given this, I will try to list some of the easiest conversions to execute, and some fundamental ideas about converting advantages in SC2. Principles 1) Converting one advantage into another usually requires an intermediate step of converting it into an economic advantage. 2) Economic advantages are the easiest to leverage into further economic advantages while not sacrificing other advantages 3) If you have an economic advantage, and an army advantage (1a,b,c ; 2a,b,c) and everything else is equal; your opponent has very little chance unless you mess up. Other advantages exhibit varying levels of dynamic play. 4) The only way to defeat an opponent that won’t quit (and for our purposes it is best to assume we are playing someone who won’t quit) is to convert an army advantage into a win. For this reason, the winner will nearly always have an army advantage at the very end of the game (base race being an exception – god damn it uniden). 5) Any advantage comes at a cost (costs include some other missed advantage, attention, in game minerals); your goal is to either make that cost not count, or to gain more from the advantage than it cost you. Examples of common advantages in SC2: I have the smaller army, but it is more mobile The faster your units are, the more map control you have, most people understand this concept, but do not understand why. One of the reasons you have map control, is because if their army leaves their base, you can attack their base, kill their workers, but still get back to your base in before their army gets there; and with your defenders advantage, you can hopefully hold off their attack. If you neglect to counter attack when you have the more mobile army, you are throwing away your advantage. There are other reasons why mobility and map control is useful, this is just one of them. I have strong units but they are immobile (i.e. siege tanks) People seem to poorly understand siege tanks for the most part. They are one of the only real ‘space controlling’ units in the game. With these you want to secure expansions and gain an economic advantage, not run them across the map to kill your opponent quickly. A few sieged tanks can control huge amounts of space allowing for safe expansion, upgrading etc. You only want to send these units into the field if you feel your opponent is overstepping his bounds i.e. if a zerg is trying to squeeze extra bases / drones in that you don’t think he can afford, try to start pushing towards his main. If he is not over-expanding or over-droning, there should be no need to push, just take bases, upgrade and sit and defend. Alternatively, you can side-step their immobility with drop ships, coupled with their long range, you can often put them in easy to defend locations that can shell the opponents base (i.e. low ground on tal darim; shakuras; a bunch of the season 3 maps). The same principles are required for defence, if you are defending and your opponent has lots of siege tanks, you want to have mobile air units to defend against any dropping of these tanks into bad locations for you, and use mobile harassing units to hit any locations that aren’t protected by tanks. Also, engaging his army at any time his tanks aren’t sieged means his cost effectiveness plummets, conversely, engaging sieged tanks requires that you are extremely far ahead economically. I started upgrades at a different time Attack as soon as they finish! As mentioned, the exact amount of time earlier you started your upgrades, is the exact window of opportunity you have to inflict damage when they finish, after each set. So attack when 1/1 finishes, when 2/2 finishes and when 3/3 finishes. Also, if you have started upgrades and your opponent has not, if you see his army move out before your upgrades finish, do whatever you can to delay engaging until those upgrades finish. A 20 food army at 1/1 versus 20 food army at 0/0 will leave you much less ahead than a 100 food army at 1/1 versus a 100food army at 0/0. Similarly, if you are behind in upgrades, make sure yours finish before you engage. If he is at 1/1 and you’re at 0/0, you want to engage before his 2/2 finishes but after your 1/1 finishes, that way, he won’t have an army for the timing window after his 2/2 finishes. There are various ways to delay engagements, one is to just send a few sacrificial units past his to make him chase them down, or to counter attack with a few just to make him turn around for those precious few seconds. Often times, sacrificing an expansion is better than engaging before your upgrades are equal. Economic advantages The world is your oyster if you are making more money than your opponent, but essentially, you just want to keep it that way and win the long game. Economic advantages stack up over time to give you an eventual win, and rarely give you a short sharp victory, you have to take small advantages from it. Start your upgrades earlier, get your tech out faster, get your infrastructure going so you can get more units out etc etc. If your opponent has an economic advantage, you need to do something to hurt his economy or step up your own. Do not try to play a long passive game against someone who has more money than you, he should win. There are many more types of advantage and this section could be a lot more in depth, but I’m going to leave that for another time.
Section 4.1: Developing a new strategy from scratch + Show Spoiler +If you want to develop a novel strategy decide which advantages you want to use and go from there. Obviously, we want to keep two things in mind at all times; 1) The map 2) The matchup The best way to figure out an advantage you can use to win is to look at the asymmetries between your race, and the race of your opponent, and figure out how to utilize these to gain an advantage. We want to play to our strengths; we want to abuse some sort of early game asymmetry to leverage an advantage for ourselves, often times, an economic advantage. We can look at various strategies that have been posted previously in the strategy forums that have done exactly this. Why not the Protoss forge fast expand build?
On maps with a small choke at your natural, forge fast expand builds are viable versus zerg. This is because a) the choke can be defended by relatively few cannons b) static defence is strong early game even if immobile c) we can wall a small choke and our opponent has only short range units to attack early game. The strength of this build is getting an economic advantage by expanding early. The weakness is a lack of units to defend. We sidestep the need for units by making static defence at a choke, knowing our opponent will not have flying units or long range units until a certain point in time, by which time our expansion will have paid off, and we will have enough units to defend. So, the strengths of this build are economy, and the weaknesses are side-stepped. There are a number of options for zerg opponents her, they can either side-step your advantage by taking a quick 3rd base, levelling the playing field again; get drop tech fast to nullify your tactical advantage at the choke; etc etc. The point here is, often two players of similar skill will often both have an early game advantage; the winner is decided by who utilizes their advantage most effectively. The only way to utilize your advantage effectively, is to truly understand what it is, what its weaknesses are, and how to side-step those weaknesses given the map and situation.
If you do want to develop a new strategy for yourself, try to really look at what you want to punish, examine the weaknesses and strengths of it, and work out a way that both punishes its weaknesses, while side-stepping its strengths. Also, don’t forget timings, if you discount a strategy because they could have some unit to counter it, check that they could actually fit that unit into their build in time to stop your damage.
Section 5.1: A word about balance + Show Spoiler +It seems clear, that the ideas presented here, if correct, present a clear method of determining imbalance in the game. 1) If strategy X is optimal at gaining an advantage in all cases regardless of scouting information, and can then be used to leverage other advantages with no weaknesses, it is imbalanced. 2) If execution is really easy for strat X, and its counter (strat_y) is really tricky to execute, you could also make an argument for imbalance.
The point I want to make with this is that if you ever lose a game and think ‘Damn, that felt imbalanced’, or you are consistently having trouble with a common build; come back and think about the game strategically.
1) When did your opponent gain an advantage? 2) How did they do it and what was it? 3) How did they leverage it to gain further advantage and eventually the win? 4) What advantages did they sacrifice/what weaknesses did they create to get those advantages 5) How could I have exploited those weaknesses to create an advantage for myself? 6) How could I have nullified or avoided their advantages?
Once you have answered these questions, you should have some idea as to how to go about refining your play to defeat that strategy, and if you do, it is one of the most satisfying feelings in the world.
Section 6.1: Afterword + Show Spoiler +Thanks for reading; I hope this helps some people. If people like this, I’ll probably write a section on the various costs of different types of advantages, the ease of conversion between them and what decisions are good given a set of advantages (i.e. 1.a. and 1.b. versus a player with 2a.2b. etc).
|
Welcome to TL and great first post! :D
You seem to know a lot more about SC2 than most ppl on the bnet forums have at least
|
Greatest first post of all time. Quite a unique helpful guide.
|
wow nice first post. reading it and actually enjoying it. the things i disagree with you on are small and it covers so much so thats impressive.
|
What is with the recent influx of "guides" that are simply a wall of text with overgeneralizations and very little concrete advice?
Sorry for being harsh but this isn't helpful at all. Try narrowing down your scope and then give specific instructions and examples.
EDIT: To all the posters who think this is good: can you explain exactly how it was helpful for you? Can we please up our standards a bit, long post with decent organization and proper usage of English does not equal good.
EDIT2: See below for a more detailed explanation of my criticism. I know this "guide" is better than most stuff that appear in the forums but I still don't think it's very useful in its current state, regardless of how fun (or not) it was to read.
|
It's at least arguable that lots of players don't really understand the general categories of strategic "advantages", and this might help them learn more about how to think about the game, conceptually. When I learned chess some of the books I read talked about these sorts of elements in terms of imbalances, but I guess it's obvious why that might not be the best term to use here
Space (positioning), Time (timing attacks), Material (composition, mobility, etc)
It's interesting at least to me that those three major elements of chess strategy map pretty obviously onto starcraft, with SC simply having the additional element of economy that doesn't exist in the same way
It's not directly practical towards immediately improving your game in some concrete way, and I suppose that's your criticism, but a little theorycrafting never hurts, right? And it might help players make the connection from "X is a specific concrete build/opener/game plan that I am stealing from some pro game" to "Y is the strategic framework which explains why X is actually good"
|
On July 20 2011 04:50 Anihc wrote: What is with the recent influx of "guides" that are simply a wall of text with overgeneralizations and very little concrete advice?
Sorry for being harsh but this isn't helpful at all. Try narrowing down your scope and then give specific instructions and examples.
EDIT: To all the posters who think this is good: can you explain exactly how it was helpful for you? Can we please up our standards a bit, long post with decent organization and proper usage of English does not equal good.
My plan is to narrow the scope and make far more specific posts at some stage. However, the way I work is to get a broad scope of a topic first, and nail down my definitions, before getting into specifics. I wrote it mostly just for myself to get my head around strategy in concrete terms, hence why I say people may want to skip the first couple of sections. But then I figured this *might* be useful for others or at least entertaining, if not, so be it, and hopefully my future posts will be more useful. Thanks for taking the time to reply anyway.
|
its helpful for me cause i like reading about starcraft and its general enough i have nothing to complain about.. its not going to help me get better tho.
|
On July 20 2011 05:03 well-named wrote: It's not directly practical towards immediately improving your game in some concrete way, and I suppose that's your criticism, but a little theorycrafting never hurts, right? And it might help players make the connection from "X is a specific concrete build/opener/game plan that I am stealing from some pro game" to "Y is the strategic framework which explains why X is actually good"
This isn't just a little theorycrafting though, this is pure theory. If the OP used a specific X (concrete build/opener/game) and then framed his discussion of Y (the "guide" in its current state) on it, then this would actually be a great post. But as it is right now it's missing that connection.
|
On July 20 2011 05:03 well-named wrote:"When I learned chess some of the books I read talked about these sorts of elements in terms of imbalances, but I guess it's obvious why that might not be the best term to use here "
I find the term 'asymmetries' far more useful when referring to sc2 ^_^
On July 20 2011 05:03 well-named wrote: it might help players make the connection from "X is a specific concrete build/opener/game plan that I am stealing from some pro game" to "Y is the strategic framework which explains why X is actually good"
That is a point I was trying to make, maybe not clearly enough, possibly I should add it in at some point. A strategy and a build order are not the same thing. Your build order affords you certain advantages, which you need to understand in order to really make the build effective. Most TL strat posts include a lot of this extra information (iechoics build etc), but when developing their own builds, a lot of people seem to ignore all this extra information and just go for some optimal build order for getting X units quickly. thanks for the input
|
On July 20 2011 05:04 Tee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2011 04:50 Anihc wrote: What is with the recent influx of "guides" that are simply a wall of text with overgeneralizations and very little concrete advice?
Sorry for being harsh but this isn't helpful at all. Try narrowing down your scope and then give specific instructions and examples.
EDIT: To all the posters who think this is good: can you explain exactly how it was helpful for you? Can we please up our standards a bit, long post with decent organization and proper usage of English does not equal good. My plan is to narrow the scope and make far more specific posts at some stage. However, the way I work is to get a broad scope of a topic first, and nail down my definitions, before getting into specifics. I wrote it mostly just for myself to get my head around strategy in concrete terms, hence why I say people may want to skip the first couple of sections. But then I figured this *might* be useful for others or at least entertaining, if not, so be it, and hopefully my future posts will be more useful. Thanks for taking the time to reply anyway.
I do agree with Anihc, yet I still would like to say that this is an intellegent post and it definatly has a place at TL, though maybe not in the strategy forum.
|
Why is the sections organized in 1.1/2.1 instead of 1/2? Is this because more content will be added? If, so it's needed. I was especially interested in the section 4.1 but could you develop your thoughts a bit further?
|
I want to thank you for the time and effort you put into this post. I for one find it a good reminder to think about the theoretical ideas of strategy. For myself, mid diamond, learning from my replays is tough as I often don't have an interest in really looking at them. Remembering to look at it with the lens of created and leveraged advantages is excellent. I also really liked your bit on balance, as people to easily claim imbalance without taking the time to establish exactly how said strategy gained and leveraged its position.
|
I disagree with Anihc, this is about preperations and the thoughts you put into the game. Day[9] talks about it specifically in one of his dailies, (this might stem from it). When preparing it is important to know what you have to think about, so that you have responses to the different things you encounter. Some people have increadible gamesense they were born with, while other people use this information to systemise the game and create this understanding. It is also important to link your builds to a general strategic direction, so that you know what to take advantage of.
These things might come naturally to you, but I bet if you put some thought into it, and spend good time, you will eventually have a much easier time translating things you see into information you can use. I think this is why Day[9] is\was such a good player, because the amount of time he puts into the strategy.
|
On July 20 2011 05:11 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2011 05:03 well-named wrote: It's not directly practical towards immediately improving your game in some concrete way, and I suppose that's your criticism, but a little theorycrafting never hurts, right? And it might help players make the connection from "X is a specific concrete build/opener/game plan that I am stealing from some pro game" to "Y is the strategic framework which explains why X is actually good" This isn't just a little theorycrafting though, this is pure theory. If the OP used a specific X (concrete build/opener/game) and then framed his discussion of Y (the "guide" in its current state) on it, then this would actually be a great post. But as it is right now it's missing that connection.
I see plenty of concrete examples in the post, speaking of FFE to gain early economic advantage by controlling a tactical choke with fewer units, using mobility with mutalisks to create a map control advantage by keeping the opponent in his base (which is usually converted to economy advantage by expanding), using upgrade advantage to create an army advantage by executing a timing attack, etc.
This post is about the method of strategy, not about specific strategies though. It doesn't have to use specific X(concrete build/opener/game) for discussion of Y(by "the "guide" in its current state" I assume you mean discussion of what, how, and why strategy and advantages in general work, if I am mistaken, correct me please). It only needs to talk about the method by which X influences Y, and how to use that efficiently( if you don't attack when you have upgrade advantage before your opponent equalizes it, you aren't using your advantage, if you don't counterattack when you have mobility, you aren't using your advantage), of which the guide does an excellent job in my opinion, with good examples, some of which I listed above showcasing the advantage held, the advantage gained, and the method by which the player is trying to convert those (build order to gain economy by positioning, composition to gain map control through mobility, tech to gain army by timing attack).
As a guide of the methodology of strategy, I find this to be extremely well put together. Many of these concepts I have read before in countless books on strategy on subjects like war, politics, chess, etc. This guide could be easily expanded into an entire book if he did speak about specifics like you want him to; if he had to go into detail on how a Banshee opening is using tech to secure a resource collection rate advantage by sniping workers or an information advantage by scouting, and had to do that for multiple builds, it would be enormous (not that it shouldn't be expanded upon, there is plenty more to be said. That however would be something better left to the subject of [G]Advantages and Strategy in SC2 Part II: Intermediate Concepts and Part III: Advanced Strategy).
Tee, Excellent excellent job on this guide. I, for one, will be looking forward to a part 2 in the future if you so wish. This is a great introduction to the concepts of strategy, which will be especially beneficial to new players to the genre(of which SC2 brought quite a few of), and still is sound enough in its discussion of strategy concepts to be useful to more advanced intermediate players as well.
I nominate this guide to be a recommended thread and even possibly spotlighted. A+, keep up the good work, I would love to see this expanded upon.
|
I would like to make a point about 3.4 though: "3) If you have an economic advantage, and an army advantage (1a,b,c ; 2a,b,c) and everything else is equal; your opponent has very little chance unless you mess up. Other advantages exhibit varying levels of dynamic play."
While it is certainly not desirable to be behind in both economy and army while being equal in other advantages, it can be offset by other advantages, most notably tech and more specifically, cloak and detection. For example:
Dark Templar and Banshee openings often leave you behind in both economy and army, but the players then leverage their tech advantage by attacking/harassing an opponent that does not have detection, containing them in their base and allowing you to expand and catch up. Occasionally if detection is too far out of reach, this can outright win the game, though more often it is used to sidestep and nullify their strengths and exploit their weakness. Their army advantage is sidestepped because they can't move out with their larger army without mobile detection, and their economy advantage is attempting to be equalized by harassing the workers by exploiting their weakness of lack of tech detection.
Although I personally count not having detection at least close enough to be made quickly as "messing up", so I still agree with the original point, but I just wanted to say that some builds sacrifice army and economy advantage, to be offset and mitigated by tech advantage.
Edit: I also want to mention 5.1 "2) If execution is really easy for strat X, and its counter (strat_y) is really tricky to execute, you could also make an argument for imbalance." This does not necessarily have to be true, but is merely an indicator. For example, a contain is relatively easier to set up compared to how difficult it is to break out of (this was more pronounced in BW but is still true). That being said, it still is a possible indicator of imbalance if a counter to a strategy is harder to execute than the strategy itself.
|
I think you guys are misunderstanding my criticism here. I don’t necessarily disagree with anything in the guide, it’s just that there is so much fluff that I have trouble figuring out how to apply it to an actual game. It’s a fun read and all but reading theory doesn’t translate to better Starcraft playing. I know that there are some examples but it’s really not enough. If you make statements 1 2 3, I expect to see multiple examples for each of those statements. Instead there are 10 statements and then 5 examples to try to cover all of them.
So here’s some concrete suggestions:
1. Narrow down your scope. Really the meat of your guide is just section 3, why not make that your entire guide? Then you can have a separate section for each of the different types of advantages you can get, and how to play out that advantage correctly to win.
2. More examples. Every time you make a proposition, back it up with evidence. What would be even better is if you used an example from a real game that demonstrated the point you were trying to make. Include links to replays, vods, etc.
3. Include analysis of actual games or build orders. This is what I mean by specific instruction or advice. For example, talk about MC’s 1 gate expand build in PvZ where he chronoes out 3 zealots. This gives him an initial army advantage which can allow him to safely scout, put pressure on the Zerg, and let him set up his own expansion, which then gives him an economic advantage. Using a specific example like that is much better than just randomly saying “oh if you have an army advantage you can then expand and translate it into an economic advantage.”
Yes I know that’s asking for a lot, but when you title your guide something really broad like “Advantages and Strategy in SC2,” you better deliver. Right now it just seems like an unfinished work from your collection of thoughts.
|
what happened to not arguing with a highlighted user?
|
I definitely do agree with most of your post Anihc. I think that section 2 is necessary though for an introduction, but section 3 is the most important one. Examples and replays would most certainly help and should definitely be added. I still believe this is good for an opening guide to cover basics, if the guide will be continued like I mentioned with future parts/updates for a more in depth look.
I do agree with all of your numbered points, narrowing of focus and more examples with analysis of real games will greatly improve the guide and is most certainly needed before this guide will be complete. However, I believe you have to start broad first to define and overview it all, and then narrow the focus on individual topics though (which is the part that needs to be expanded). Expanding on individual topics is the reason I said I was looking forward to a possible part 2 (or just expanding upon the current guide).
When I read a broad title, I expect a broad guide, and specific guides to have specific titles, not the other way around. This guide does need to go farther before it will be finished though.
|
On July 20 2011 07:36 w3jjjj wrote: what happened to not arguing with a highlighted user?
People are allowed to have differing opinions. Arguing a case with coherent and cohesive points is part of what makes up a discussion. I never fundamentally disagreed with Anihc's points, even less so with his clarifying post up. Anihc says the post is filled with some fluff and lacking in certain areas, which I agree with, but I still enjoyed the posted guide, and I can make my points why. Highlighted posters are to be respected, but you don't have to agree with them(I do agree with him). You just have to show them the respect they deserve.
|
Admirable effort but far too wordy and flowery. Tee, you must distill your thoughts into much less words. The shorter something is the more likely they are to read it. I found the amount of words didnt match the amount value in your writing. Brevity please old chap.
My thoughts on SC2 strategy:
1. SC2 is an arms race - one must strive for more units, better units and bigger economy. 2. SC2 has elements of Rock, Paper, Scissors - one must be aware of which units are the best counters for which units. For example, marines are the counter for voidrays. Banelings are the counter for mass marines. 3. SC2 games occur in different maps. You must know the terrain and where there are things to take advantage of, i.e choke points.
|
I despise when people say Starcraft has Rock Paper Scissors gameplay. The unit dynamics are not so simplistic that Unit X automatically beats Unit Y. There is almost never a situation where only 1 kind of unit is fighting 1 kind of unit. It depends on a huge number of different factors, such as army control, relative army sizes, supporting units/spells, positioning, production capacity, upgrades, etc.
The classic example would be of course, the Lurker vs Marine dynamic from BW, but for SC2 examples we can say Ghosts counter High Templar with Cloak and EMP, and High Templar counter Ghosts with Feedback and Archons (I love that these units counter each other, such an awesome dynamic).
To say it's Rock Paper Scissors is absolutely idiotic. Just because some units do better against certain units, does not mean that it is an absolute, and is inherently inaccurate because the units will almost never fight alone. Marines dropped behind a mineral line could be in such good positioning that banelings are not the "counter" to them, or have such control as to be picked up by the medivac before being hit, or be behind maruaders/tanks, or be in such small numbers as to make banelings inefficient. If I want to counter banelings with marines, I can. Just because the banelings do better against marines than other units does not mean that it is blatantly a win to build them against marines. The game is not so black and white, BioTech, it is a wide spectrum of factors and possibilities.
|
Fyrewolf
re-read my post and dont misquote me you cranky Yankee. I said there are elements of R, P, S. Elements! That means its similar too R, P, S.
I'll repeat. There are elements of Rock, Paper, Scissors in SC2 and marines are probably the best counter to void rays. And then the colossus is usually the best counter to marines. And vikings are usually the best counter to colossus. So if you scan and see your zerg enemy has some roaches then get some marauders.
I think youre on your own old chap to deny that there arent elements of R, P, S in SC2.
|
Elements of R P S is that each one of those 100% counters the other, and only 1 of them fights 1 at a time. I would deny that elements of R P S are in SC2, based on my examples of how much other factors come into play.
Being more effective against something does not mean the same thing as being R P S or even having elements of R P S. Just because some units strengths/weaknesses might be effective against other units weaknesses/strengths does not mean it has elements of R P S.
Zerglings are more mobile than marines and can use this to be more effective against them, marines can stim and do lots of dps for low cost, they can use this to be effective against them. Units can flip flop in effectiveness based on the situation and army sizes, or like ghosts and hts, counter each other. What about Stalkers vs Roaches? What if Protoss has Blink? What if Roaches have Burrow? What if Force Fields get set up? What if there is Creep underneath?
The unit dynamics just aren't even close to being like/similar to/having elements of R P S, they just aren't that simple
|
|
On July 20 2011 10:20 Fyrewolf wrote: Elements of R P S is that each one of those 100% counters the other, and only 1 of them fights 1 at a time. I would deny that elements of R P S are in SC2, based on my examples of how much other factors come into play.
Being more effective against something does not mean the same thing as being R P S or even having elements of R P S. Just because some units strengths/weaknesses might be effective against other units weaknesses/strengths does not mean it has elements of R P S.
Zerglings are more mobile than marines and can use this to be more effective against them, marines can stim and do lots of dps for low cost, they can use this to be effective against them. Units can flip flop in effectiveness based on the situation and army sizes, or like ghosts and hts, counter each other. What about Stalkers vs Roaches? What if Protoss has Blink? What if Roaches have Burrow? What if Force Fields get set up? What if there is Creep underneath?
The unit dynamics just aren't even close to being like/similar to/having elements of R P S, they just aren't that simple
Maaaate, never have I read such nonsense. You interpret things very narrowly and literally. That is YOUR interpretation old chap - not mine. I qualified my statement saying its similar to RPS, and you twist things. I'm a 1400 Diamond terran so I'm no goose at this game.
The counter to mass marauders is immortals...the counter to mass immortals is arguably mass marines...how can you argue that this is not similar to RPS. Last night I played a P who got a few colossus and a few sentries but heaps of stalkers. Naturally I got heaps of marauders. I ended up winning, mainly due to some strategic errors on his part and failing to get unit upgrades vs my 1-1 troops.
|
The thing about RPS is that from a game theory perspective, it's a very simple game. It's completely solved and the optimal strategy is simply to choose at random. To the extent that there is further strategy, it's basically just psychological, trying to anticipate whether or not ones opponent is going to choose to deviate from the optimal strategy, and if so, to choose strategy that maximally exploits his deviation.
There is something like this in the tournament metagame in starcraft. Things like choosing to cheese on a giant macro map on g1 of a BoX series, or something like that. But there's really not much of an analogy to be drawn between the relationships between units in SC2 and the relationship between rock, paper, and scissors. And not just because the units' relationships are much more complex, but also because the relationships between units are also not even that meaningful outside of the conceptual framework that makes up the strategy for the rest of the game: The map, positioning, micro, tactics, economy, and everything else.
As far as SC2 being played on different maps, that's pretty easy to generalize since the features that define maps strategically is a fairly small set: chokes, high ground, xel'naga towers, distance, and placement of expansions.
|
The unit dynamics in SC2 can include such things as: 1. Units can flip flop(multiple times) in effectiveness against other units based on the situation. (Marines perfectly split vs Banelings, This would be like if rock beat paper if scissors was played previously)
2. Units can have both strengths and weaknesses against a unit (HT+Ghost, as if paper beat rock and rock also beat paper)
3. Multiple Units fight multiple other units(This is like trying to play three way rock paper scissors, you can't always figure out who wins consistently)
Just having units be Strong or Weak to something is NOT the same thing as having elements of RPS.
Just to note, I agree with your other points, I'm just saying SC2 does not have elements of RPS. At all.
|
On July 20 2011 04:50 Anihc wrote: What is with the recent influx of "guides" that are simply a wall of text with overgeneralizations and very little concrete advice?
Sorry for being harsh but this isn't helpful at all. Try narrowing down your scope and then give specific instructions and examples.
EDIT: To all the posters who think this is good: can you explain exactly how it was helpful for you? Can we please up our standards a bit, long post with decent organization and proper usage of English does not equal good.
Wtf is your problem? Hes clearly spent a lot of time on this and It has helped me and probably a lot of other people out. Even if you think its trash why do you have to bring him down like that.
|
On July 20 2011 12:18 Helicopter- wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2011 04:50 Anihc wrote: What is with the recent influx of "guides" that are simply a wall of text with overgeneralizations and very little concrete advice?
Sorry for being harsh but this isn't helpful at all. Try narrowing down your scope and then give specific instructions and examples.
EDIT: To all the posters who think this is good: can you explain exactly how it was helpful for you? Can we please up our standards a bit, long post with decent organization and proper usage of English does not equal good. Wtf is your problem? Hes clearly spent a lot of time on this and It has helped me and probably a lot of other people out. Even if you think its trash why do you have to bring him down like that.
Show some respect Helicopter-!. He is a blue poster, not some 8 post count nobody. He even asked people to explain how it was helpful to you and you do nothing of the sort. Way to contribute. You can disagree, but show some damn respect!!
|
I almost wish there were an extra classification of posts . . . say [m] for "mentality" or something. A post like this would be a perfect example. It's true that it's light on concrete examples and X,Y,Z instructions and hews closely to theorycrafting. However, discussions on how to approach a game and the meta-considerations that guide all the actions one takes during a game are absolutely useful and should have a place here.
EDIT: My point is that I'm always on the lookout for posts attempting to help people improve their overall game sense and general understanding of why you want to do certain things. That's what the OP attempted to do and while there are legitimate flaws, it's sort of the opposite end of the spectrum from posts that are so rote and narrow as to be useless when the fluidity of a real game comes into play.
|
Great work! Please take Anihc's advice and make this even better. If this gets fleshed out a little more with examples, I will be sending all of my noobie friends here.
|
On July 20 2011 05:25 archonOOid wrote: Why is the sections organized in 1.1/2.1 instead of 1/2? Is this because more content will be added? If, so it's needed. I was especially interested in the section 4.1 but could you develop your thoughts a bit further?
Yep, the sections were made that way simply because that is the convention I have grown accustomed to writing in. I definitely plan to expand on section 4 in future.
On July 20 2011 06:29 Fyrewolf wrote: I would like to make a point about 3.4 though: "3) If you have an economic advantage, and an army advantage (1a,b,c ; 2a,b,c) and everything else is equal; your opponent has very little chance unless you mess up. Other advantages exhibit varying levels of dynamic play."
While it is certainly not desirable to be behind in both economy and army while being equal in other advantages, it can be offset by other advantages, most notably tech and more specifically, cloak and detection.
Definitely true, therefore the qualifier 'all else being equal'. I should adjust it to demonstrate that clearer. Essentially the point I'm trying to make is that once you have these two in the bag, your road to victory is clear and a loss should only result from sloppy play (assuming roughly equal tech etc). the point that you can still die to a lack of detection raises an excellent strategical idea, in that when you are ahead and both players know it, you want to buy safety, as most players will take risks (such as DTs) to come back from being behind. so detection solidifies your advantage. will definitely put that in somewhere
|
On July 20 2011 05:03 well-named wrote:
That however would be something better left to the subject of [G]Advantages and Strategy in SC2 Part II: Intermediate Concepts and Part III: Advanced Strategy).
thanks for the input, would definitely like to write those at some stage
|
On July 20 2011 07:17 Anihc wrote: I think you guys are misunderstanding my criticism here. I don’t necessarily disagree with anything in the guide, it’s just that there is so much fluff that I have trouble figuring out how to apply it to an actual game. It’s a fun read and all but reading theory doesn’t translate to better Starcraft playing. I know that there are some examples but it’s really not enough. If you make statements 1 2 3, I expect to see multiple examples for each of those statements. Instead there are 10 statements and then 5 examples to try to cover all of them.
So here’s some concrete suggestions:
1. Narrow down your scope. Really the meat of your guide is just section 3, why not make that your entire guide? Then you can have a separate section for each of the different types of advantages you can get, and how to play out that advantage correctly to win.
2. More examples. Every time you make a proposition, back it up with evidence. What would be even better is if you used an example from a real game that demonstrated the point you were trying to make. Include links to replays, vods, etc.
3. Include analysis of actual games or build orders. This is what I mean by specific instruction or advice. For example, talk about MC’s 1 gate expand build in PvZ where he chronoes out 3 zealots. This gives him an initial army advantage which can allow him to safely scout, put pressure on the Zerg, and let him set up his own expansion, which then gives him an economic advantage. Using a specific example like that is much better than just randomly saying “oh if you have an army advantage you can then expand and translate it into an economic advantage.”
Yes I know that’s asking for a lot, but when you title your guide something really broad like “Advantages and Strategy in SC2,” you better deliver. Right now it just seems like an unfinished work from your collection of thoughts.
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to read my guide and further time to write coherent constructive criticism. And you're definitely right about the fluff, sometimes I tend to be a bit verbose when I write, and I read through things a few times to try and trim them down and distill my thoughts into a coherent argument. Sections 1 and 2 could definitely be almost skipped by most players and I should definitely make an effort to make them more concise when I get the time.
point 1: I just felt that the guide would be quite bare and lack background if this was the entire guide. But you're right, the meat of the guide is here, and this is the section (along with 4) i plan on expanding rather than shrinking.
point 2: I would love to put this in, essentially time constraints were the problem. i.e. I didn't want to spend too much time writing the guide if no-one liked it anyway. But as some people seemed to have found it useful or at least an enjoyable read; I will endeavor to include links (preferably vods) in future
point 3: my response is similar to point 2; once again, you're right, that would be awesome to add in, I just didn't have time to nail down specific examples if no one cared that's a solid example though, might flesh that out and use that at some stage
It is somewhat unfinished, and I would have loved it to be perfect from the get go, but I weighed up waiting for a finished product and gauging interest.
|
Yeah people have to realize that when you lose it is probably not because of balance unless you have top Grandmasters, and even in there I doubt that is a factor at all. The Zerg vs Protoss upgrade analogy is understood but awkward, as double Evolution is by far more common than double Forge in PvZ, so theoretically Zerg can always kill Protoss with their upgrade advantage.
Except in the common losing a battle situation, in the top levels, to gain an advantage is to also open up a disadvantage in your play. As mentioned, if I want to hope to receive an advantage opening Dark Templars, my Tech and army will greatly suffer. There are common ones such as a 6 pool, and more advanced ones such as opening Blink. If you try to hide an expansion, your army will be weaker and your timing window will grow scarier and wider during the next few minutes.
Converting an advantage, as you mentioned, is actually a lot harder than it sounds. Obviously trying to aggrandize your economic advantage sounds safe and normal, but a counter "fuck it I hope this works" all in may actually kill you. If your army can still kill it while taking economic advantages, you should have saved yourself some time and just killed him instantly. Leading on to my next point, it irritates me how bad players can identify serious advantages, and try to expand instead of just straight up killing them. For example, if a Zerg Roach all-ins you and kills off about 2 Sentries and a Probe while losing all his Roaches, some players try to just stay and tech to Colossi, while a standard 6 gate timing would just finish him off. Some users may say that you cannot be sure of their army size and may lose your advantage. My main point is a SERIOUS advantage, with that you should definitely have map awareness and be alert of how large his army is.
|
The idea of "special users you cannot argue with" is pretty hilarious. I would of course address some of the inaccuracies in Anhic's criticism, but since he is one of the golden few I will bide my tongue.
As to the OP :
I had long considered the broad triumvirate of economy, tech and units but I feel like you have gotten into some excellent detail about these strategies. Their is definitely room to expand your guide, but the very core of it is excellent and portable; it is strategic understanding that goes beyond simple pro gamer copying or race specific build order.
In many ways SC 2 has improved over SC 1 for the casual gamer (something I have never considered myself, as far as SC is concerned). Because of the game mechanics, how it macros for you, 'average joes' have a chance to compete based upon strategic understanding alone.
Criticism is extremely valuable - if t is warranted. Perhaps it is a little verbose in places (intelligent people tend to ramble on) but worthwhile criticism would be pointing out specific strategical aspects he raised that were inaccurate.
|
On July 20 2011 16:18 BestZergOnEast wrote: The idea of "special users you cannot argue with" is pretty hilarious. I would of course address some of the inaccuracies in Anhic's criticism, but since he is one of the golden few I will bide my tongue.
Please share, I insist What is inaccurate in my criticism?
|
I'd love to know them. The reason I haven't posted or argued with Anihc are (In order of importance):
I don't see any inaccuracies He's right I agree with him
So I haven't posted. He's got blue posts. As I agree with him I'm sure whatever I have to say can be better represented by him.
So don't go off saying he's a special user. It doesn't matter. There are still way too many guides, usually MUCH worse than this one, in the strategy forum. Worse yet, they never last. They reach at best 10 pages then disappear, to be replaced with another.
As the good random general guide to starcraft poster said,
"Make sure to clean out your ears and brush your teeth! You never know when a clog of earwax may happen and cost you those precious seconds when the game says your workers are under attack!!"
Listen to Anihc.
|
On July 20 2011 16:33 Probe1 wrote:I'd love to know them. The reason I haven't posted or argued with Anihc are (In order of importance): I don't see any inaccuracies He's right I agree with him
So I haven't posted. He's got blue posts. As I agree with him I'm sure whatever I have to say can be better represented by him. So don't go off saying he's a special user. It doesn't matter. There are still way too many guides, usually MUCH worse than this one, in the strategy forum. Worse yet, they never last. They reach at best 10 pages then disappear, to be replaced with another. As the good random general guide to starcraft poster said, "Make sure to clean out your ears and brush your teeth! You never know when a clog of earwax may happen and cost you those precious seconds when the game says your workers are under attack!!"Listen to Anihc. I am not saying he is wrong, but I am sure you guys wouldn't be all referring to him and praising him if he wasn't a highlighted user.
|
That's why it pissed me off. Anihc has been making quality posts consistently since the moment I noticed his name. He's been here for five years. You've been here less than five months. Veteran does matter on this forum.
However the important part is- He is a quality poster. If you don't know that, you don't lurk enough.
|
"What is with the recent influx of "guides" that are simply a wall of text with overgeneralizations and very little concrete advice?"
Perhaps you could consider this true, since strategy is not concrete advice in the sense of 'go build a bunker', but then you might as well just go play counterstrike if mechanics is the be all and end all of the game.
|
I feel that a discussion with a broader scope than specific games and situations would be helpful. Some of the 'good strategy posts' could be moved to liquipedia...
|
On July 20 2011 04:50 Anihc wrote: What is with the recent influx of "guides" that are simply a wall of text with overgeneralizations and very little concrete advice?
Sorry for being harsh but this isn't helpful at all. Try narrowing down your scope and then give specific instructions and examples.
EDIT: To all the posters who think this is good: can you explain exactly how it was helpful for you? Can we please up our standards a bit, long post with decent organization and proper usage of English does not equal good.
EDIT2: See below for a more detailed explanation of my criticism. I know this "guide" is better than most stuff that appear in the forums but I still don't think it's very useful in its current state, regardless of how fun (or not) it was to read.
I think what's happening is that you're not finding what YOU'RE looking for in his post. I for one think there are several concrete examples of his theories and I hope this helps me get a better overall sense of the game. You're right It won't help me micro my banelings better against MMM but as much as that's necessary to be better so is getting better overall game sense as to when you're ahead or behind, when you have an advantage you need to exploit. High level players probably need better game sense like this just as much to help in decision making, this equals to a high standard of information to me.
And what's with the "can we please up our standards" high horse comment?
Edit: No disrespect, you're a long time quality poster and contributer to TL. in all honesty I'm not in a position to make judgement calls but only to voice my opinion.
|
I feel that while the guide won't be as useful to a newer player who is just learning the game, it is very useful for us who tries to make the leap into masters, or diamond from plat. The point is with experienced players, we already have the concrete examples and vague ideas about where their advantages lies, so that way we can convert the things we already know into concrete game directions, I think that is why quite a few people find it very useful.
|
What audience does this guide target ? After reading it, I haven't really seen anything I didn't already know. Of course, mainly everything you say is true, but how useful is it to people ? I think anyone master or above will find zero use in this guide, and every one under master league should just play more instead of theorycrafting.
I also agree with Anihc about upping the standards for TL. The increasing number of bad "guides" is making it very painful to browse TL in search of good BO for X and X. For example, I would love to read a Zealot/Archon guide in PvX but all those that already exist are of (very) poor quality.
|
On July 20 2011 15:48 Tee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2011 05:03 well-named wrote:
That however would be something better left to the subject of [G]Advantages and Strategy in SC2 Part II: Intermediate Concepts and Part III: Advanced Strategy).
thanks for the input, would definitely like to write those at some stage
You misquoted, that was me that said that, not well-named.
On July 20 2011 15:48 Tee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2011 06:29 Fyrewolf wrote: I would like to make a point about 3.4 though: "3) If you have an economic advantage, and an army advantage (1a,b,c ; 2a,b,c) and everything else is equal; your opponent has very little chance unless you mess up. Other advantages exhibit varying levels of dynamic play."
While it is certainly not desirable to be behind in both economy and army while being equal in other advantages, it can be offset by other advantages, most notably tech and more specifically, cloak and detection.
Definitely true, therefore the qualifier 'all else being equal'. I should adjust it to demonstrate that clearer. Essentially the point I'm trying to make is that once you have these two in the bag, your road to victory is clear and a loss should only result from sloppy play (assuming roughly equal tech etc). the point that you can still die to a lack of detection raises an excellent strategical idea, in that when you are ahead and both players know it, you want to buy safety, as most players will take risks (such as DTs) to come back from being behind. so detection solidifies your advantage. will definitely put that in somewhere
I did agree in the later part of that post when speaking of the all things equal part, I was merely making the point that it can be offset if you do happen to have an advantage in another area.
|
On July 20 2011 20:21 Geiko wrote: What audience does this guide target ? After reading it, I haven't really seen anything I didn't already know. Of course, mainly everything you say is true, but how useful is it to people ? I think anyone master or above will find zero use in this guide, and every one under master league should just play more instead of theorycrafting.
I also agree with Anihc about upping the standards for TL. The increasing number of bad "guides" is making it very painful to browse TL in search of good BO for X and X. For example, I would love to read a Zealot/Archon guide in PvX but all those that already exist are of (very) poor quality.
The guide, as stated in intro, was actually targeted at myself. I wrote it for fun, to nail down my thoughts into a coherent collection of ideas. I wasn't even sure how far I would go, but after writing so much, I decided maybe I would put it up here, see what people thought, who knows, it might help some people. I could have told you that you would have found very little education from the article Geiko, given the understanding you have already demonstrated in your other TL posts. I also doubt it would ever help anyone above masters (i.e. GM), but possibly low masters and below. I read nothing in the forum guidelines prohibiting articles aimed at improving players below GM / masters; but I will concede, that perhaps this post walks a fine line between what was laid out in the strat forum posting guidelines. To that end, it is up to the mods whether or not the content is worthy or not, and I would like to improve and elaborate on the post with more specific examples and actual replays, but that would also tread the same line that the OP did. It is not a build order, it is not a strategy, it is trying to understand the strategic implications at any point in the game, so that if your build order gets messed up, you don't just fall apart. It is entirely possible that this just isn't the place for posts like this, but I wanted to put it somewhere for people to read, and this is what I came up with.
As for everyone under master league playing more rather than theorycrafting, I addressed this in the introduction. I actually believe this to be a huge misconception amongst the community that people who want to get better should only practice mechanics. Mainly because that can be very boring, and there is a subset of players who would just quit if they were not allowed to theory craft and improve their strategy somewhat. The analogy, if you will permit it, is to tell scientists to learn a technique for growing cells in culture perfectly, and until they get that perfect, do not worry about learning how to design an experiment, analyze your results etc. No one would get past undergrad because the passion for science is not the passion for running through the motions of sterilizing implements over and over; the passion is in finding the answer to a question by designing an experiment. I believe the passion people feel for starcraft, is the passion for understanding the strategy, not the passion for understanding how to read numbers on a screen and press a series of keys in response. Due to this, I think lower level players should definitely spend time thinking about advantages and strategies, because it will make them play more. How many times have you thought of a new strategy / read a new strategy and gone "man... i realllly wanna get home and try that shit out". It sparks motivation to play more, and therefore increases skill by virtue of increased play. Personally, I want more players playing, and them all to get better; telling them to only focus on mechanics and forget strategy seems like a poor method to achieve that goal. Sorry for the, once again, verbose reply, and if you have any suggestions on how to improve the post, then please let me know.
|
On July 20 2011 20:21 Geiko wrote: What audience does this guide target ? After reading it, I haven't really seen anything I didn't already know. Of course, mainly everything you say is true, but how useful is it to people ? I think anyone master or above will find zero use in this guide, and every one under master league should just play more instead of theorycrafting.
I also agree with Anihc about upping the standards for TL. The increasing number of bad "guides" is making it very painful to browse TL in search of good BO for X and X. For example, I would love to read a Zealot/Archon guide in PvX but all those that already exist are of (very) poor quality.
Just because a Master/Grandmaster player will probably have a grasp on these concepts already doesn't mean that it is a bad guide, noobies are the ones that need the most help. I got good enough to beat a Class B Chess player before I actually learned a lot of important strategical concepts in chess, not everyone in SC2 knows these kinds of concepts.
|
United Kingdom35817 Posts
Yeah, the article is pretty well-written, but it could definitely go a step further.
The idea of gaining advantages made me think a little though... so many people use the builds pros use because they are good, which is fine - e.g. 3gate sentry expand vs Zerg, or a 1rax gasless expand.
Now, if people who took these builds as their own took some time to ask "what advantages is this opening giving me? How can I utilise these", "what are its weaknesses - so how can I mitigate them?" then actually they'd probably end up playing a much sounder game.
In many ways for Zerg this is much more obvious vs T/P than for other races: openings are almost always designed to give an economic advantage. So a Zerg will seek to increase this by taking a fast third etc. The weaknesses are also obvious - behind in army/tech for the time being. So a Zerg need to defend vs tech - spores or queens vs DTs/stargate, or queens/spores/roaches/sim city vs hellion/banshee. They also need to defend vs army - i.e. scouting lings to know exactly when P/T is moving out so they can build an army.
It seems the overall plan to increase advantages and mitigate disadvantages are less developed (or at least less obvious) in P/Ts case.
|
On July 20 2011 20:21 Geiko wrote: What audience does this guide target ? After reading it, I haven't really seen anything I didn't already know. Of course, mainly everything you say is true, but how useful is it to people ? I think anyone master or above will find zero use in this guide, and every one under master league should just play more instead of theorycrafting.
I also agree with Anihc about upping the standards for TL. The increasing number of bad "guides" is making it very painful to browse TL in search of good BO for X and X. For example, I would love to read a Zealot/Archon guide in PvX but all those that already exist are of (very) poor quality.
Users who have been here for a while prior to the blue post change on TL, notices and remembers all the quality posters (most ends up becoming blue-posters). The blue posts allows the newer members to recognize immediately who the quality posters are. New members should immediately notice the quality of these posts and realize the standards TL is looking for.
Off topic: Geiko, why the hell do you need a zealot/archon guide? Just keep 3-raxing =P
|
I just want to point out that a few people in here seem to have something ass-backwards. Users like Anihc don't get respect from the community because he has a blue background. He has a blue background because he's long since earned the community's respect.
And he's right on this one, in my opinion. This is truly an admirable effort, especially for a first post, but it's very long-winded and contains very little information that would lead a reader of any level to better play in SC2. I notice, by the way, that no one arguing that this isn't true has actually come forward with something they've learned from the article that they feel will make them a better player.
Compare to this post on the same subject of advantages and strategy (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=64514). It's not even limited to SC, discussing advantages and strategy in games in general, and yet it very consisely explains a large number of concepts that I can and do use to improve my in-game performance.
|
On July 20 2011 21:49 Tee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2011 20:21 Geiko wrote: What audience does this guide target ? After reading it, I haven't really seen anything I didn't already know. Of course, mainly everything you say is true, but how useful is it to people ? I think anyone master or above will find zero use in this guide, and every one under master league should just play more instead of theorycrafting.
I also agree with Anihc about upping the standards for TL. The increasing number of bad "guides" is making it very painful to browse TL in search of good BO for X and X. For example, I would love to read a Zealot/Archon guide in PvX but all those that already exist are of (very) poor quality. The guide, as stated in intro, was actually targeted at myself. I wrote it for fun, to nail down my thoughts into a coherent collection of ideas. I wasn't even sure how far I would go, but after writing so much, I decided maybe I would put it up here, see what people thought, who knows, it might help some people. I could have told you that you would have found very little education from the article Geiko, given the understanding you have already demonstrated in your other TL posts. I also doubt it would ever help anyone above masters (i.e. GM), but possibly low masters and below. I read nothing in the forum guidelines prohibiting articles aimed at improving players below GM / masters; but I will concede, that perhaps this post walks a fine line between what was laid out in the strat forum posting guidelines. To that end, it is up to the mods whether or not the content is worthy or not, and I would like to improve and elaborate on the post with more specific examples and actual replays, but that would also tread the same line that the OP did. It is not a build order, it is not a strategy, it is trying to understand the strategic implications at any point in the game, so that if your build order gets messed up, you don't just fall apart. It is entirely possible that this just isn't the place for posts like this, but I wanted to put it somewhere for people to read, and this is what I came up with. As for everyone under master league playing more rather than theorycrafting, I addressed this in the introduction. I actually believe this to be a huge misconception amongst the community that people who want to get better should only practice mechanics. Mainly because that can be very boring, and there is a subset of players who would just quit if they were not allowed to theory craft and improve their strategy somewhat. The analogy, if you will permit it, is to tell scientists to learn a technique for growing cells in culture perfectly, and until they get that perfect, do not worry about learning how to design an experiment, analyze your results etc. No one would get past undergrad because the passion for science is not the passion for running through the motions of sterilizing implements over and over; the passion is in finding the answer to a question by designing an experiment. I believe the passion people feel for starcraft, is the passion for understanding the strategy, not the passion for understanding how to read numbers on a screen and press a series of keys in response. Due to this, I think lower level players should definitely spend time thinking about advantages and strategies, because it will make them play more. How many times have you thought of a new strategy / read a new strategy and gone "man... i realllly wanna get home and try that shit out". It sparks motivation to play more, and therefore increases skill by virtue of increased play. Personally, I want more players playing, and them all to get better; telling them to only focus on mechanics and forget strategy seems like a poor method to achieve that goal. Sorry for the, once again, verbose reply, and if you have any suggestions on how to improve the post, then please let me know.
I'm sorry, I reread my original message and it comes off a bit harsh I really respect all the time you put into this post and by no means do I consider what you wrote to be bad (the last part about "bad guides" wasn't aimed at you). I was just questioning the overall orientation that the strat forum should take, in particular the G threads which in my opinion should only be very high level threads (understand : with information useful to very high level players). For example, I've worked a ton on my PvZ FFE into stargate thread but since I'm not a very high level player, I didn't think it deserved a G tag. I also hesitated a lot before putting a G to my PvP strat and put a disclaimer saying it was only a D at high levels. And it really saddens me when I see 10 posts a day with a G tag that look like they took 15 minutes to write (once again, not referring to your thread, but in general) or/and with average to low-level content.
|
Just some quick thoughts for the OP from a silver league player:
I think your focus on advantages is spot on. In my discussions with other players at my skill level, I continually see that they have not put much thought into creating advantages and recovering from a disadvantage.
Example 1: I often gain an initial advantage by fast expanding as Zerg; my initial advantage is economy (available and rate of collection). If my opponent does not fast expand; his advantage is going to be army size or technology. So, in order to maintain my advantage, I need to prevent his tech or army size from being effective. From there, we work out what our opponents advantage is, and do our best to nullify it or sidestep it.
This is absolutely great information. I still cannot convince my friend that when I defend his early one base rush, I have the advantage economically if I expanded. He simply replies he didn't macro well enough. Hence, I would really suggest finding a short replay that demonstrates the point you are trying to get across. Trust me, there are lots of players out there who need to see it not just read it. If you really want to put the time in, perhaps you and a friend could create short, clear examples in-game.
Another of my friends recently told me he lost because he didn't have enough tanks in TvT. While I did have maybe 3 extra tanks, I was a full 2 upgrades ahead on weapons and armor with my marines. They stimmed and took out his tanks with ease. Show this in a replay for Example 2!
The rest of the guide I did not find particularly helpful, but I really encourage you to refine the guide. It is far too wordy, and it doesn't convey any solid strategic information. You mentioned you wrote it for yourself, and that is how it reads. You write really well, but honestly a lot of it felt like you were trying to meet a word minimum in an essay.
If you went through each advantage from section 3 with really specific advice and replays, I think you would have one of the most vital guides for new players. It would be really awesome! Good luck and I hope you keep working on this!
|
I'm just wondering if you've read Ver's "How to Improve" PDF.
I think a lot of what you said in this Guide directly goes against what Ver was saying.
|
On July 20 2011 21:49 Tee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2011 20:21 Geiko wrote: What audience does this guide target ? After reading it, I haven't really seen anything I didn't already know. Of course, mainly everything you say is true, but how useful is it to people ? I think anyone master or above will find zero use in this guide, and every one under master league should just play more instead of theorycrafting.
I also agree with Anihc about upping the standards for TL. The increasing number of bad "guides" is making it very painful to browse TL in search of good BO for X and X. For example, I would love to read a Zealot/Archon guide in PvX but all those that already exist are of (very) poor quality. The guide, as stated in intro, was actually targeted at myself. I wrote it for fun, to nail down my thoughts into a coherent collection of ideas. I wasn't even sure how far I would go, but after writing so much, I decided maybe I would put it up here, see what people thought, who knows, it might help some people. I could have told you that you would have found very little education from the article Geiko, given the understanding you have already demonstrated in your other TL posts. I also doubt it would ever help anyone above masters (i.e. GM), but possibly low masters and below. I read nothing in the forum guidelines prohibiting articles aimed at improving players below GM / masters; but I will concede, that perhaps this post walks a fine line between what was laid out in the strat forum posting guidelines. To that end, it is up to the mods whether or not the content is worthy or not, and I would like to improve and elaborate on the post with more specific examples and actual replays, but that would also tread the same line that the OP did. It is not a build order, it is not a strategy, it is trying to understand the strategic implications at any point in the game, so that if your build order gets messed up, you don't just fall apart. It is entirely possible that this just isn't the place for posts like this, but I wanted to put it somewhere for people to read, and this is what I came up with. As for everyone under master league playing more rather than theorycrafting, I addressed this in the introduction. I actually believe this to be a huge misconception amongst the community that people who want to get better should only practice mechanics. Mainly because that can be very boring, and there is a subset of players who would just quit if they were not allowed to theory craft and improve their strategy somewhat. The analogy, if you will permit it, is to tell scientists to learn a technique for growing cells in culture perfectly, and until they get that perfect, do not worry about learning how to design an experiment, analyze your results etc. No one would get past undergrad because the passion for science is not the passion for running through the motions of sterilizing implements over and over; the passion is in finding the answer to a question by designing an experiment. I believe the passion people feel for starcraft, is the passion for understanding the strategy, not the passion for understanding how to read numbers on a screen and press a series of keys in response. Due to this, I think lower level players should definitely spend time thinking about advantages and strategies, because it will make them play more. How many times have you thought of a new strategy / read a new strategy and gone "man... i realllly wanna get home and try that shit out". It sparks motivation to play more, and therefore increases skill by virtue of increased play. Personally, I want more players playing, and them all to get better; telling them to only focus on mechanics and forget strategy seems like a poor method to achieve that goal. Sorry for the, once again, verbose reply, and if you have any suggestions on how to improve the post, then please let me know.
Why learn to run before you can walk? No one's saying to solely focus on mechanics because then we'd just tell you to play the Multitasking Trainer all day.
The reason why lower level players are encouraged emphasize their mechanics is because that's generally what's holding them back. How many times have you thought up or found out about a really cool strategy and then weren't able to implement it to its full potential because your mechanics weren't as good as they could be?
Also, your analogy is flawed. If the scientist doesn't have the basic fundamentals down pat, like how to operate a microscope, how to keep things clean, basic biology (MECHANICS) etc. then they will never be able to to do something like grow a perfect culture of cells (STRATEGY).
|
Actually a lot of times a strategy fails when you try it out the first time is not because of mechanics. It's because something goes a little bit differently than you read in the guide, and you are suddenly lost because you don't understand why you are using the strategy and what you are trying to accomplish with it.
Mechanics are what generally holds back players, true, but that's not why a strategy fails per se, it's because you didn't understand the underlying principles behind it and therefore can't deal with anything that doesn't go according to plan (like not having enough units because your macro slips up). Then you can evaluate I don't have enough units to accomplish goal x, maybe I can sneak in an extra upgrade or something to accomplish that goal. That's why Day[9] stresses having a game plan before you go into a game so that you can adjust when things don't go right and you don't feel lost.
Having good mechanics is useless if you don't know what you are trying to do with those mechanics.
|
You have probably already seen this, but here's the link to my guide on improving for reference.
I don't really want to read your post, as your forward doesn't really explain why I should it. Why would I want to read your personal notes? Your forward basically says you wrote this thing for yourself, then you say something about ad hominem which makes me think this whole thread is a bunch of pretentiousness from the OP. Not saying it is just you being pretentious, but I am saying your forward makes it look like so. Take a look at my forward. For example in my document my forward does a great job of offering something to the reader, where yours is more like "Hey I wrote this for myself, but I wanna share it and maybe you'll find it interesting" -sounds like it belongs in the blogs section.
So then I read section 1.1 and find that I disagree with every single thing you wrote. I respect your opinion as your own, but [G] threads are threads written by people that know what they are talking about. In my document I barely wrote about strategy, other than telling people to use strategies developed by professionals. I don't really see why you'd have a better understanding and ability than me on the subject since you don't give me a reason to; provide a reason as to why I should.
I won't respond directly to the content, as I heavily disagree with everything I read, but I don't have the time to argue with a bunch of opinions listed in a wall of cryptic text. But I did want to give you some advice on what I did read from a writer's and reader's standpoint.
|
On July 21 2011 03:08 Fyrewolf wrote: Actually a lot of times a strategy fails when you try it out the first time is not because of mechanics. It's because something goes a little bit differently than you read in the guide, and you are suddenly lost because you don't understand why you are using the strategy and what you are trying to accomplish with it.
Mechanics are what generally holds back players, true, but that's not why a strategy fails per se, it's because you didn't understand the underlying principles behind it and therefore can't deal with anything that doesn't go according to plan (like not having enough units because your macro slips up). Then you can evaluate I don't have enough units to accomplish goal x, maybe I can sneak in an extra upgrade or something to accomplish that goal. That's why Day[9] stresses having a game plan before you go into a game so that you can adjust when things don't go right and you don't feel lost.
Having good mechanics is useless if you don't know what you are trying to do with those mechanics.
Come on, man. You basically just proved my point there. Your macro slips (due to your mechanics not being as good as it could be), then you need to "evaluate" and "think" about proper responses in order to make up for your macro slipping. Meanwhile, while you're thinking about what you need to do to catch back up, your macro is slipping even more as you make the necessary adjustments (due to subpar mechanics).
You will NOT be able to make those "on the fly" adjustments worthwhile if your mechanics suck. You'll just continue to fall behind.
|
I think it's great the OP wrote something that helped him figure out SC2. This demonstrates that working your thoughts out in text can be a great way to learn (and it is a traditional way to learn). However I also agree that it is somewhat presumptuous, and not really helpful, to publish those thoughts in an internet forum as a general guide/philosophy on strategy. There are others.
Von Clausewitz: On War Sun Tzu: The Art of War
So in general I agree that guides like this are not really a helpful contribution to the strat forum and that the best guides tend to be much more focused on SC2 and particular races, match-ups, or problems within the game. But I think OP's heart is in the right place so let's not hate on him. I'm sure his future posts will be great.
Parenthetically even a quick perusal of Sun Tzu reveals its relevance to SC2 (discussions of reinforcing, securing space before advancing, etc.).
|
On July 21 2011 02:23 0c3LoT wrote: I'm just wondering if you've read Ver's "How to Improve" PDF.
I think a lot of what you said in this Guide directly goes against what Ver was saying.
Thanks for mentioning this. I just read through that again, and I would like to highlight some things from that article.
Probably one of the most popular questions posed by new players wanting to improve is where to focus their attention firrst, on strategy, or on mechanics. Unfortunately, this question operates from a flawed premise that mechanics and strategy (in this case meaning knowledge of the game) are separate skills that are not related. The correct answer to this is both. More specifically, your time spent improving should be a balance between theory and practice. Mechanics and game knowledge are inexorably linked together and cannot be completely separated and focused on individually. Therefore they are best worked at synergistically from two angles: 1. Theory is divided into gaining new knowledge by studying pro games as well as going over your own games to refine your play. 2. Practice is both practice against human opponents but in addition, practice in single player is invaluable to get down core skills and should be done first and frequently upon making any major strategy change.
Because Strategy is such a difficult skill to improve overall, there is no real concrete plan for improving at it beyond a certain point other than continuing to understand the game further via studying progames and comparing your own results.
Game sense is primarily built through experience and review. While having a strong theoretical back- ground will help greatly, it may not trigger the appropriate reaction in-game until the experience is there as well.
In other words, you may think you're learning a lot from reading this, but in the end is your game play going to change any? Not likely. The OP has laid out a theoretical framework, but lacks the real-game connections to utilize any of the discussed "strategy." Saying "oh well this is just a high level guide to get you thinking about strategy, it's not necessary meant to have any immediate benefits" is only an excuse to not have to validate your arguments. I'm willing to bet that if you make an effort to find concrete examples to support all your assumptions, you're going to end up having to rework or even completely reject many of them.
Honestly the reason why I'm making such a big deal out of this is because there's a ton of potential for this guide, but in its current state almost none of that potential is being realized.
|
On July 21 2011 03:09 CecilSunkure wrote:You have probably already seen this, but here's the link to my guide on improving for reference.
I think there's a pretty clear difference of intent between a guide on efficiently improving and a theoretical guide seeking to provide a high level overview of strategy in general.
That said I have only read the similar guide from BW (Ver's, as referenced earlier) and not yours, so I should do that.
I think the points that people are making about guides such as this one not having enormous and immediate practical benefit to players (whereas your guide may) is well taken, as are the complaints about standards for [G] posts. But I also think Tee's point that many people's passion for the game comes from an interest in the strategy on a theoretical level is also well taken.
Obviously I'm quite new to the TL forums so it's not for me to say what is proper and what's not in this particular subforum, especially over established and respected posters, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that such a forum could encompass both discussions that are practical (BO guides, tactics and tricks, timings, etc.) and also ones that are theoretical.
In any case, I must respectfully suggest that it seems a little wrong to me to accuse the OP of pretentiousness while at the same time refusing to even read most of the post or actually engage any of the things he says which you disagree with.
Edit: I take it back, I have read your guide, and I got something out of it, so let me say thank you...
|
On July 20 2011 07:17 Anihc wrote: I think you guys are misunderstanding my criticism here. I don’t necessarily disagree with anything in the guide, it’s just that there is so much fluff that I have trouble figuring out how to apply it to an actual game. It’s a fun read and all but reading theory doesn’t translate to better Starcraft playing. I know that there are some examples but it’s really not enough. If you make statements 1 2 3, I expect to see multiple examples for each of those statements. Instead there are 10 statements and then 5 examples to try to cover all of them.
So here’s some concrete suggestions:
1. Narrow down your scope. Really the meat of your guide is just section 3, why not make that your entire guide? Then you can have a separate section for each of the different types of advantages you can get, and how to play out that advantage correctly to win.
2. More examples. Every time you make a proposition, back it up with evidence. What would be even better is if you used an example from a real game that demonstrated the point you were trying to make. Include links to replays, vods, etc.
3. Include analysis of actual games or build orders. This is what I mean by specific instruction or advice. For example, talk about MC’s 1 gate expand build in PvZ where he chronoes out 3 zealots. This gives him an initial army advantage which can allow him to safely scout, put pressure on the Zerg, and let him set up his own expansion, which then gives him an economic advantage. Using a specific example like that is much better than just randomly saying “oh if you have an army advantage you can then expand and translate it into an economic advantage.”
Yes I know that’s asking for a lot, but when you title your guide something really broad like “Advantages and Strategy in SC2,” you better deliver. Right now it just seems like an unfinished work from your collection of thoughts.
Some people want to become blue posters. (not this thread specifically) They make a nicely formatted thread but with the insight of a platinum level player.
|
On July 21 2011 03:27 well-named wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 03:09 CecilSunkure wrote:You have probably already seen this, but here's the link to my guide on improving for reference. I think there's a pretty clear difference of intent between a guide on efficiently improving and a theoretical guide seeking to provide a high level overview of strategy in general. That said I have only read the similar guide from BW (Ver's, as referenced earlier) and not yours, so I should do that. I think the points that people are making about guides such as this one not having enormous and immediate practical benefit to players (whereas your guide may) is well taken, as are the complaints about standards for [G] posts. But I also think Tee's point that many people's passion for the game comes from an interest in the strategy on a theoretical level is also well taken. Obviously I'm quite new to the TL forums so it's not for me to say what is proper and what's not in this particular subforum, especially over established and respected posters, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that such a forum could encompass both discussions that are practical (BO guides, tactics and tricks, timings, etc.) and also ones that are theoretical. In any case, I must respectfully suggest that it seems a little wrong to me to accuse the OP of pretentiousness while at the same time refusing to even read most of the post or actually engage any of the things he says which you disagree with. I understand the concern and appreciate it, but as I said I was avoiding discussion on the content directly. This is because what mainly urked me was how the post was written, which is what most of my response was about. I even said "from a writer's and reader's standpoint", not "from a player's or strategist's standpoint".
I also feel it's important however, to say that I disagree with his points, and to say that he hasn't provided me a reason to agree with them yet, as it's important for other people reading to hear the opinion of someone they might find reliable. I do it pretty often, that is posting in a thread saying what I feel to be false or inaccurate information in hopes of preventing someone from learning something that is false.
|
On July 21 2011 03:09 CecilSunkure wrote:You have probably already seen this, but here's the link to my guide on improving for reference. I don't really want to read your post, as your forward doesn't really explain why I should it. Why would I want to read your personal notes? Your forward basically says you wrote this thing for yourself, then you say something about ad hominem which makes me think this whole thread is a bunch of pretentiousness from the OP. Not saying it is just you being pretentious, but I am saying your forward makes it look like so. Take a look at my forward. For example in my document my forward does a great job of offering something to the reader, where yours is more like "Hey I wrote this for myself, but I wanna share it and maybe you'll find it interesting". So then I read section 1.1 and find that I disagree with every single thing you wrote. I respect your opinion as your own, but [G] threads are threads written by people that know what they are talking about. In my document I barely wrote about strategy, other than telling people to use strategies developed by professionals. I don't really see why you'd have a better understanding and ability than me on the subject since you don't give me a reason to; provide a reason as to why I should. I won't respond directly to the content, as I heavily disagree with everything I read, but I don't have the time to argue with a bunch of opinions listed in a wall of cryptic text. But I did want to give you some advice on what I did read from a writer's and reader's standpoint.
Why do you disagree? And what advice are you actually giving? Is the advice that he should just leave it to the pro players and not think about strategy himself until he is on a pro team? It is very unclear what you are trying to say. And if you aren't going to read the whole post, then why do you respond? His post is the reasoning as to why you should listen to the subject; you don't read it and then ask him to provide the reasoning he already provided.
The real meat of the post is section 3, and the real introduction is section 2. I would genuinely like to hear what you disagree with. But you can't just say "This is bad" and not back it up. This sort of post is insufficient in providing any insight as to why you disagree, is insufficient in providing any advice as to how to improve it(see Anihc's 2nd post, he does a good job of explaining his position on the guide), and is insufficient in providing what you think in opposition to his post, with insufficient reasoning as to why you think this.
Whether you disagree or agree, not reading the whole post and not providing concrete contribution as to why or any coherent advice, doesn't actually help him improve it. Disagree all you want, but you need to back it up with reasoning.
|
On July 21 2011 03:37 Fyrewolf wrote:Disagree all you want, but you need to back it up with reasoning.
I already did. I stated I don't see why his opinion on the matter should be better than mine, especially since I wrote so little on it. Ver even wrote very little on it. I stated in my guide that as a learner you should almost purely imitate better players, letting them come up with the strategies. I stated this there because I was honest with my deficiencies. He stated the opposite, but provided no backup. The burden of proof is on him since he [implicitly] made the claims, not me.
|
@ OP, I really like your guide because I see good value in what you are saying. Most of the stuff comes from textbook positional chess theories. Personally I have spent good money and time to learn about the information in your post back in my chess days. Some responses in this thread have quality, others are trash. Be humble when dealing with constructive criticism, but ignore the useless junk. The way I draw the line, after using this forum for many years, is if somebody criticizes but does not offer suggestions for improvement, their comments serve little purpose, ignore; however, when someone criticizes, gives good reason, and tells you how you can improve in the future, take notes.
I agree with Anihc in that he says you tried to cover too many things in one guide without much real applications. Each of your section covers an entirely different topic that can be a full guide by itself. Section 1 you talk about strategy vs mechanics, and suggest that one should focus on both instead of pure mechanics. Section 2 you talk about having a general game plan based on achieving one/some of many types of advantages, then convert them into wins. Section 3 you talk about the different types of advantages, (I really like the point that one should not focus on purely economic advantages, too many threads right now go like "I had an economic advantage but I still lost", people need to understand a good economy is only one type of advantage that can be counter balanced by many things.) Section 4 you talk about designing game plans by creating asymmetries in the opening, a great concept that has very deep values, Section 5 you talk about how to dissect a loss by finding out what advantages your opponent had over you that made the game feel imbalanced on your part.
I've read entire books covering these topics for chess. Your guide reads like a table of contents, or an abstract at best. I see value because I've read and understood these concepts already in books, but for someone who is new to these concepts, they need more than a brief summary to take real values home. A great suggestion by Anihc in one of his earlier posts on page one is to take one of your sections and expand it to a full guide, give a lot more examples, and a lot more real game applications.
@Everyone else, while this thread lacks sufficient content, do not dismiss its concepts so readily, they are proven through the ages in chess and have great potential applications in SC2. How many times have you read "I had an army advantage and more workers but I still lost, help?" Such questions cannot be answered without watching the specific replay, and you will then realize that while the player had advantages in army size and economy, he may have lacked in upgrades, or army composition or a variety of other things. The OP's concept that the many different types of advantages need to be understood and be able to switch from one advantage to another is a very solid point that many new users are not familiar with, and for giving concepts that can help people, the guide has value.
Please offer to help the OP in expanding his guide, offer him examples of real game applications that can be added to his guide, and more importantly, offer him encouragement to make his guide better. The amount of thought and effort put into this OP is levels above most new posts currently popping up in this forum, for that, this thread has quality, only needs more guidance and support. Keep your criticisms constructive by offering ways to improve his guide. Avoid one liners such as "this guide is useless".
On July 21 2011 03:26 Anihc wrote: Honestly the reason why I'm making such a big deal out of this is because there's a ton of potential for this guide, but in its current state almost none of that potential is being realized.
This is a perfect example of what the right attitude should be when you post in this forum.
|
On July 21 2011 01:31 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2011 21:49 Tee wrote:On July 20 2011 20:21 Geiko wrote: What audience does this guide target ? After reading it, I haven't really seen anything I didn't already know. Of course, mainly everything you say is true, but how useful is it to people ? I think anyone master or above will find zero use in this guide, and every one under master league should just play more instead of theorycrafting.
I also agree with Anihc about upping the standards for TL. The increasing number of bad "guides" is making it very painful to browse TL in search of good BO for X and X. For example, I would love to read a Zealot/Archon guide in PvX but all those that already exist are of (very) poor quality. The guide, as stated in intro, was actually targeted at myself. I wrote it for fun, to nail down my thoughts into a coherent collection of ideas. I wasn't even sure how far I would go, but after writing so much, I decided maybe I would put it up here, see what people thought, who knows, it might help some people. I could have told you that you would have found very little education from the article Geiko, given the understanding you have already demonstrated in your other TL posts. I also doubt it would ever help anyone above masters (i.e. GM), but possibly low masters and below. I read nothing in the forum guidelines prohibiting articles aimed at improving players below GM / masters; but I will concede, that perhaps this post walks a fine line between what was laid out in the strat forum posting guidelines. To that end, it is up to the mods whether or not the content is worthy or not, and I would like to improve and elaborate on the post with more specific examples and actual replays, but that would also tread the same line that the OP did. It is not a build order, it is not a strategy, it is trying to understand the strategic implications at any point in the game, so that if your build order gets messed up, you don't just fall apart. It is entirely possible that this just isn't the place for posts like this, but I wanted to put it somewhere for people to read, and this is what I came up with. As for everyone under master league playing more rather than theorycrafting, I addressed this in the introduction. I actually believe this to be a huge misconception amongst the community that people who want to get better should only practice mechanics. Mainly because that can be very boring, and there is a subset of players who would just quit if they were not allowed to theory craft and improve their strategy somewhat. The analogy, if you will permit it, is to tell scientists to learn a technique for growing cells in culture perfectly, and until they get that perfect, do not worry about learning how to design an experiment, analyze your results etc. No one would get past undergrad because the passion for science is not the passion for running through the motions of sterilizing implements over and over; the passion is in finding the answer to a question by designing an experiment. I believe the passion people feel for starcraft, is the passion for understanding the strategy, not the passion for understanding how to read numbers on a screen and press a series of keys in response. Due to this, I think lower level players should definitely spend time thinking about advantages and strategies, because it will make them play more. How many times have you thought of a new strategy / read a new strategy and gone "man... i realllly wanna get home and try that shit out". It sparks motivation to play more, and therefore increases skill by virtue of increased play. Personally, I want more players playing, and them all to get better; telling them to only focus on mechanics and forget strategy seems like a poor method to achieve that goal. Sorry for the, once again, verbose reply, and if you have any suggestions on how to improve the post, then please let me know. I'm sorry, I reread my original message and it comes off a bit harsh I really respect all the time you put into this post and by no means do I consider what you wrote to be bad (the last part about "bad guides" wasn't aimed at you). I was just questioning the overall orientation that the strat forum should take, in particular the G threads which in my opinion should only be very high level threads (understand : with information useful to very high level players). For example, I've worked a ton on my PvZ FFE into stargate thread but since I'm not a very high level player, I didn't think it deserved a G tag. I also hesitated a lot before putting a G to my PvP strat and put a disclaimer saying it was only a D at high levels. And it really saddens me when I see 10 posts a day with a G tag that look like they took 15 minutes to write (once again, not referring to your thread, but in general) or/and with average to low-level content.
That's cool, I understand where you're coming from. Perhaps [G] was the incorrect tag, [D] would have been better. When it comes to the title, honestly, I wrote the post in word, and didn't think about a title until I had to put it into here, and it felt like an inaccurate title at the time, suggestions on a better title are welcomed.
|
@CecilSunkure Being a blue poster means your words hold more weight than others on the forum, but unless you provide substance in your post (your opinions, reasoning, criticisms, and advice), then there is nothing in your post to hold that weight and you aren't actually contributing. Saying "I Disagree" and not providing anything more is insufficient. His guide is about the concepts and methodology of strategy, not how to specifically create a new strategy, or about ignoring pro players' strategy entirely in favor of creating your own. Posts must also be judged on their merit, I don't know who this poster is, therefore his guide is worthless because I say so is not a valid criticism. You must back it up. Criticizing his introduction for being a bit pretentious in its wording is a valid criticism. I can't see any other coherent points in your posts.
I would genuinely like to hear what you disagree with and why. If you wanted to avoid discussion on the issue, then you shouldn't have posted in the first place. You need a complete response or you risk having a poor quality post. I would like to say though that your guide for improving is an excellent and well done one.
About Ver's words: "Because Strategy is such a difficult skill to improve overall, there is no real concrete plan for improving at it beyond a certain point other than continuing to understand the game further via studying progames and comparing your own results."
This is the kind of guide that takes you to that point. It is not the be all end all strategy guideline guide. It is an introduction to the concepts of strategy, which is a perfectly legitimate subject to learn. It's exactly the same as reading a strategy book about chess or any other strategical endeavor. You can learn quite a bit from it, but experience in application ends up being the final master. That doesn't mean that the information was worthless though. This same argument could be applied to say we shouldn't read the linked guide on how to improve, because we can only really learn by playing.
That's why a clarifier like "beyond a certain point" is there, the point Ver made was that the Game of SC2 is the Instructor of its strategy, and therefore the ultimate place to go learn about strategy is playing it. The game could teach these same concepts of strategy to the players, but that doesn't mean an organized introduction to these concepts isn't beneficial for the players. These concepts can be so subtle, that it takes many many many games before the realization might be reached that an accumulation of small advantages for conversion to a win is the nature of a strategical game. Sun Tzu wrote "The Art of War", but should we refuse to read it and instead use our own experience in war as our teacher? No, the point is that you can learn about the concepts from anywhere, but can only advance beyond them after we study their applications through experience.
@Tee I very much hope you aren't discouraged and do continue this guide with examples and hopefully VODs as you mentioned. Even though the ultimate teacher is our own experience, studying how already experienced players apply these concepts in their games is a more than valid field to analyze and can supplement our own experience for learning. Keep up the good work.
|
On July 21 2011 05:31 Fyrewolf wrote: I would genuinely like to hear what you disagree with and why. If you wanted to avoid discussion on the issue, then you shouldn't have posted in the first place.
On July 21 2011 03:40 CecilSunkure wrote: I stated I don't see why his opinion on the matter should be better than mine, especially since I wrote so little on it.
On July 21 2011 03:40 CecilSunkure wrote: I stated this there because I was honest with my deficiencies. I know I don't understand strategies much beyond copying better players. So, like I keep saying, he needs to detail why his opinions hold value. He can say whatever he wants, but it isn't worth reading unless I know it's true.
I can't actually argue about the specifics of what he said if I'm saying I don't really feel qualified to make those calls. Also, since there's not really an authority on the topic the content is very subjective to interpretation which makes arguing about it like a death trap. So instead I just say he's not showing how his opinions qualified ones.
Basically I know people are going to read threads like this and end up wasting their time. Time will be wasted trying to either apply what is read here, or take lessons learned into games that weren't proper lessons to learn. Posts like this also give people a poor mindset on how to improve. Anihc detailed why this is pretty well.
|
On July 21 2011 05:45 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 05:31 Fyrewolf wrote: I would genuinely like to hear what you disagree with and why. If you wanted to avoid discussion on the issue, then you shouldn't have posted in the first place. Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 03:40 CecilSunkure wrote: I stated I don't see why his opinion on the matter should be better than mine, especially since I wrote so little on it. Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 03:40 CecilSunkure wrote: I stated this there because I was honest with my deficiencies. I know I don't understand strategies much beyond copying better players. So, like I keep saying, he needs to detail why his opinions hold value. He can say whatever he wants, but it isn't worth reading unless I know it's true. I can't actually argue about the specifics of what he said if I'm saying I don't really feel qualified to make those calls. Also, since there's not really an authority on the topic the content is very subjective to interpretation which makes arguing about it like a death trap. So instead I just say he's not showing how his opinions qualified ones. Basically I know people are going to read threads like this and end up wasting their time. Time will be wasted trying to either apply what is read here, or take lessons learned into games that weren't proper lessons to learn. Posts like this also give people a poor mindset on how to improve. Anihc detailed why this is pretty well.
You need to detail why his opinions don't hold value, with coherent reasoning. I repeat "I don't know who this poster is therefore he is not qualified/his guide sucks" is not a valid criticism. "I Disagree" with no reasoning behind it is not a valid criticism. "It isn't worth reading unless I know it's true" is basically saying his guide is not worth reading because he does not have a blue background too, and not a valid criticism. You must judge the post on its merits, not by its poster, and base actual criticisms on the post. If you do not discuss the opinions in the post and why you think they don't hold value, your post has no substance. If you aren't qualified to make those calls, then how are you qualified to dismiss them? You need to explain why the lessons aren't proper lessons, or a waste of time, or explain what a proper mindset on how to improve actually is (If that were the issue, which it is not the subject of his guide, so it is irrelevant). If you aren't the right person to do this, find another respected poster on teamliquid who is qualified and ask him to argue your case.
I have read these concepts before in countless strategy books on various subjects, so I already know they are true. For some online resource pertaining to Starcraft, here are two online articles I think have relevance as to why gaining advantage is important in Starcraft because of slippery slope mechanics and converting advantages. http://www.sirlin.net/articles/slippery-slope-and-perpetual-comeback.html http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2009/1/30/uc-berkeley-starcraft-class-week-1.html
If you are going to disagree You. Have. To. Back. It. Up.
|
For those not familar with the concept, "Slippery slope" is a key factor in most strategy games, especially Starcraft. That's why Artosis says "When you're ahead, get more ahead". Slippery slope is the idea that once you lose some advantage, you also lose some of your capability to gain advantages. It gets more and more difficult to catch up the farther behind that you are, because you are more and more limited in what you can actually do.
If you lose a piece in chess, you suddenly have lost power to affect and control space, and have a smaller army to attack with. The more pieces you lose, the less power you have, and eventually it is almost impossible to come back because you simply do not have the power to.
That is why the accumulation of advantages is so important, because once you are behind, you will fall more behind easily, and when you are ahead, you can get more ahead easier.
|
Not a single person would say the idea in the OP is bad inself. Just like no one would say that a [G] thread that said the goal of the game is to win and everything you do in game should be about inning.
What this thread lacks is application. It really fails as Aguirre in this current form because you cannot do anything through defined and provided step by step process.
This is basically a [D] thread and not a [G] in its current form.
I don't those of you that are insulting those that have criticism of this guide. I tend to think it is through some hidden agenda to suggest that strategy is more important than mechanics. I don't know maybe that's wrong.
Regaurdless, it should be simple to see this guide guides you to nothing.
|
On July 21 2011 06:10 Fyrewolf wrote: You. Have. To. Back. It. Up. Not if I disagree with his sources, or qualifications, rather than the content. You're just shifting the burden of proof unfairly on me.
|
On July 21 2011 06:26 CecilSunkure wrote:Not if I disagree with his sources, or qualifications, rather than the content. You're just shifting the burden of proof unfairly on me. This is true. If some brings forth an idea and the community says ok and the proof is?
Then he idea brnger should suplly the proof.
|
On July 21 2011 05:45 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 05:31 Fyrewolf wrote: I would genuinely like to hear what you disagree with and why. If you wanted to avoid discussion on the issue, then you shouldn't have posted in the first place. Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 03:40 CecilSunkure wrote: I stated I don't see why his opinion on the matter should be better than mine, especially since I wrote so little on it. Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 03:40 CecilSunkure wrote: I stated this there because I was honest with my deficiencies. I know I don't understand strategies much beyond copying better players. So, like I keep saying, he needs to detail why his opinions hold value. He can say whatever he wants, but it isn't worth reading unless I know it's true. I can't actually argue about the specifics of what he said if I'm saying I don't really feel qualified to make those calls. Also, since there's not really an authority on the topic the content is very subjective to interpretation which makes arguing about it like a death trap. So instead I just say he's not showing how his opinions qualified ones. Basically I know people are going to read threads like this and end up wasting their time. Time will be wasted trying to either apply what is read here, or take lessons learned into games that weren't proper lessons to learn. Posts like this also give people a poor mindset on how to improve. Anihc detailed why this is pretty well.
I think I understand what you are saying, in so much as my opening statement is not strong, and I understand the concept behind a strong opening statement when writing, but until I have improved the article a lot more, I won’t add a strong opening statement. The foreword is there as a disclaimer essentially to state that it is a work in progress. And it is not as much focused toward strategy development as it is to recognizing the advantages you and your opponent possess given your chosen strategy, and how to go about using that knowledge for better decision making.
As to why you should read the rest of the post, it’s unlikely to teach you anything; but I would really appreciate it if you would read it and give me feedback so I can make it better as I’m sure you would have some very insightful improvements to make.
As to backing up my claims or proving to you that I’m worth listening to, I’m unsure as to how you wish me to do that if you won’t read past the first 2 sections, but hopefully I’ll be able to in time by improving the article.
|
On July 21 2011 06:33 Tee wrote: As to backing up my claims or proving to you that I’m worth listening to, I’m unsure as to how you wish me to do that if you won’t read past the first 2 sections, but hopefully I’ll be able to in time by improving the article. Just state why what you said is accurate. Basically talk about how you know what you know, and your qualifications. As of now what you wrote is just a list of your opinions.
|
On July 21 2011 03:26 Anihc wrote: Honestly the reason why I'm making such a big deal out of this is because there's a ton of potential for this guide, but in its current state almost none of that potential is being realized.
thanks, I'll take what you have said on board and try to rework it based on your suggestions (and others), hopefully it will live up to the potential. I had no one to bounce ideas off when writing this, but posting it has given me some good direction, so that's at least something that has come from it
|
I'm not shifting the burden of proof. The mere fact that Starcraft has a Slippery Slope is proof of the need to accumulate advantages. The entire history of strategical thought is against you. You have yet to make a post of substance with a single valid criticism. "I Disagree" is not a valid criticism. You need to contribute, not just make unverifiable statements that amount to "Because I said so". You won't listen because of your own thickheadedness and have refused to even speak about the post for discussion.
I've provided coherent arguments, I've quoted Artosis, I've linked to professional game balancers. Do I need to go digging around for strategy books online to provide more proof? So far you have provided nothing in the way of reasoned discussion about this. If you aren't going to make a post of substance or contribute, then don't post. It's not about burden of proof, it's about having a coherent and cohesive case for your side. You have been found lacking. I have criticisms about the guide too. However I have seen more than sufficient evidence arguing for the accumulation of advantages being a key factor in Strategy, and you have provided insufficient evidence to the contrary.
Edit: Yes, CecilSunkure, I am calling you out for making poor quality posts in this thread that don't actually contribute anything. I am more than willing to hear your arguments for your side, but this means you actually have to provide those arguments. Discussion is a two way street.
|
On July 21 2011 06:56 Fyrewolf wrote: I'm not shifting the burden of proof. The mere fact that Starcraft has a Slippery Slope is proof of the need to accumulate advantages. The entire history of strategical thought is against you. You have yet to make a post of substance with a single valid criticism. "I Disagree" is not a valid criticism. You need to contribute, not just make unverifiable statements that amount to "Because I said so". You won't listen because of your own thickheadedness and have refused to even speak about the post for discussion.
I've provided coherent arguments, I've quoted Artosis, I've linked to professional game balancers. Do I need to go digging around for strategy books online to provide more proof? So far you have provided nothing in the way of reasoned discussion about this. If you aren't going to make a post of substance or contribute, then don't post. It's not about burden of proof, it's about having a coherent and cohesive case for your side. You have been found lacking. I have criticisms about the guide too. However I have seen more than sufficient evidence arguing for the accumulation of advantages being a key factor in Strategy, and you have provided insufficient evidence to the contrary. You want evidence? Okay. Here it goes. Here is my coherent reasoning with cited sources:
OP, you provided no qualifications to back your claims, and never explained how you know what you know. I cannot myself argue against the content because I myself don't really feel sufficient, so for now I'm considering your content inaccurate due to the lack of sources/qualifications and clear applications to play.*
*Source
|
On July 21 2011 07:12 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 06:56 Fyrewolf wrote: I'm not shifting the burden of proof. The mere fact that Starcraft has a Slippery Slope is proof of the need to accumulate advantages. The entire history of strategical thought is against you. You have yet to make a post of substance with a single valid criticism. "I Disagree" is not a valid criticism. You need to contribute, not just make unverifiable statements that amount to "Because I said so". You won't listen because of your own thickheadedness and have refused to even speak about the post for discussion.
I've provided coherent arguments, I've quoted Artosis, I've linked to professional game balancers. Do I need to go digging around for strategy books online to provide more proof? So far you have provided nothing in the way of reasoned discussion about this. If you aren't going to make a post of substance or contribute, then don't post. It's not about burden of proof, it's about having a coherent and cohesive case for your side. You have been found lacking. I have criticisms about the guide too. However I have seen more than sufficient evidence arguing for the accumulation of advantages being a key factor in Strategy, and you have provided insufficient evidence to the contrary. You want evidence? Okay. Here it goes. Here is my coherent reasoning with cited sources: OP, you provided no qualifications to back your claims, and never explained how you know what you know. I cannot myself argue against the content because I myself don't really feel sufficient, so for now I'm considering your content inaccurate due to the lack of sources/qualifications and clear applications to play.* * Source
I don't respect your highlighted status anymore.
|
What Cecil is saying is kind of mean, but true.
The reason replays are always required in this forum is because no amount of theorycrafting will ever compensate for lack of in game experience, and the replays serve as evidence for those that don't agree with the thread content.
When you are making a pure strategy post without showing any ingame applications, we can just either believe you, or not. When we don't who you are, where you got your game knowledge etc... we have no reason to believe you.
The same thing applies IRL, when you publish a scientific paper, you can either -provide some experiment results and detailed experimentation protocols -have some damn good credential and/or sources.
Also, as IRL, when you post a strategy thread here, people will judge whether they are interested in the thread or not from the first paragraph. This is usually where you put your credentials, etc...
What cecil is saying is that if he has no reason to believe you, and your introduction doesn't provide proof that your thread is well documented, he won't read it because there is no way to know if the content is correct or not.
If you want to improve on this, i would suggest improving the introduction, defining clearly what you aim to do and how you know what you are talking about. What people should expect from this guide etc...
|
On July 21 2011 07:12 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 06:56 Fyrewolf wrote: I'm not shifting the burden of proof. The mere fact that Starcraft has a Slippery Slope is proof of the need to accumulate advantages. The entire history of strategical thought is against you. You have yet to make a post of substance with a single valid criticism. "I Disagree" is not a valid criticism. You need to contribute, not just make unverifiable statements that amount to "Because I said so". You won't listen because of your own thickheadedness and have refused to even speak about the post for discussion.
I've provided coherent arguments, I've quoted Artosis, I've linked to professional game balancers. Do I need to go digging around for strategy books online to provide more proof? So far you have provided nothing in the way of reasoned discussion about this. If you aren't going to make a post of substance or contribute, then don't post. It's not about burden of proof, it's about having a coherent and cohesive case for your side. You have been found lacking. I have criticisms about the guide too. However I have seen more than sufficient evidence arguing for the accumulation of advantages being a key factor in Strategy, and you have provided insufficient evidence to the contrary. You want evidence? Okay. Here it goes. Here is my coherent reasoning with cited sources: OP, you provided no qualifications to back your claims, and never explained how you know what you know. I cannot myself argue against the content because I myself don't really feel sufficient, so for now I'm considering your content inaccurate due to the lack of sources/qualifications and clear applications to play.* * Source
So you are playing the unqualified card again? Why are you posting if you can't contribute?
"The master should not look for winning combinations, unless he believed, unless he could prove to himself that he held the advantage." "An advantage could consist ... not only in a single important advantage but also in a multitude of insignificant advantages." "Therefore... in the beginning of the game ignore the search for violent combinations, abstain from violent moves, aim for small advantages, accumulate them, and only after having attained these ends search for the combination - and then with all the power of will and intellect, because then the combination must exist, however deeply hidden." -- Em. Lasker, Manual of Chess, Book IV
"My objection to the "Tactics, tactics, tactics" school of thought is not to say that tactics are not important or that most games are not decided by tactical blows. Indeed, what is often at fault in the game of the club player is a failure to check for their opponent's opportunities in reply.... Seizing the initiative, going for an attack, and having an eye for random chances are probably at least as important as positional judgement in club play. But I would still not wish to call for one type of study as being important - in particular, not for tactics being more important than strategy." - Purdy
“Therefore the intelligent General contemplates both the advantages and disadvantages. Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations. Contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.”
--Sun Tzu “The Art of War”
"The task of the positional player is systematically to accumulate slight advantages and try to convert temporary advantages into permanent ones, otherwise the player with the better position runs the risk of losing it."
--Steinitz
|
On July 21 2011 07:29 Fyrewolf wrote: So you are playing the unqualified card again? Why are you posting if you can't contribute? Just because I cannot contribute in the way you want doesn't mean I cannot.
|
On July 21 2011 07:31 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 07:29 Fyrewolf wrote: So you are playing the unqualified card again? Why are you posting if you can't contribute? Just because I cannot contribute in the way you want doesn't mean I cannot.
What have you contributed?
|
He has contributed the stance that this is a pure theory craft thread in the guise of a [g] and that it needs some kind of proof in any form for it to have any ability to stand on its on.
|
On July 21 2011 07:34 vaderseven wrote: He has contributed the stance that this is a pure theory craft thread in the guise of a [g] and that it needs some kind of proof in any form for it to have any ability to stand on its on.
And the entire history of strategical thought and theory is proving him wrong. His post quality has gone severely downhill from the start of this thread, and considering it started out incoherent and without substance, that's saying a lot.
“Therefore the intelligent General contemplates both the advantages and disadvantages. Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations. Contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.”
--Sun Tzu “The Art of War”
|
On July 21 2011 07:37 Fyrewolf wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 07:34 vaderseven wrote: He has contributed the stance that this is a pure theory craft thread in the guise of a [g] and that it needs some kind of proof in any form for it to have any ability to stand on its on. And the entire history of strategical thought and theory is proving him wrong. His post quality has gone severely downhill from the start of this thread, and considering it started out incoherent and without substance, that's saying a lot. “Therefore the intelligent General contemplates both the advantages and disadvantages. Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations. Contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.” --Sun Tzu “The Art of War” You forgot to respond to my part about clear applications to play, and the part about there being no qualifications stated, implicitly or not, as well as the part about explaining how he knows what he knows.
|
I feel like a certain amount of "evidence" for the ideas in the OP is available just through a very simple process of logical deduction from the bare elements of the gameplay in SC2. The terrain elements in maps, the way economy works, and supply, and the common attribute framework that all the units share. Certainly as evidence you could also refer to things many SC2 teachers or casters talk about when they explain game plans and the ideas behind builds. Certainly Day9 has referenced similar ideas on many occasions in his casts.
At the same time, having re-read the strategy forum guidelines, it does seem clear that this OP doesn't really fit the model for a [G] thread, and doesn't really fit the paradigm of this sub-forum as a whole, which is definitely more geared towards the practical and concrete. However I do think it's a bit of a mistake to think that focus is solely a matter of the practical and concrete being better or more important (it can be, depending on context) but I think it's also just a question of what makes the forum the most readable and useful for the majority of posters. The stringent requirements for providing evidence, replays, and concrete examples helps to keep the noise and balance whines down.
Anyway, it's sort of unfortunate (imo) that this discussion has basically only revolved around whether or not the OP meets the forum criteria or is useful, and less on the actual ideas it contains, but maybe it would better be posted elsewhere as a general discussion thread, rather than a strategy guide. Although I also agree the real benefit from trying to think about the ideas in the OP only comes from figuring out how to apply them in practical play, and it seems reasonable that perhaps some specific application of a specific idea (e.g. turning a positioning advantage into an economic advantage in TvZ) could be the basis for a [G] thread.
|
O dear god. Can a mod just close all these useless "guides" which have been coming out recently? At least take them out of strategy and into general.
|
On July 21 2011 07:37 Fyrewolf wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 07:34 vaderseven wrote: He has contributed the stance that this is a pure theory craft thread in the guise of a [g] and that it needs some kind of proof in any form for it to have any ability to stand on its on. And the entire history of strategical thought and theory is proving him wrong. His post quality has gone severely downhill from the start of this thread, and considering it started out incoherent and without substance, that's saying a lot. “Therefore the intelligent General contemplates both the advantages and disadvantages. Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations. Contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.” --Sun Tzu “The Art of War”
See, the problem with this is that majority of the history of strategical thought was thought up and created by strategists who had no place in actually executing the strategies they came up with (i.e. they needed no "mechanical" skill).
StarCraft is a game where the strategist IS the sole executor (and the execution requires lots of "mechnical" skill). Thus, an entirely new paradigm is created from this shift.
Secondly, it seems to me like t/s created this guide in a vacuum - without consulting the various sources on strategy, mechanics, improving, advantages, etc that are out there specifically made for SC2. The problem is when you do that, you can (and most likely will) miss or completely go against certain fundamental concepts that are widely agreed upon.
|
On July 21 2011 07:45 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 07:37 Fyrewolf wrote:On July 21 2011 07:34 vaderseven wrote: He has contributed the stance that this is a pure theory craft thread in the guise of a [g] and that it needs some kind of proof in any form for it to have any ability to stand on its on. And the entire history of strategical thought and theory is proving him wrong. His post quality has gone severely downhill from the start of this thread, and considering it started out incoherent and without substance, that's saying a lot. “Therefore the intelligent General contemplates both the advantages and disadvantages. Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations. Contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.” --Sun Tzu “The Art of War” You forgot to respond to my part about clear applications to play, and the part about there being no qualifications stated, implicitly or not, as well as the part about explaining how he knows what he knows.
You forgot to read the entire OP before posting, forgot about the fact that this is the beginning overview of an extremely large guide, forgot about the examples already mentioned in the OP that will be expanded upon with more examples and VODs, forgot about the various prominent figures in the scene that have spoken about this concept before like Artosis and Day[9], forgot to actually analyze the merit of the post in favor of bashing the poster, forgot to add any substance to your posts, and forgot how to do an actually good troll post. His qualifications are irrelevant, its about the quality of his post, which is of much higher caliber than yours have been in this thread.
|
On July 21 2011 07:55 0c3LoT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 07:37 Fyrewolf wrote:On July 21 2011 07:34 vaderseven wrote: He has contributed the stance that this is a pure theory craft thread in the guise of a [g] and that it needs some kind of proof in any form for it to have any ability to stand on its on. And the entire history of strategical thought and theory is proving him wrong. His post quality has gone severely downhill from the start of this thread, and considering it started out incoherent and without substance, that's saying a lot. “Therefore the intelligent General contemplates both the advantages and disadvantages. Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations. Contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.” --Sun Tzu “The Art of War” See, the problem with this is that majority of the history of strategical thought was thought up and created by strategists who had no place in actually executing the strategies they came up with (i.e. they needed no "mechanical" skill). StarCraft is a game where the strategist IS the sole executor (and the execution requires lots of "mechnical" skill). Thus, an entirely new paradigm is created from this shift.
And this is different from the chess masters who defeated hundreds of players using the mechanical execution of their theorems before they wrote books about how accumulating advantages is the nature of strategy how?
|
On July 21 2011 08:05 Fyrewolf wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 07:55 0c3LoT wrote:On July 21 2011 07:37 Fyrewolf wrote:On July 21 2011 07:34 vaderseven wrote: He has contributed the stance that this is a pure theory craft thread in the guise of a [g] and that it needs some kind of proof in any form for it to have any ability to stand on its on. And the entire history of strategical thought and theory is proving him wrong. His post quality has gone severely downhill from the start of this thread, and considering it started out incoherent and without substance, that's saying a lot. “Therefore the intelligent General contemplates both the advantages and disadvantages. Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations. Contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.” --Sun Tzu “The Art of War” See, the problem with this is that majority of the history of strategical thought was thought up and created by strategists who had no place in actually executing the strategies they came up with (i.e. they needed no "mechanical" skill). StarCraft is a game where the strategist IS the sole executor (and the execution requires lots of "mechnical" skill). Thus, an entirely new paradigm is created from this shift. And this is different from the chess masters who defeated hundreds of players using the mechanical execution of their theorems before they wrote books about how accumulating advantages is the nature of strategy how?
Are you really trying to compare the mechanics of a turn-based game like Chess to the mechanics of a real time strategy game like StarCraft?
Mind you, I'm not saying that what these historical strategists have said has no place in SC2, I'm merely concerned with pointing out the fact that the OP seems to sweep mechanics under the rug as if it's trivial compared to strategic thought and insight. When the truth of the matter is, in SC2, mechanics is the foundation upon which all strategies are built. Mechanics is the trunk of the tree, whereas strategy is the different branches & leaves that sprout from the trunk.
|
On July 21 2011 08:05 Fyrewolf wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 07:55 0c3LoT wrote:On July 21 2011 07:37 Fyrewolf wrote:On July 21 2011 07:34 vaderseven wrote: He has contributed the stance that this is a pure theory craft thread in the guise of a [g] and that it needs some kind of proof in any form for it to have any ability to stand on its on. And the entire history of strategical thought and theory is proving him wrong. His post quality has gone severely downhill from the start of this thread, and considering it started out incoherent and without substance, that's saying a lot. “Therefore the intelligent General contemplates both the advantages and disadvantages. Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations. Contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.” --Sun Tzu “The Art of War” See, the problem with this is that majority of the history of strategical thought was thought up and created by strategists who had no place in actually executing the strategies they came up with (i.e. they needed no "mechanical" skill). StarCraft is a game where the strategist IS the sole executor (and the execution requires lots of "mechnical" skill). Thus, an entirely new paradigm is created from this shift. And this is different from the chess masters who defeated hundreds of players using the mechanical execution of their theorems before they wrote books about how accumulating advantages is the nature of strategy how?
Well it's different because that chess master actually tested his strategies in hundreds of games before writing his book.
|
On July 21 2011 08:02 Fyrewolf wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 07:45 CecilSunkure wrote:On July 21 2011 07:37 Fyrewolf wrote:On July 21 2011 07:34 vaderseven wrote: He has contributed the stance that this is a pure theory craft thread in the guise of a [g] and that it needs some kind of proof in any form for it to have any ability to stand on its on. And the entire history of strategical thought and theory is proving him wrong. His post quality has gone severely downhill from the start of this thread, and considering it started out incoherent and without substance, that's saying a lot. “Therefore the intelligent General contemplates both the advantages and disadvantages. Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations. Contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.” --Sun Tzu “The Art of War” You forgot to respond to my part about clear applications to play, and the part about there being no qualifications stated, implicitly or not, as well as the part about explaining how he knows what he knows. You forgot to read the entire OP before posting, forgot about the fact that this is the beginning overview of an extremely large guide, forgot about the examples already mentioned in the OP that will be expanded upon with more examples and VODs, forgot about the various prominent figures in the scene that have spoken about this concept before like Artosis and Day[9], forgot to actually analyze the merit of the post in favor of bashing the poster, forgot to add any substance to your posts, and forgot how to do an actually good troll post. His qualifications are irrelevant, its about the quality of his post, which is of much higher caliber than yours have been in this thread.
I asked you to clarify first because your first post was vague and incoherent. You refuse. I ask you again what you disagree with and why. You refuse to respond again. I say your posts are lacking of any real substance and I would like to hear some. You get defensive. I call you out for making poor quality posts and ask you to provide your side. You troll post. I bring forth 4 different strategical thinkers to reference and say you haven't contributed. You say you can contribute, but then refuse to do so again and go off on irrelevant tangents.
You are really testing my patience. I am going to go somewhere else for a while.
|
|
I've been reading through the OP and I find a lot of it I don't really agree with. The problem is you speak of examples then you ignore the variance in the races to make a conclusion that isn't really the same as what the examples give. It seems too isolated from the game itself. Like looking at strategy in a bubble instead of within context.
A lot of it is overly wordy too. You go around the concept instead of just going straight to the core.
|
@ Fyrewolf, I agree with most of your arguments, however:
1. whether he is aware or not, the OP discussed some relatively high level concepts in positional chess theories, yet he did not give enough examples and applications for people to understand how his guide can help actual game play in sc2. Quoting chess masters do not help your case, as you cannot expect the average TL user to know what you are talking about. See how many people rejected his concepts altogether simply because they don't get it? Know your audience is the first step to win an argument.
2. When you challenge a highlighted user, watch your tone. Even though I agree with your arguments, it is everyone's natural reaction to become defensive when accused, of anything. Think of how you felt just now reading the phrase "watch your tone", didn't feel good did it? CecilSunkure's post quality has slipped from excellent in first his post to almost unacceptable in the one where he simply quoted the OP as the source of his argument. However, do you not feel that your accusations are partially responsible for causing him to act less rationally? Show him more respect, and in turn you can get better quality responses from him, turn him defensive, and you are guilty of bring down the quality of his posts.
3. CecilSunkure's first post is correct in telling the OP to add credentials so that people can trust his words. The Section 1 of his guide challenges the conventional wisdom of focusing on mechanics before strategy, although his argument has merits, when you post something against the consensus in paragraph 1, you discourage a lot of people from reading further. If I wasn't responding to some of the posts here, I probably wouldn't have read the rest of his stuff after reading Section 1. I think CecilSunkure is at fault for not reading the rest of it before he posted, and I really do expect more from a highlighted user, but what good is the body of a paper if the first paragraph turns people away?
I suggest you soften up your tone, a heated argument does not produce a good arguement. Then again I'm probably ranting for nothing, people seem too busy arguing to read what I've said.
|
On July 21 2011 08:36 w3jjjj wrote:CecilSunkure is at fault for not reading the rest of it before he posted. I skimmed over it, and looked for things like credentials or a section explaining how he knows what he knows, or something on practical applications. I just only read the first bit in detail and gave advice on it from the standpoint of a writer/reader. So I don't really get why you're being so critical when I don't see I did anything wrong.
|
On July 21 2011 08:39 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 08:36 w3jjjj wrote:CecilSunkure is at fault for not reading the rest of it before he posted. I skimmed over it, and looked for things like credentials or a section explaining how he knows what he knows, or something on practical applications. I just only read the first bit in detail and gave advice on it from the standpoint of a writer/reader. So I don't really get why you're being so critical when I don't see I did anything wrong.
There is nothing wrong with your advice. However, I feel that the first paragraph of the OP was the weakest one, there are some good concepts in the rest of his guide. I particularly like Section 3 where he talks about different types of advantages and gave examples. I see a lot of new topics on TL that go like "I had more supply and more workers but I still lost". People need to understand that economic advantages can be counter balanced by other advantages. This is only one example of the merits in the OP. If I may suggest that you read the rest of his guide in detail, you may actually find elements that you do like.
Edit: Anihc have stated earlier that this guide has a lot of potential that is not being explored, because the OP failed to give sufficient examples and real applications. I agree with him, if the OP put in more work to revise this guide, it can turn into something of much value.
I'm being critical because I respect the highlighted user status and expect more from you since you are a highlighted user. I don't like the fact that you claimed that his guide had little value when you've only read the first section in detail. As a highlighted user you have more responsibility to set an example. Passing judgement on a guide while you have only read one section is not setting a good example to other users. I agree with your points that his post lacked credential and his opening section was not very convincing. I simply expected a highlighted user to at least read the whole thing before commenting.
|
On July 21 2011 08:54 w3jjjj wrote: I simply expected a highlighted user to at least read the whole thing before commenting. Ideally I would like to also. I just don't always have time to read the whole of everything everywhere. Similarly I don't always need to read the whole of a post to know it lacks value to general readers of the strat section. Also, who's to say I haven't read the whole by now anyways?
|
On July 21 2011 09:01 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 08:54 w3jjjj wrote: I simply expected a highlighted user to at least read the whole thing before commenting. Ideally I would like to also. I just don't always have time to read the whole of everything everywhere. Similarly I don't always need to read the whole of a post to know it lacks value to general readers of the strat section. Also, who's to say I haven't read the whole by now anyways?
It's the tone of your posts. Fyrewolf has requested that you read the whole thing many times in your back and forth discussions, which I feel is a reasonable request even if he should be more respectful in his language, however, each time you only defended your position that you don't need to read the whole guide. No one knows whether you've read it by now, but when someones sees that you are defending that you don't need to read it, the natural assumption is that you haven't read it.
Frankly I agree that not every post deserves to be read entirely, many are simply wasting time. And I don't feel that your first post has anything wrong in it. But after other users have requested that you read the whole post before continuing your discussion. I feel it does not make the best argument in the world to refuse, with the only explanation being, "I don't need to read it because I know what I'm talking about". It is a simple and reasonable request after all. If you said "after reading the whole thing, here are my thoughts..." the discussion wouldn't have been so heated.
|
On July 21 2011 09:01 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 08:54 w3jjjj wrote: I simply expected a highlighted user to at least read the whole thing before commenting. Ideally I would like to also. I just don't always have time to read the whole of everything everywhere. Similarly I don't always need to read the whole of a post to know it lacks value to general readers of the strat section. Also, who's to say I haven't read the whole by now anyways?
To be absolutely fair, reading the OP, and preferably the entire thread, is a requirement of posting in the strategy forum or on any forum where information is a commodity. Reading the posts, Fyrewolf seems to have come off in a rather rude way -- I see the point of your posts starting from the first one, and you aren't the one who has to "provide replays", but posting in a thread before you read it in entirety is not OK in the Strategy forum. It's the reason we get so many crap posts from other people.
Read before posting! :@
|
O.K. So, I am in the process of re-writing and improving the OP. Seems the consensus is that people like the idea, but it is far from complete. So I need to narrow down the focus, try and make the whole thing a bit briefer with less waffling, add in examples in concrete terms with replays / vods, add in a better introduction, include some sources, and change the title. hope the new version will live up to expectations. <3's to all those that gave criticism and those that gave encouragement. both are appreciated.
|
On July 25 2011 01:09 Tee wrote: O.K. So, I am in the process of re-writing and improving the OP. Seems the consensus is that people like the idea, but it is far from complete. So I need to narrow down the focus, try and make the whole thing a bit briefer with less waffling, add in examples in concrete terms with replays / vods, add in a better introduction, include some sources, and change the title. hope the new version will live up to expectations. <3's to all those that gave criticism and those that gave encouragement. both are appreciated.
Necrobump much?
|
|
|
|