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Hello everyone,
It is common knowledge to say that playing all the races on the ladder at the same time (going 'Random') is not producing the best results in terms of skill/training time ratio.
But do you guys think game knowledge of other races (from an active player standpoint) is useful when playing one race, or is it best to dedicate one's time to deepen his understanding/mastery of his main race?
Here is my thought: I have encountered many players that were doing well in one particular race, then have switched because they felt they have reached a skill ceiling, and then have experienced (a year later) a incredible skill breakthrough with their "new main race", possibly going from diamond to high masters, etc.
One way to explain that would be that some races require too much skill to win consistently at the precise level at which they encountered their 'ceiling' (even if that does not mean nothing about actual, overall balance), but I am not fond of this explanation.
What might be possible, is that the game knowledge offered by knowing a particular race's ins and outs from a player perspective is a great plus when you decide to play another race, especially (or not?) in the matchup involving these two races.
What is your experience with this, and do you think race switching is a nice way to overcome a (perceived?) skill ceiling you may experience?
Do you think this experience is useful (considering the considerable amount of time needed to master a new race) when switching back to your old race, compared to continue playing it?
Do you think this might be true at some levels only, and do you think it is useful to master other races to some extent is profitable when playing one race, but that putting too much work into this (like, once you get the basics) would only get you diminishing returns?
(please not that all of this is not designed to "put oneself's in his opponents' shoes" to teach him something about the balance of the game that he might have been perceiving wrong, let's assume that the game is perfectly or almost perfectly balanced, which I believe is true).
Please let me know
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If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose.
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On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose.
What you say is a tad contradictory: you say race switching is *somewhat* useful, so it does mean that it is a way of practicing that can result into a non-negliegeable increase in skill; but you also say that a skill ceiling cannot be fixed, which would mean that if you practice from a plateau, no training method can ever grant you any gain in skill whatsoever.
Do you mean that race switching can help you only before you reached that "plateau"? And btw, when and how do you know you have reached it?
You might be right about some people not being naturally designed for this game, but I find it a rather pessimistic way of seeing things. That would be a nice subject for another topic though.
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On August 04 2014 23:05 DjayEl wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. What you say is a tad contradictory: you say race switching is *somewhat* useful, so it does mean that it is a way of practicing that can result into a non-negliegeable increase in skill; but you also say that a skill ceiling cannot be fixed, which would mean that if you practice from a plateau, no training method can ever grant you any gain in skill whatsoever. Do you mean that race switching can help you only before you reached that "plateau"? And btw, when and how do you know you have reached it? You might be right about some people not being naturally designed for this game, but I find it a rather pessimistic way of seeing things. That would be a nice subject for another topic though.
yes thats what i meant. if you reached your plateau then nothing will change that "skill ceiling". If there is still room for improvement then playing other races can help. However if you are a fairly new player, i highly suggest sticking to one race and getting at least plat before playing other races or else you will be overwhelmed with information.
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It happened to me towards end of wol. I am zerg and got stuck at low diamond and decided to go terran and see how it goes, I got to high diamond pretty easily playing pure bio. (only versus masters) but then I had exam and took a break.
I did the same for protoss and got to low diamond as well (I just don't get pvp)
I think the knowledge of the game and game sense are as important as mechanics itself and you just get some matchups better
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United States4883 Posts
On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose.
I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time.
Aside from that, I DO think that race switching is relatively good for people, but it becomes more and more detrimental to you as you get higher in skill. When you're in mid masters to GM, there's a lot of very little things to remember, and even just a week of not playing or playing another race makes you forget a lot of small details. It's certainly helpful to see from another race's perspective, but whether it would help or hurt especially high level players or pros, I think the answer is that race switching would clearly be detrimental to their overall skill in short run, which, as a pro player, is not an option.
As far as "for fun" goes, I highly encourage offracing. Knowing that you suck with another race helps with your mindset because you get out of the frustration of losing with the race you're supposed to be good at. Plus, mech is fun . I play random in all my team games, and I'm mostly like Rank 1 diamond or masters with my 2v2 teams.
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Lots of factors coming together I think.
Playing a new race forces your brain to develop in different areas as the races require different skill sets. It's motivating to start anew and you can use the skills you've acquired to build a more efficient framework the second time around.. Having played both sides of a matchup also makes it much easier to sniff out what your opponent is doing and knowing what to scout for. Plus you're actually just playing the game more and getting better at the core mechanics.
I played random (currently maining Zerg) and race switching has definitely helped me get through blockades (skill ceiling is the wrong word). Even for the sake of perspective it's very helpful so you don't get stuck in a negative mindset where you're too tunnelvisioned on imbalance to come up with creative solutions.
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If you replace "skill ceiling" with "game understanding" then switching races can help your cause. If you are referring to "skill ceiling" as your ability to make decisions, APM, macro, multi-task, then it is of far less benefit.
Switching can give you an opportunity to work on different skills that you might not otherwise be required to perfect. Learning to split Terran units will make your engagements more powerful as Zerg or Protoss, for example.
As was said, a Random player might not be able to achieve the same intricate knowledge as a single-race player. For the majority of SC2 players, the amount of fun and well-rounded knowledge outweighs the negatives.
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On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. No one that doesn't have SEVERE mental/physical disabilities stays in gold for 4 years with willingness to improve and effort.
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If you are 'good' with one race, you should already be quite good with all of them once you get used to hotkeys etc. Not on the same level as your main race, but not much lower.
Also, anyone can get master. The people in gold with 8000 games played just don't care about playing better, which is perfectly fine since skill in games doesn't mean much unless you are a pro player...
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Can't say for the skill ceiling, but I can say switching from Zerg to Random really made me more appreciative of the skill needed to play each race and therefore made me able to enjoy tournaments more. Before, I couldn't possibly cheer for a protoss as their win felt so dirty to me, but playing them changed that and helped my viewer experience tremendously. Now I laugh at protoss bullshit instead of crying.
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United States4883 Posts
On August 05 2014 02:29 VengefulTree wrote: Can't say for the skill ceiling, but I can say switching from Zerg to Random really made me more appreciative of the skill needed to play each race and therefore made me able to enjoy tournaments more. Before, I couldn't possibly cheer for a protoss as their win felt so dirty to me, but playing them changed that and helped my viewer experience tremendously. Now I laugh at protoss bullshit instead of crying.
That's something everyone needs to do! No one knows how impossibly difficult it is for the Protoss player to constantly sweep around with an oracle for vision while positioning their army to attack while positioning for a counter drop, and doing all this while macroing and using constant chronoboost; no one knows until they've actually tried it.
But on a general note, I think offracing in general in good for people who hit a plateau or (in my case) just really love learning because you really start to see where the weaknesses of each race are. When you're playing Protoss, it always seems like Zerg just has stuff and your attacks never work, etc., etc. And then you play Zerg and realize that, holy shit, any timing earlier than 3-base saturation is like completely obnoxious and screws with your saturation and benchmarks so much. Or Terran players who don't realize how strong reaper/hellion/banshee pokes are until they've played Zerg and try to stop it with 3 queens and 16 lings lol. It's all about perspective.
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When I first reached masters with my main race (which is, still today, Protoss), I decided to buy myself a new account and play random (this was during WoL). That was a lot of fun and I progressed a lot : for instance I really got the feeling playing T made me learn with more force how important engages/splits were, and playing Z improved my macro cycles for all races. Besides, I reached masters quickly with this account too, so I could steal some PvZ or PvT builds I couldn't beat to improve my own P play. Overall it was really beneficial, but I did it at a time the general level was far less high, so I don't know. If you want to reach say high masters today and plateau in mid masters, you have to really know your race by heart so I would recommend to just stick to it, learn the tiny things (building placement, critical timings, etc...) and improve that race only. Offracing wouldn't help you, just make you realize how hard the other races are to play too -which is actually quite important as it would spare us a lot of twitch chat whine.
Overall an undoubtedly enriching experience, but not something I would recommend to progress if you aim for the upper league for instance.
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I've been thinking about offracing for a while, but seriously I've played Zerg since SC1 and never any other race(besides campaign and stuff ofc). It just feels so wrong and also I'm worried it will screw up my rhythm, I rarely play SC2 nowaday, sometimes I get the cravings but thats like 3-4 days of intense playing a month. Meaning my multitask, creepspread and control groups are far from on autopilot.
I'm scared off-racing because I feel I will get even worse at the race I actually want to play but I've always felt that it probably would be very beneficial for me to do so. I honestly think that if I for example played Terran I would have a lot easier time against Zerg than I do vs T as Z. Not because T is stronger or anything like that but simply because of my knowledge of the races weaknesses.
As Z I often feel forced to do something to react, when attacking I often just charge in heedlessly. The reason for that is that I'm scared that the enemy will see what I'm doing and be able to counter by for example position better. I dunno how to describe it really its just that as soon as I move out on the map I feel like its me being pressured rather than the other way around. Like if the T scouts my roaches he will just kill them. If i played T I'm sure I would feel scared like hell seeing lots of roaches =P Experiencing that fear and what exactly it is you are afraid of as Terran would probably be very useful.
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On August 05 2014 02:03 Karpfen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. No one that doesn't have SEVERE mental/physical disabilities stays in gold for 4 years with willingness to improve and effort.
no its a sad sad truth, some people are just really that bad
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Savior used to practice Terran because he said he had learned everything there was to learn about Zerg .
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I think it depends whats the reason for you not getting better. There are some people whose mind set is just pure toxic and lose, before even playing as they think opponents race is imba.
After switch they may get good/better results, but even that may be because they have used more time on thinking how to win with opponents race instead of race they played them self. In these cases you may even just change race, nothing is as useful in sc2 than thinking your race us better, because you will see reason you lose more clearly.
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there are some very good posts in this thread!
my 2 cents: (long post incoming) In BW, I played Zerg exclusively, in SC2 I sometimes messed around with Protoss during WoL, but mostly kept playing Zerg. Now that I'm done with college, I've got lots of spare time until "real life" begins, so I decided to come back to SC2 by finally trying out Random. I had reached Master with Zerg last year, but due to the lack of play during the last months my mechanics took a huge dip. Still, I can easily beat most players up to diamond with Zerg.
I've always been a very mechanical player (around 200 APM with Z), i.e. I fully concentrate on macro but neglect micro almost completely. (exceptions: early game, zvz, defense vs. allins) Learning the other races is hell right now. Especially Terran. Everything dies almost instantly, you have to build hundreds of buildings, switch addons...and so on. I've always had respect for Terran players, but after trying the race for more than just some 4v4 fun games, I really have to admit that Terran takes tons of knowledge AND insane mechanics. (unless you're Goody, no offense)
With Protoss it's kind of simple, as long as I can dictate the pace of the game. If the opponent manages to distract me, I completely fall apart. But practice makes perfect, I guess.
The most important thing I've learned: Just because you know the zerg timings doesn't mean you can stop them.
On skill ceiling: I think I had reached my ceiling last year. I have bad eyesight, which makes playing hectic games pretty hard. My knowledge with Zerg is decent, the other races catch up quickly. While playing the other races surely helps your overall understanding of the game, I don't think it's directly linked to improvement with your main race. The only thing I've noticed is that you get a better feeling for gas timings and building placements.
Mentally, playing other races definitely helps. As I'm losing a lot with P and T, my MMR isn't that high atm. So everytime I'm Zerg, it's time to relax a bit. I also don't get too angry anymore, because playing random always offers new challenges. I always had a tendency to get stuck on overdroning and not scouting properly, which nowadays doesn't happen too much anymore, because I'm much more focused reading the opponent correctly. In that regard, race switching definitely helped.
My goal is to reach Diamond with Random, then I'll go back to zerg as I'm not still not liking Terran very much.
On the "6000 games and still gold"-phenomenon: This always baffles me. You sometimes see players, who actually know some basics and are trying hard. Those are the ones who maybe just aren't capable of improving, because they have a tendency the screw up basic stuff even after thousands of games.
And then there are those people with 5k games, who are trying to 1 base bc rush or build 3 spines in their own main in zvz vs. a 15 hatch. I have a hard time understanding that. How is that fun? And why aren't they looking for some better builds? I'm by no means a good or talented player, and I also don't want to brag, because bragging sucks. But I just don't get it. Today I played a guy who went mass phoenix vs Z off of 2 bases and then went on to flame me, because I had built Hydras. Why.
Final thoughts: The older I get, the more relaxed I am while playing SC2. I'll never be a pro, maybe I won't even reach Masters anymore. But playing Random has helped me appreciating the game as a whole. Maybe it would be for the good of the game, if some people (especially the so-called tryhards / imba whiners in lower leagues) would try to see the game through the eyes of the other races. But maybe they like blaming others for their losses.
Sorry for that monstrous post.
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Random helps you appreciate the game as a whole. (Totally exactly what the previous guy said). You understand the biases coming from the other side better. It makes the game more fun as it allows you to fool around at a lower level and play fun compositions and use things you never used before.
In terms of making you a better single race player, I have had no help in that. I'm still just as bad. But that's ok because when I lose, I'll go play some random and have fun doing it.
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I've played random since BW. I'm diamond currently and have made masters twice.
I'm on the other side of this discussion.. looking at my win percentages I feel like If I just switch to my best 'overall' race I could make masters consistently.
but I didn't start out as random for rank.. I started because I bought the whole game and didn't want to limit myself to just 1/3rd of it
do what makes it fun... who cares if you're 'capping out'..
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When ever I'm on a big loss streak or just feel like playing a bit more casually I offrace. Its a lot of fun and gives you a different perspective on the matchups. For instance when I started to offrace as zerg I realized how fragile the early game macro was. The decision to make a round of drones or a round of units can be pretty huge and if you fuck up and make like 12 drones when the hellbats show up you just die straight up. I think its useful for developing mechanics as well. I mean, mechanics are mechanics, although the macro mechanics are a bit different for the races as long as you are focusing on spending money, getting production up, and never getting supply blocked you will get better.
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Indeed, a whole lot of good posts
I see a lot of random/offracing players here.
Do you guys feel that some races match some natural skills better (like aptitude for mechanics with T, strategic thinking with P or what have you), or given the proper training you could have achieved the same results regardless the race you picked, and would say it is only a matter of personal taste?
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On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time.
I can't believe in saying it, but for the first time, I actually disagree with John! I just don't think it's possible for everybody to reach masters. Of course, I could use the argument that, by definition, the league known as "master" is reserved for the top 2%, so even if the entire player base were playing at a level that your average master leaguer plays at right now, only the top 2% of them would be able to have that blue star badge.
But to take a more soft approach, I don't think it's even possible for everybody -- even with proper practice, efficient learning, and a generous time commitment -- to play at a level similar to what master leaguers play at today. Platinum, or even diamond, I would be inclined to agree with, but it's easy for us to forget (especially those who have been playing at a high level for a long time) that Starcraft 2 is an incredibly difficult and fast paced game that does not come naturally to a lot of people. I would even agree that, with enough efficient practice, learning, and time spent, anybody could develop master-level mechanics, but mechanics -- while extremely important -- aren't everything. I firmly believe that there are certain amounts of natural, innate multitasking and decision making abilities that one must possess in order to play at that level, and the cast majority of us just don't have them. While anybody can certainly improve his/her multitasking and decision making skills to a degree, I don't believe that anybody and everybody can learn multitask or make decisions based on game-sense like a master leaguer. It's a certain type of aptitude that can't be learned or taught.
Fortunately, for those people, there are 5 other leagues below master where they can find opponents to play against that will yield then a win rate ~50%. Contrary to what people tend to post on forums, there's nothing wrong with being "stuck in gold", or silver, or platinum, or diamond, or even bronze for months, or even years, as long as you are enjoying the game and having fun.
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On August 05 2014 06:45 Frankie Teardrop wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time. I can't believe in saying it, but for the first time, I actually disagree with John! I just don't think it's possible for everybody to reach masters. Of course, I could use the argument that, by definition, the league known as "master" is reserved for the top 2%, so even if the entire player base were playing at a level that your average master leaguer plays at right now, only the top 2% of them would be able to have that blue star badge. But to take a more soft approach, I don't think it's even possible for everybody -- even with proper practice, efficient learning, and a generous time commitment -- to play at a level similar to what master leaguers play at today. Platinum, or even diamond, I would be inclined to agree with, but it's easy for us to forget (especially those who have been playing at a high level for a long time) that Starcraft 2 is an incredibly difficult and fast paced game that does not come naturally to a lot of people. I would even agree that, with enough efficient practice, learning, and time spent, anybody could develop master-level mechanics, but mechanics -- while extremely important -- aren't everything. I firmly believe that there are certain amounts of natural, innate multitasking and decision making abilities that one must possess in order to play at that level, and the cast majority of us just don't have them. While anybody can certainly improve his/her multitasking and decision making skills to a degree, I don't believe that anybody and everybody can learn multitask or make decisions based on game-sense like a master leaguer. It's a certain type of aptitude that can't be learned or taught. Master league is not as good as you think it is. Anyone can reach master if they try, unless physical handicaps are involved...
Multitasking can be trained. Decision making can be trained, there are only a finite number of scenarios that can happen in a game and if you have played thousands upon thousands of games, you will have seen how each situation plays out and can improve upon your decision making based on past experiences. One example of this is determining if your army can fight the opposing army and win. Lower league players who have not played many games often times have no idea of the relative strength of their army (or their opponent's) by just looking, so they often take engagements they cannot win and lose from that.
And this is only talking about players who try to do macro games every time. A monkey can 7rax or 2gate proxy to master league if they were bored enough to (I have played against these people).
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Training different races absolutely helps! It especially helps with scouting.
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On August 05 2014 07:09 Genome852 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2014 06:45 Frankie Teardrop wrote:On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time. I can't believe in saying it, but for the first time, I actually disagree with John! I just don't think it's possible for everybody to reach masters. Of course, I could use the argument that, by definition, the league known as "master" is reserved for the top 2%, so even if the entire player base were playing at a level that your average master leaguer plays at right now, only the top 2% of them would be able to have that blue star badge. But to take a more soft approach, I don't think it's even possible for everybody -- even with proper practice, efficient learning, and a generous time commitment -- to play at a level similar to what master leaguers play at today. Platinum, or even diamond, I would be inclined to agree with, but it's easy for us to forget (especially those who have been playing at a high level for a long time) that Starcraft 2 is an incredibly difficult and fast paced game that does not come naturally to a lot of people. I would even agree that, with enough efficient practice, learning, and time spent, anybody could develop master-level mechanics, but mechanics -- while extremely important -- aren't everything. I firmly believe that there are certain amounts of natural, innate multitasking and decision making abilities that one must possess in order to play at that level, and the cast majority of us just don't have them. While anybody can certainly improve his/her multitasking and decision making skills to a degree, I don't believe that anybody and everybody can learn multitask or make decisions based on game-sense like a master leaguer. It's a certain type of aptitude that can't be learned or taught. Master league is not as good as you think it is. Anyone can reach master if they try, unless physical handicaps are involved... Multitasking can be trained. Decision making can be trained, there are only a finite number of scenarios that can happen in a game and if you have played thousands upon thousands of games, you will have seen how each situation plays out and can improve upon your decision making based on past experiences. One example of this is determining if your army can fight the opposing army and win. Lower league players who have not played many games often times have no idea of the relative strength of their army (or their opponent's) by just looking, so they often take engagements they cannot win and lose from that. And this is only talking about players who try to do macro games every time. A monkey can 7rax or 2gate proxy to master league if they were bored enough to (I have played against these people).
That is because they have the mechanics to do a good followup attack which requires good knowledge, macro and decision making.
Just doing a 7rax, proxy 2gate or an early pool with no transition does not win more than 50% of the games.
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On August 05 2014 07:09 Genome852 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2014 06:45 Frankie Teardrop wrote:On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time. I can't believe in saying it, but for the first time, I actually disagree with John! I just don't think it's possible for everybody to reach masters. Of course, I could use the argument that, by definition, the league known as "master" is reserved for the top 2%, so even if the entire player base were playing at a level that your average master leaguer plays at right now, only the top 2% of them would be able to have that blue star badge. But to take a more soft approach, I don't think it's even possible for everybody -- even with proper practice, efficient learning, and a generous time commitment -- to play at a level similar to what master leaguers play at today. Platinum, or even diamond, I would be inclined to agree with, but it's easy for us to forget (especially those who have been playing at a high level for a long time) that Starcraft 2 is an incredibly difficult and fast paced game that does not come naturally to a lot of people. I would even agree that, with enough efficient practice, learning, and time spent, anybody could develop master-level mechanics, but mechanics -- while extremely important -- aren't everything. I firmly believe that there are certain amounts of natural, innate multitasking and decision making abilities that one must possess in order to play at that level, and the cast majority of us just don't have them. While anybody can certainly improve his/her multitasking and decision making skills to a degree, I don't believe that anybody and everybody can learn multitask or make decisions based on game-sense like a master leaguer. It's a certain type of aptitude that can't be learned or taught. Master league is not as good as you think it is. Anyone can reach master if they try, unless physical handicaps are involved... Multitasking can be trained. Decision making can be trained, there are only a finite number of scenarios that can happen in a game and if you have played thousands upon thousands of games, you will have seen how each situation plays out and can improve upon your decision making based on past experiences. One example of this is determining if your army can fight the opposing army and win. Lower league players who have not played many games often times have no idea of the relative strength of their army (or their opponent's) by just looking, so they often take engagements they cannot win and lose from that. And this is only talking about players who try to do macro games every time. A monkey can 7rax or 2gate proxy to master league if they were bored enough to (I have played against these people).
I absolutely agree with this, of course different people does not have the same amplitude for the game, it also true however they probably have an amplitude for different things. A person could be very skilled and have a very easy time learning how to micro well but have a harder time getting mechanics down while another person cant micro well but is basically like a "Machine" when it comes to macro cycles. The question of amplitude is therefore pretty mute, since most people will have a strong amplitude for some parts of the game but be weak in others meaning its rare for people to be generally unskilled across the board.
Besides the question of amplitude the most imprtant thing in SC2 is obviously practise and repetition, this is the only way to get good decisionmaking and also the foundation of getting macrocycles down.
Being the top 2% of the SC2 players in not especially hard, thats because a vast majority of the gamers does not really take the game that serious anyway. Also discussing the actual difficulty of reaching masters is pretty impossible unless we specify which time period we are talking about, at the launch of SC2 the skill-level was obviously a lot lower than it is now.
Now for my own tale, I tried off-racing yesterday just because and oh my god the disaster. I'm diamond level zerg player and feel I'm pretty decent anyway but holy bloody crap Terran is impossible xD Trying a race I never played before in competetive 1v1 really showed me what experience and habits really do. I understand the theory behind Terran well and know what I'm supposed to do to some degree anyway. It was however totally impossible, I went for fast medivacs and got them at like the 11-12 minute mark and floated thousands of minerals just within the first 15mins. I played 5ish games and I didn't really feel like I improved or got the hang of it, at the end I tried on focusing on just making marines but lol couldn't even pull that off.
If anything I must say, the last game I played yesterday I went back to zerg and I've never felt so comfortable in a game ever XD
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On August 05 2014 06:45 Frankie Teardrop wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time. [...] But to take a more soft approach, I don't think it's even possible for everybody -- even with proper practice, efficient learning, and a generous time commitment -- to play at a level similar to what master leaguers play at today. [...]
I think you're disregarding the fact that these people who can't get into masters pretty much never practice enough. I'm a prime example of that. I played wc3 for years, so when I switched to sc2 I already had good mechanics and knew how to set up my hotkeys. Got stuck in gold for a while because I didn't practice enough and there was a lot of strategy to learn at once. But once I had at least a clue what to do in each matchup (strategically speaking, I still sucked for the most part imo) and put in the time, I got promoted to top diamond in no time.
Why have I never been promoted to master league in 1v1? I don't like to play people I don't know. The ladder is full of jerks who just can't respect other people at all. The worst of all is you can't play the player - people just do the shittiest strategies ever and hope for lucky, cheap wins. Since you're not playing the same player again, you can't see who the better player is if you get caught offguard. It favors luck too much and dismisses important skills that good players need to have, such as analyzing your opponent's weakenesses. I'm pretty sure if I were "in shape" and played for an entire season, I'd be promoted to master league though. I think all top diamond players can do that if they're already solid enough. If they don't get promoted in the first season, it would probably serve as a stepping stone as they'd most likely make it in the next season - assuming they fixed their builds and learned how to deal with their own weakenesses.
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United States4883 Posts
On August 05 2014 06:45 Frankie Teardrop wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time. I can't believe in saying it, but for the first time, I actually disagree with John! I just don't think it's possible for everybody to reach masters. Of course, I could use the argument that, by definition, the league known as "master" is reserved for the top 2%, so even if the entire player base were playing at a level that your average master leaguer plays at right now, only the top 2% of them would be able to have that blue star badge. But to take a more soft approach, I don't think it's even possible for everybody -- even with proper practice, efficient learning, and a generous time commitment -- to play at a level similar to what master leaguers play at today. Platinum, or even diamond, I would be inclined to agree with, but it's easy for us to forget (especially those who have been playing at a high level for a long time) that Starcraft 2 is an incredibly difficult and fast paced game that does not come naturally to a lot of people. I would even agree that, with enough efficient practice, learning, and time spent, anybody could develop master-level mechanics, but mechanics -- while extremely important -- aren't everything. I firmly believe that there are certain amounts of natural, innate multitasking and decision making abilities that one must possess in order to play at that level, and the cast majority of us just don't have them. While anybody can certainly improve his/her multitasking and decision making skills to a degree, I don't believe that anybody and everybody can learn multitask or make decisions based on game-sense like a master leaguer. It's a certain type of aptitude that can't be learned or taught. Fortunately, for those people, there are 5 other leagues below master where they can find opponents to play against that will yield then a win rate ~50%. Contrary to what people tend to post on forums, there's nothing wrong with being "stuck in gold", or silver, or platinum, or diamond, or even bronze for months, or even years, as long as you are enjoying the game and having fun.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that players who are interested in the game and willing to improve can definitely achieve masters through intelligent practice and consistent commitment. Players who aren't as interested in the game will ultimately end up quitting or giving up before they reach any significant amount of skill, which is totally fine. Starcraft isn't necessarily for everyone, and that's fine. But like playing an instrument, people who are interested in learning can functionally play with enough time and dedicated practice.
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I switched from top plat toss to mid gold terran and have not turned back. It just feels so much more satisfying.
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On August 05 2014 16:51 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2014 06:45 Frankie Teardrop wrote:On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time. I can't believe in saying it, but for the first time, I actually disagree with John! I just don't think it's possible for everybody to reach masters. Of course, I could use the argument that, by definition, the league known as "master" is reserved for the top 2%, so even if the entire player base were playing at a level that your average master leaguer plays at right now, only the top 2% of them would be able to have that blue star badge. But to take a more soft approach, I don't think it's even possible for everybody -- even with proper practice, efficient learning, and a generous time commitment -- to play at a level similar to what master leaguers play at today. Platinum, or even diamond, I would be inclined to agree with, but it's easy for us to forget (especially those who have been playing at a high level for a long time) that Starcraft 2 is an incredibly difficult and fast paced game that does not come naturally to a lot of people. I would even agree that, with enough efficient practice, learning, and time spent, anybody could develop master-level mechanics, but mechanics -- while extremely important -- aren't everything. I firmly believe that there are certain amounts of natural, innate multitasking and decision making abilities that one must possess in order to play at that level, and the cast majority of us just don't have them. While anybody can certainly improve his/her multitasking and decision making skills to a degree, I don't believe that anybody and everybody can learn multitask or make decisions based on game-sense like a master leaguer. It's a certain type of aptitude that can't be learned or taught. Fortunately, for those people, there are 5 other leagues below master where they can find opponents to play against that will yield then a win rate ~50%. Contrary to what people tend to post on forums, there's nothing wrong with being "stuck in gold", or silver, or platinum, or diamond, or even bronze for months, or even years, as long as you are enjoying the game and having fun. I guess what I'm trying to say is that players who are interested in the game and willing to improve can definitely achieve masters through intelligent practice and consistent commitment. Players who aren't as interested in the game will ultimately end up quitting or giving up before they reach any significant amount of skill, which is totally fine. Starcraft isn't necessarily for everyone, and that's fine. But like playing an instrument, people who are interested in learning can functionally play with enough time and dedicated practice.
There are studies on violinists and the correspondance between practicing more than 10k hours and being famous as principal or solist players was almost 100%, while the sub 10k students were moderately successful and the ones below a certain threshold were all music teachers or retired into other jobs a decade later iirc
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On August 05 2014 16:51 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2014 06:45 Frankie Teardrop wrote:On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time. I can't believe in saying it, but for the first time, I actually disagree with John! I just don't think it's possible for everybody to reach masters. Of course, I could use the argument that, by definition, the league known as "master" is reserved for the top 2%, so even if the entire player base were playing at a level that your average master leaguer plays at right now, only the top 2% of them would be able to have that blue star badge. But to take a more soft approach, I don't think it's even possible for everybody -- even with proper practice, efficient learning, and a generous time commitment -- to play at a level similar to what master leaguers play at today. Platinum, or even diamond, I would be inclined to agree with, but it's easy for us to forget (especially those who have been playing at a high level for a long time) that Starcraft 2 is an incredibly difficult and fast paced game that does not come naturally to a lot of people. I would even agree that, with enough efficient practice, learning, and time spent, anybody could develop master-level mechanics, but mechanics -- while extremely important -- aren't everything. I firmly believe that there are certain amounts of natural, innate multitasking and decision making abilities that one must possess in order to play at that level, and the cast majority of us just don't have them. While anybody can certainly improve his/her multitasking and decision making skills to a degree, I don't believe that anybody and everybody can learn multitask or make decisions based on game-sense like a master leaguer. It's a certain type of aptitude that can't be learned or taught. Fortunately, for those people, there are 5 other leagues below master where they can find opponents to play against that will yield then a win rate ~50%. Contrary to what people tend to post on forums, there's nothing wrong with being "stuck in gold", or silver, or platinum, or diamond, or even bronze for months, or even years, as long as you are enjoying the game and having fun. I guess what I'm trying to say is that players who are interested in the game and willing to improve can definitely achieve masters through intelligent practice and consistent commitment. Players who aren't as interested in the game will ultimately end up quitting or giving up before they reach any significant amount of skill, which is totally fine. Starcraft isn't necessarily for everyone, and that's fine. But like playing an instrument, people who are interested in learning can functionally play with enough time and dedicated practice.
I was tempted not to reply for fear of derailing the thread BUT... as current high school teacher with a masters in education I can say that masters league in SC2 is almost certainly not possible for many people. In regards to students age 12-18 which is what i know most about, in Australia someone with a severe intellectual handicap goes to a separate school with specially trained staff in order to learn life skills etc. Someone with moderate intellectual disability can attend a public school but needs lessons to be changed, because even with a full time aid, they can often not complete reading, writing etc like other students. These type of students may be unable to understand build orders, let alone respond on the fly to different in game situations. Once you remove these students there is still a large minority of students who struggle with basic concepts in English math etc. Just because concepts like small delays in worker production leading to hundreds of minerals lost may make innate sense to some, does not mean that they make sense to all. The idea that almost all people could manage to be in the top 2 percent of people who memorise build orders, respond to attacks, remember timings and unit competitions while being mechanically adept enough to reserve most of their cognition for decision making, rather than operation of the keyboard and mouse, seems to me to be counterproductive. There always has to be people in the bottom 98 percent and many many people will be here regardless of their practice style or desire to improve.
I would also suggest that team liquid has a much higher percentage of people who are naturally talented at SC2 on it which may lead regular forum goers to assume that all sc2 players are similar....and team liquid policies (which i agree with) prevent many people who would rage about being stuck at gold due to imba toss etc from posting.
Oh and on a lighter note, I learnt random because i was sick of dying in ZvT. Now (6 months later) that im ok with terran, I all in with timing attacks based on when I know Terran are weak.
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United States1431 Posts
There's something called the 10,000 hour rule I think applies to everyone except the physically/mentally handicapped that goes along the lines that if you spend 10,000 hours doing something you'll be an expert at it. I think any player as long as they're committed enough can improve and eventually get to masters. All it takes is hard work and I don't think getting to masters requires any inherent ability.
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I'm not a masters/gm player (yet) so idk about that level, but I think it certainly helps at lower levels. Trying to play terran and zerg (which i was horrible at) in BroodWar I think was a significant factor in taking me from D+ to C on iccup. Playing z gave me new appreciation for how much every larva spent on something other than drones mattered, and how vulnerable the race can be (i used to see a couple lings and a sunken and just run away, after playing z I'd find ways to run past it). Its much easier to internalize what your opponent is afraid of if you've been in their shoes. I can't imagine it not helping at the bronze-gold levels. As far as high level play, I think the fact that sAvior would play terran when he "should have been practicing zerg" suggests that not just he, but also his coach/team thought there was some value in it.
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On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose.
There's no such thing as "natural at a game" or not.
The type of person you are will dictate how you approach a game. Do you have a good or a bad mindset? Do you learn or do you try to overcome your obstacles with brute force and no reflection (a.k.a. mass gaming)?
You need a number of key things to improve in anything; focused practice, a plan, goals, reflection (the good kind that pulls things apart and understands them in their own as well as together), etc.
People can "play" guitar for years as well, and go nowhere, or any other musical instrument. Some can play it for a few months and become "decent". You can't say "some people just aren't going to be good at guitar". It's that some people don't have a "natural" or early developed ability to focus and improve properly, while some do. Google "Learning how to learn".
There's no such thing as people "meant" to be good or bad at something which only requires learning, but there is such as thing as people who have an advantage in learning faster and better than their peers because of their personality and what they learned earlier in life.
Learning takes intelligent work, who knew?
On August 05 2014 22:34 Ty2 wrote: There's something called the 10,000 hour rule I think applies to everyone except the physically/mentally handicapped that goes along the lines that if you spend 10,000 hours doing something you'll be an expert at it. I think any player as long as they're committed enough can improve and eventually get to masters. All it takes is hard work and I don't think getting to masters requires any inherent ability.
That 10,000 hour rule only matters when a person intelligently improves in something, not when a person masses tons of hours doing blind or thoughtless work.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/433514-sc2-notes-how-to-plan-a-strategy
Like MadDmcgee was describing, he had a "fear" of Terran based on not understanding. This fear probably damaged his macro or all-in decision making abilities. Day9 talks about this "fear" of things which aren't real that affect your gameplay in the audio files in that above link.
I can tell you with certainty that this is true, because if you main Zerg for a long time and you don't understand the other race, Terran can feel like a constant threat all throughout 2-8 minutes. But if you start playing Terran, you realize that Terran actually has very limited options and a low army count. Then you can go back and just throw up a spine and get two queens and perfectly counter reapers and any hellion followup before they even get to your base, and continue spamming drones into a huge economic lead until you know what kind of push T is trying for.
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On August 05 2014 20:26 maddogmcgee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2014 16:51 SC2John wrote:On August 05 2014 06:45 Frankie Teardrop wrote:On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:On August 04 2014 22:33 TokyoGirl wrote: If you are plateauing in skill then its something that cannot be fixed regardless of race switching or not. Some people are just naturally not designed for this game. Thats why some people stay in gold for 4 years and then some reach GM in 2 months. However I do find race switching somewhat useful since you can learn what each race is strong/weak against. Also you can learn some important timings. What I do is when I go on lose streak, i play offrace unranked and it is very helpful, relaxing and puts you back into a good mood regardless if i win or lose. I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time. I can't believe in saying it, but for the first time, I actually disagree with John! I just don't think it's possible for everybody to reach masters. Of course, I could use the argument that, by definition, the league known as "master" is reserved for the top 2%, so even if the entire player base were playing at a level that your average master leaguer plays at right now, only the top 2% of them would be able to have that blue star badge. But to take a more soft approach, I don't think it's even possible for everybody -- even with proper practice, efficient learning, and a generous time commitment -- to play at a level similar to what master leaguers play at today. Platinum, or even diamond, I would be inclined to agree with, but it's easy for us to forget (especially those who have been playing at a high level for a long time) that Starcraft 2 is an incredibly difficult and fast paced game that does not come naturally to a lot of people. I would even agree that, with enough efficient practice, learning, and time spent, anybody could develop master-level mechanics, but mechanics -- while extremely important -- aren't everything. I firmly believe that there are certain amounts of natural, innate multitasking and decision making abilities that one must possess in order to play at that level, and the cast majority of us just don't have them. While anybody can certainly improve his/her multitasking and decision making skills to a degree, I don't believe that anybody and everybody can learn multitask or make decisions based on game-sense like a master leaguer. It's a certain type of aptitude that can't be learned or taught. Fortunately, for those people, there are 5 other leagues below master where they can find opponents to play against that will yield then a win rate ~50%. Contrary to what people tend to post on forums, there's nothing wrong with being "stuck in gold", or silver, or platinum, or diamond, or even bronze for months, or even years, as long as you are enjoying the game and having fun. I guess what I'm trying to say is that players who are interested in the game and willing to improve can definitely achieve masters through intelligent practice and consistent commitment. Players who aren't as interested in the game will ultimately end up quitting or giving up before they reach any significant amount of skill, which is totally fine. Starcraft isn't necessarily for everyone, and that's fine. But like playing an instrument, people who are interested in learning can functionally play with enough time and dedicated practice. [...] There always has to be people in the bottom 98 percent and many many people will be here regardless of their practice style or desire to improve. [...] I don't think the point is every single person in this world could reach masters. We're talking about people who find the game inherently interesting - people who would put the time and effort to get really good.
Let's look at it from a different perspective. Think about music. There are definitely right and wrong ways to go about learning how to play an instrument. I for one wouldn't have learned how to play the electric guitar without proper resources or help. But nobody has to start from scratch and learn everything on their own - that just not efficient. The moment I learned how to practice, what proper technique was, and put in the hours, I got really good. While it was flattering to hear that I was a talented person, all I did was practice (properly) for hours on end. It was something inherently interesting to me.
Starcraft 2 isn't as black and white and music imo. But there's so much information out there. Those who are really interested are the ones who usually watch tournaments and get to understand how the game works. With things like forums, tutorials, build orders, and videos out there, there's no lack of information for those who want to play at a higher level. There's a reason why Koreans practice in groups and share their ideas so much... a single person usually can't figure everything out on his/her own. It's just unreasonable. So it's important to keep in mind that people don't have to realize the importance of everything on their own. Of course, they're not likely to get far if they really rely on people too much and don't think about anything themselves, but that's something entirely different.
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I plateaued with Zerg, so I switched to Terran. I plateaued to Terran, so I switched to Random and have once again plateaued. I now play all 3 races relatively equally, at least per my win% with all 3 races. My plateau point has been relatively consistent at low GM to high masters since the start of the Beta (I was on all those "top 200" lists they came out with).
APM always averaged between 90 - 110. It's just understanding what to do at all times that's kept me going rather than mechanics, people understate strategy far too much in this game.
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On August 06 2014 08:07 FabledIntegral wrote: I plateaued with Zerg, so I switched to Terran. I plateaued to Terran, so I switched to Random and have once again plateaued. I now play all 3 races relatively equally, at least per my win% with all 3 races. My plateau point has been relatively consistent at low GM to high masters since the start of the Beta (I was on all those "top 200" lists they came out with).
APM always averaged between 90 - 110. It's just understanding what to do at all times that's kept me going rather than mechanics, people understate strategy far too much in this game.
APM increases if you practice a build. APM decreases with decision making and lack of a plan. The more you try to think your way through a game to respond, the worse your APM is.
The more you doubt your strategy and game decisions the slower you go.
Play some micro games and practice your strategy vs very easy AI to work on your APM producing structure/units.
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/zatic/Day[9]0002-BuildingTriggers.mp3
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a lot of interesting posts in this thread!
here are my 2 cents, hopefully it s not fully devoid of interest (but the overall quality is so high it s hard!):
I play random in 2v2 because I find it more fun that way. 2v2 is way more forgivign than 1v1 and you can do crazy stuff. At the same time, it's great to try 1 base all-ins or two base timing attacks!
For 1v1, I switched from P to Z (P being my BW main race) for a variety of reasons, but sometimes I go on another server (NA usually because the latency is ok too) to play T or P 1v1 there. I used to random in 1v1 but it s too, well, random. You get 9 possible match-ups, a lot of different maps, and overall I never focus on a single thing. I prefer to play 10 games as one race, then 10 as another and 10 as the last rather than 30 random games (I hope this makes sense for someone).
The macro mechanics are so different from one to the other (esp Z vs P/T) that I feel I need a couple game of the same race to focus on it and improve my overall game mechanics. It definitely helps with game knowledge too. And I am not lost when I scout something now, I think "ok, what would I get in his shoes?" and not "ah damn, what did I read on TL about scouting again?"
at any case, keep having fun, offracing is good to relax, it takes your mind off of supposed "imbalances" you see. Go lose 10 PvT in a row and you ll be like "yeah, ok that MU isnt that broken after all"
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On August 06 2014 08:35 Socup wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2014 08:07 FabledIntegral wrote: I plateaued with Zerg, so I switched to Terran. I plateaued to Terran, so I switched to Random and have once again plateaued. I now play all 3 races relatively equally, at least per my win% with all 3 races. My plateau point has been relatively consistent at low GM to high masters since the start of the Beta (I was on all those "top 200" lists they came out with).
APM always averaged between 90 - 110. It's just understanding what to do at all times that's kept me going rather than mechanics, people understate strategy far too much in this game. APM increases if you practice a build. APM decreases with decision making and lack of a plan. The more you try to think your way through a game to respond, the worse your APM is. The more you doubt your strategy and game decisions the slower you go. Play some micro games and practice your strategy vs very easy AI to work on your APM producing structure/units. http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/zatic/Day[9]0002-BuildingTriggers.mp3
I don't doubt my strategy whatsoever. Almost at no point during the game do I think "what should I do next." Strategy is above an beyond a strength, not a limiting factor for me, it's all intuition. I just don't care about increasing APM or taking the time to practice, hehe.
My APM has been low since BW, where I capped out as C on iCCuP due to mechanics. Strategy didn't get you quite as far in that game.
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I like to use it to study how other races feel about units. Even though I'm unable to play at a completely competitive level I can find what pisses them off in race specific match ups. I always feel like when I am off racing and don't play against a Terran I am wasting time. I feel like my strongest match up has always been TvZ just because it's the race I played before I went to Terran. I only topped out at Plat as zerg but it was more than enough for me to have enough insight to why things are good and bad in TvZ.
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It's what I do. When I reach a point at which I can't play my preferred race, terran, then I play zerg or protoss for a couple months. I think it's a good method.
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Northern Ireland280 Posts
Would be nice if you could ladder separately on each race mind. It's a real pain in the ass when i want to chill out and play some P/T given how much worse I am than when i play Z heh.
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On August 07 2014 02:12 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2014 08:35 Socup wrote:On August 06 2014 08:07 FabledIntegral wrote: I plateaued with Zerg, so I switched to Terran. I plateaued to Terran, so I switched to Random and have once again plateaued. I now play all 3 races relatively equally, at least per my win% with all 3 races. My plateau point has been relatively consistent at low GM to high masters since the start of the Beta (I was on all those "top 200" lists they came out with).
APM always averaged between 90 - 110. It's just understanding what to do at all times that's kept me going rather than mechanics, people understate strategy far too much in this game. APM increases if you practice a build. APM decreases with decision making and lack of a plan. The more you try to think your way through a game to respond, the worse your APM is. The more you doubt your strategy and game decisions the slower you go. Play some micro games and practice your strategy vs very easy AI to work on your APM producing structure/units. http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/zatic/Day[9]0002-BuildingTriggers.mp3 I don't doubt my strategy whatsoever. Almost at no point during the game do I think "what should I do next." Strategy is above an beyond a strength, not a limiting factor for me, it's all intuition. I just don't care about increasing APM or taking the time to practice, hehe. My APM has been low since BW, where I capped out as C on iCCuP due to mechanics. Strategy didn't get you quite as far in that game.
That's one way of putting it, but I'd rather like to think that we can say the strategy isn't overpowering strong so that executing it isn't so strong that alternatives are worthless.
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You can learn everything you need to know about the other races by watching your own replays and checking your opponents perspective. Although realistically its only beneficial to do this masters+ imo. Before that its more important that you aren't making mistakes. Learning the timings for other races and their weaknesses is really only useful in the higher leagues. By watching your opponents perspective and memorizing the timings for what they're doing you are subconsciously making your game sense better. In a real game, when the fog of war is on its impossible to know what your opponent can/can't have. That is, unless your game sense is good.
If you want to develop good game sense you can approach it two ways(or both).
1) Play tons and tons and tons of games; many thousands. Once you play this many games you have a really good idea of what your opponent can have and if you play as many games as a progamer you're likely to notice when things aren't as they should be and take action to figure out why (Star Sense).
2) Watch your opponents view (ACTIVELY). Whatever you do, don't skim through it lazily. Make sure that you're just as focussed as you are in a game of starcraft. Figure out what build he's doing, where the turning point is in this build(Turning point: something you can identify in your own games to differentiate this build from others. ie) gas before 3:30 in zvp. High percentage speedling all in), where he is the weakest, what time he attacks etc...
Note: Offracing only helps if you can get close to the level of your main race since lower than that and you aren't facing similar builds/levels of macro that you yourself would be able to achieve with your main race. Thus you aren't able to take what you learn and meaningfully apply it to games you play on your main race.
Reasons to offrace imo: fun. /endoflist
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In the end, I think that if you are having fun, you will be more likely to improve. Off racing is just part of that.
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United States4883 Posts
On August 08 2014 09:18 Dangermousecatdog wrote: In the end, I think that if you are having fun, you will be more likely to improve. Off racing is just part of that.
Ehhhhhhh, debatable.
For some people, "having fun" means getting on the ladder, BMing your opponent and cheesing and watching the hilarity that ensues as your opponent gets angry and frustrated that they lost to some pathetic lowlife who resorts to cheesing and BM in order to win.
For others, it's all about the learning .
EDIT: But I strongly agree with HuShang on this one. You don't really NEED to switch races to get an understanding of what the other race is doing, but it's always fun. Although, there is definitely some weak points that you can't fully understand until you play the race: for instance, as Zerg, Terran feels unbreakable and like they can just go 3CC and survive every game with hellions and banshees, but then you play Terran and realize you have like 4 hellions, a reaper, and a bunker to stop a roach/ling all-in lol.
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Switching from Protoss to Terran helped and continues to help me understand Terran better. Especially now that I have gotten back to the level I used to be at with Protoss. I used to be a defensive macro Toss in PvT and I now really get the anger against Protoss bullshit from the Terran side (and wish I had implemented bullshit into my PvT play). Not to mention the Zerg bullshit. Like SC2John says, there is the fragility of trying to hold a Zerg all-in just as your Hellions leave your base and with a couple of Marines in a bunker or having to hold off a tidal wave of banelings and lings with bio.
Playing Terran has improved my mechanics (in the same way that playing Zerg would also have increased my mechanics). I am not sure yet if I think Terran mechanics are substantially harder than Protoss mechanics - they might be just different. But, playing Terran re-ignited my enjoyment of the game at a time when I was getting bored of SC2, and I am continuing with the race for a second season. I may switch permanently. It's a lot of fun playing another race, not just for the sake of learning a match-up from the other end but also for it's own sake , and I'd recommend it to anyone playing the game.
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On August 08 2014 09:35 SC2John wrote: for instance, as Zerg, Terran feels unbreakable and like they can just go 3CC and survive every game with hellions and banshees, but then you play Terran and realize you have like 4 hellions, a reaper, and a bunker to stop a roach/ling all-in lol. yes this is a big part of it. and even if you play a race there are other people out there who play your race a different way and do things you dont do. if youre a terran who never goes factory, or youre bad at it or not confident, offracing protoss might give you perspective on how to execute it from the other side. also, watching your replays may teach you enough about your opponents weaknesses and builds, but it wont teach you how the other races mechanics feel, and knowing their mechanics can give you an insight into how to abuse those mechanics if you are a good player
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I think a majority of skill ceilings are simply due to lack of motivation. I think plenty of people claim they hit a skill ceiling because they get frustrated with the game and don't really have the right mindset or practice regimen in order to truly get better with their race. Maybe switching races at that point introduces them to new information that sparks their interest in the game, or they start to appreciate their original race more and come back with a fresh mind. Bad attitudes really weigh people down much more than there being a real reason why they aren't getting better.
The only time I'd say somebody is hitting a true skill ceiling is if they are literally not capable of processing information any quicker than they are now, whether it's due to age or that just being how they naturally process things. I've felt it before, which is why I capped out at High Masters and probably won't ever get any higher. A majority of people just don't have the natural raw ability to process that much information and make decisions that quickly or easily. I think that's something a lot of higher leagued players take for granted and say things like "anybody can be X rank if they practice". It's about like saying I could compete as an Olympic sprinter if I just practiced hard enough.
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On August 05 2014 02:29 VengefulTree wrote: Can't say for the skill ceiling, but I can say switching from Zerg to Random really made me more appreciative of the skill needed to play each race and therefore made me able to enjoy tournaments more. Before, I couldn't possibly cheer for a protoss as their win felt so dirty to me, but playing them changed that and helped my viewer experience tremendously. Now I laugh at protoss bullshit instead of crying.
Almost my thoughts exactly. Some time messing around playing Terran and Zerg has taught my two things:
1) I'm absolutely horrible with Zerg. 2) No matter how much I feel like another race might be easy, I can cool myself down by recalling my awful losses as that race. 3) I appreciate watching other races more, like you said.
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I recently switched from zerg to terran and my reason to switching was practicing more micro while multitasking. Since terran has a rep for being the micro race I decided to give it a shot. I also believe terran has a lot of diversity in opening builds and how they approach the match up. As I played terran I found how difficult it is to constantly run a reaper around harassing while building scvs and switching my rax with factory. I felt forced by the switch to practice some very common elements of the game for any race. 1) Building units while keeping the screen on my army and microing 2) Experiment with learning completely different builds and approaches to match ups.
While I haven't switched back to zerg for long periods of time, what I found was that the games I did play microing felt so much easier. For example, as zerg, instead of having to build two extra rax and a starport and then switch some buildings while scouting with a reaper... I now just had to drop two evos and start my gas which felt a lot easier after dealing with terran infrastructure. Now as a zerg there are things like creep and injects to occupy my time, but I did feel like the terran experience made it seem easier managing basic buildings as well as learning how to micro more consistently throughout the game.
My conclusion was that if I picked a small task which the race lends itself to at practiced that consciously as I off raced, then I was forced to learn something new that could make me better at my main race. Having to constantly deny creep with hellions and marcoing at the same time definitely helped me scout the map with lings better and drone as a zerg.
A bonus... was that I realized how hard it is to play terran! Man, tvz I am about 30% right now lol. So it opened my eyes to the truth... protoss is bs :D I made friends with the humans and now the hate is only for one race. It freed up so much negative energy for me
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I do think race switching is a good idea and at the very top, most players can and actively do play all three races. You can see it in some streams, mainly MC who is still beating ppl with terran and zerg with his usually top 10 GM account.
You simply gain a deeper understanding of the opportunity cost each race deals with and you become better at judging a game. Even scouting is not exactly straight forward. Seeing a spire or an infestation pit does not mean swarmhost or mutas necessarily.
For Terran, its possible a little less relevant that for zerg and protoss.
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On August 05 2014 00:17 SC2John wrote:
I don't think that people that plateau in gold are limited because of their skill. There's no reason why every person can't reach masters if they practice correctly and are learning efficiently and put in the time.
I disagree. I could use name drop but I'm not.
I've been playing as random for 2 years now. Learning all the races makes the game much more enjoyable for some reason. Every time I start up a game it's completely new and different then the previous games I played. Random means you need to understand 6 match ups and know at least 9 builds. I appreciate all streams now and watching tournaments is much more enjoyable because I understand what's going on.
So all in all I think random has helped my game play tremendously because it put the "game" as a whole in larger perspective then just understanding the game from my main race.
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