I'm not certain where to post this question, of if it's even an acceptable question on the TL forums, so I'm starting here.
tldr: What are some suggestions and best practices for returning to SC2 after an extended absence?
Longer Version:
I played the first few seasons of Wings, and consistently placed in Plat, but didn't put in the time to push beyond that. HotS' release coincided with an extended crunch at work, and I never really returned to the game. That puts me about 2 years out of practice. With Void on the horizon, I want to get back into ladder play, but the overall skill level of the playerbase feels like it's increased to a rather intimidating degree.
The clean slate does have the advantage of completely forgotten keybinds, build orders, and muscle memory. I'd like advice on how to approach relearning the game, the keybinds, and the meta in a way that'll let me transition into Void without too much unlearning of HotS in the process.
Welcome back. I'll chip in with pointing you in the direction of a good keybinding system. Now would be the time to (re)learn before you get set in your ways;
I feel I can be the most usefull by pointing this out:
Just reading your few lines, I felt you have expectations of climbing the ladder back up quicly.
For the good of your project, I suggest you set realistic goals and expectations.
- What good really is being plat 2 years ago ? Judging just from that, you must know that making a big army, taking bases and scouting can carry you to silver trough macro only. Should you expect more ? You know more than I do: I incite you to keep it realisitic.
- I second the invitation to use core lite. There is not a single player that would not have prefered to take the time to learn it at their very begining.
I'm in the same situation, gone for 1.5 years due to dead computer. used to be diamond, now consistently losing to silver. It's important not to care about losses or ranking, just get your fundamentals taken care of first. Focus on your pylons and probes (or whatevs). Once you have that down, pick one build per matchup and master that build, and you'll be in a good position to regain your previous skill.
I appreciate the feedback so far. It sounds like two votes for The Core Lite, so I'll take a look at it. Similarly, I've already started reading through the Zerg strategy threads to see where the meta is at the moment.
I recognize the wisdom in the common answer of "Go Ladder", along with the caution regarding expectations. My Plat rating was a long grind from low Bronze, so I'm expecting a slow journey from the bottom again, with no idea where I'll cap out this time. We'll see where I am when it happens.
While I intend to be patient regarding progress, I was curious if there was feedback from more experienced players on techniques that might improve the efficiency of my progress. Things that they wished they'd known when they first started, that would have wasted less time on dead-end learning curves. This time around, I won't have 20+ hours a week to throw at the game, so I want to make the most of the time I have to give.
On November 15 2014 03:03 Cheshyr wrote: I'm not certain where to post this question, of if it's even an acceptable question on the TL forums, so I'm starting here.
tldr: What are some suggestions and best practices for returning to SC2 after an extended absence?
Longer Version:
I played the first few seasons of Wings, and consistently placed in Plat, but didn't put in the time to push beyond that. HotS' release coincided with an extended crunch at work, and I never really returned to the game. That puts me about 2 years out of practice. With Void on the horizon, I want to get back into ladder play, but the overall skill level of the playerbase feels like it's increased to a rather intimidating degree.
The clean slate does have the advantage of completely forgotten keybinds, build orders, and muscle memory. I'd like advice on how to approach relearning the game, the keybinds, and the meta in a way that'll let me transition into Void without too much unlearning of HotS in the process.
Thanks for your thoughts.
You are absolutely right about the overall skill level. A casual Masters player warped back in time to early 2013 would have a pretty good chance of winning the GSL. But what evolved most here isnt the individual mechanical skill but rather the average players game knowledge. So even if your mechanics arent all that bad you will still have to figure out the meta, which, considering the #dreampool and all the oldschool builds it resurfaces, is quite a buttload of Information. So your prime Goals for improving should be to eliminate all the possible variating reactions as best as you can. That means, you focus on 1 build per matchup, best something that is HYPER agressive because it requires less game knowledge, or something that is so safe and stable that you never have to adapt your play anyway. A good example would be the infamous 8/8/8 in TvT which can be found here: 8/8/8 or the good old 11 11 rax in TvZ. In any case, your chances of winning increase significantly if you manage to catch people outside of the usual meta so that your inexperience becomes a less dominant factor. Learn your race. You have to know the general timings of how your builds work so that you can reproduce them even if the game diverts away from standart play; i´m talking about things like the reactor factory swap for Terrans, or the half way lair Roachwarren for Zerg, Depot pylon overlord timings. Just general rules of thumb that you can apply in every game really, discover tthe juicy timings! Learn about general strategy. This includes : Where to attack when to attack and WHY to attack or how does Army movement work etc etc.
Check out this thread if you want to learn how to prioritise the efforts put into the various aspects of skill: The Pyramid
and last but not least: Hotkeys are not important, choose what you are comfortable with.
On November 15 2014 07:57 Cheshyr wrote: I was curious if there was feedback from more experienced players on techniques that might improve the efficiency of my progress. Things that they wished they'd known when they first started, that would have wasted less time on dead-end learning curves. This time around, I won't have 20+ hours a week to throw at the game, so I want to make the most of the time I have to give.
I wanted to go ahead and throw out there that I created a tool called Benchmarker specifically to solve this exact problem. It's designed to maximize the time you have to dedicate to practice, while at the same time making warm-up for ladder games more engaging. I haven't had a chance to update it to the current map pool yet, but that should be coming in the next couple of weeks. Please take a look and let me know what you think.
On November 15 2014 03:03 Cheshyr wrote: I'm not certain where to post this question, of if it's even an acceptable question on the TL forums, so I'm starting here.
tldr: What are some suggestions and best practices for returning to SC2 after an extended absence?
Longer Version:
I played the first few seasons of Wings, and consistently placed in Plat, but didn't put in the time to push beyond that. HotS' release coincided with an extended crunch at work, and I never really returned to the game. That puts me about 2 years out of practice. With Void on the horizon, I want to get back into ladder play, but the overall skill level of the playerbase feels like it's increased to a rather intimidating degree.
The clean slate does have the advantage of completely forgotten keybinds, build orders, and muscle memory. I'd like advice on how to approach relearning the game, the keybinds, and the meta in a way that'll let me transition into Void without too much unlearning of HotS in the process.
Thanks for your thoughts.
You are absolutely right about the overall skill level. A casual Masters player warped back in time to early 2013 would have a pretty good chance of winning the GSL.
I'd like to say thanks to OP for putting my thoughts into the words. I am pretty sure there are some other who would like to return with LotV approaching. Thanks for valuable comments.
There's two bosses in Starcraft as far as I am concerned, one is MC (of course) And the other I doubt anyone would guess for my pick, but goes to the guy who made the second of the two VODs in the post above: FilterSC.
Seriously, if you're new to SC, returning, or even in the higher leagues and hit a bit of a brick wall with advancing further, you need to check out his VODs on YouTube.
Specifically thinking of the low leagues when I say this; but a lot of the VODs out there from known faces are great, no question, anyone who puts time and effort into helping others, getting more people involved in this awesome game, I take my hat off to you. Good stuff. The thing is, they don't really approach things from the new players perspective. I watched Apollo's Terran beginers VOD the other day, and the thing is he relies (as one would) On his great knowledge of the game to build the units, position units etc, to hard counter what their opponent is doing. But when you are new to SC, you simply do not have this knowledge.
You or I might wander into a Protoss' base for an early scout, see a lack of tech, 6 probes on gas, and instantly think 'proxy oracle maybe DT', so we can take the steps to deal with this. But as a new player you just do not have that knowledge, period. You only have to watch Husky's Bronze League Heroes And see the number of times new or lower ranked players scout, but don't really see anything.
For this reason I really can not recommend FilterSC's VODs highly enough. He points out that really for new players scouting is not needed, sure go check their base early to make sure you're not about to get a proxy two rax rammed down your throat, but beyond that forget it. The far more important thing is to get your macro under control, specifically SCV / probe / drone production, and get the production facilities you need to move into mid-game on a very strong economical and production footing. A new player trying to micro a reaper or lings in their opponents base is going to let their macro slip massively.
Forget going to IMBAbuilds or similar as a new player, learning cheese builds might get you out of the lower leagues, but it's not going to teach you the fundamentally most important aspects of SC; strong macro (specifically SCV etc production) and having the production facilities you need, when you need it, without floating 1k minerals or gas needlessly.
FilterSC is a boss. So glad he never left SC permanently. So sad I didn't find his stuff a lot sooner.
I'm having the same problem; I have no idea where to start. I made it to master league playing Protoss in WoL, and stopped playing only to come back a few days ago. I'm doing very poorly; I was placed in Gold, which I don't mind, but it shows how far my skills have decayed.
I can't macro to save my life, I float a lot of money, and I have no idea what unit compositions I should be aiming for in any of the matchup. Can anyone maybe help me out and tell me what the "most standard", solid, macro-oriented build is for each Protoss matchup? If I could just practice one build for each matchup that was exemplary of really solid play, I'm sure my macro would eventually come back, as I've only played like a dozen games or so since getting HotS. Thanks!
On November 29 2014 09:27 Lateral wrote:I can't macro to save my life, I float a lot of money, and I have no idea what unit compositions I should be aiming for in any of the matchup. Can anyone maybe help me out and tell me what the "most standard", solid, macro-oriented build is for each Protoss matchup? If I could just practice one build for each matchup that was exemplary of really solid play, I'm sure my macro would eventually come back, as I've only played like a dozen games or so since getting HotS. Thanks!
I was in the same boat. I literally just focused on one opening (1-gate expo into robo, located in the OP of The Protoss Help thread) for both PvT and PvZ, and using PvP as my "try new things" matchup. What I've found is my early/mid-game scouting is actually now better than it was before my hiatus because I'm completely comfortable in my opening and have attention to spare for what my opponent is doing. As a result I am almost back up to Plat (my pre-hiatus rank), up from Silver just 2 weeks ago.
As for which builds are right for you, I guess that depends on your playstyle. I prefer more macro-oriented play, butif you like all-ins, find one that suits you and just master that one build. Once you're no longer focusing on "omg is my build order correct??", the rest of the game comes back to you much easier.
Yeah, I definitely know what you mean. I'm lost in PvP, though. I'm squeaking wins out, but it never feels solid and I always feel like I'm winning because my opponent messed up.
I started just doing two of my old 2 base builds in PvT and PvZ, an 8 gate and an Immortal/sentry/warp prism, and I think I'm just going to let those carry me up the ladder until people start stopping them, but I have no such build for PvP to ease me back into the game and just re-train me to spend money and build pylons. When I originally learned, I 1 based everyone, then once I had that figured out and could keep my resources low and people started defending, I'd start 2 basing, then once I could manage a 2 base econ I'd go to 3, until eventually I was playing macro games. But I had the 4 Gate for PvP way back then, and now I don't really have a simple build I can use to just beat the plat players I'm playing and work on keeping my resources low.
How do I even open in PvP these days? What are the main options? I remember you used to do a 3 stalker rush to prevent 4 Gate, and then it went into a sort of counter-triangle, something like twilight > phoenix > robo > twilight, with some expand builds that could work vs defensive robo builds or something, but now with the MSC (and oracles) I just have no idea.
in literally all 3 matchups you can open blink and choose to either allin with it or continue on to macro/robo play
in pvz you have to go forge and a bunch of sentries first but otherwise yeah if you just want to practice mechanics in mid leagues i don't see any reason you can't go blink all day every day
I'm in a similar situation as the OP: I went on hiatus right before HotS came out because of persistently bad internet service, but I picked up HotS when it went on sale a couple of days ago and now that I have better internet and can play without fear of lag/drops, I'm back here. I actually wanted to post a thread asking for tips too but I was worried it wasn't worthy of a thread.
I left off from plat as well, but I expected myself to suck after the hiatus so I dropped all my placement matches. I still landed in Silver somehow.
For a whole night I was just trucked, frequently by units which I forgot were a thing.
My "muscle memory" has mostly recovered, but my build orders are still fuck all. I use a modified version of/a cross between TheCore Lite and Chameleon (I was worried I would lose my hotkeys and other savedata because I uninstalled the game, but thank god for online profile saves), and I have to say, it feels really natural and was a breeze to relearn. I recommend using an alternate hotkey setup.
On November 15 2014 03:03 Cheshyr wrote: I'm not certain where to post this question, of if it's even an acceptable question on the TL forums, so I'm starting here.
tldr: What are some suggestions and best practices for returning to SC2 after an extended absence?
Longer Version:
I played the first few seasons of Wings, and consistently placed in Plat, but didn't put in the time to push beyond that. HotS' release coincided with an extended crunch at work, and I never really returned to the game. That puts me about 2 years out of practice. With Void on the horizon, I want to get back into ladder play, but the overall skill level of the playerbase feels like it's increased to a rather intimidating degree.
The clean slate does have the advantage of completely forgotten keybinds, build orders, and muscle memory. I'd like advice on how to approach relearning the game, the keybinds, and the meta in a way that'll let me transition into Void without too much unlearning of HotS in the process.
Thanks for your thoughts.
You are absolutely right about the overall skill level. A casual Masters player warped back in time to early 2013 would have a pretty good chance of winning the GSL.
no they wouldnt lol they would never even qualify
Yeah this is a huge exaggeration. I think I'm going to understate the skill creep and guess the difference between early 2013 and now is actually something like jumping from Silver to Plat, or Casual Masters to low-GM.
I give a few games, after the first won game I placed gold and won the other 2. I was gold in WoL and kinda surprising to see old master players , dropped to silver. Will not gave up this time