After spending weeks and months talking to masters level players, and diamond players before masters existed, I've come to a conclusion that, to me at least, is startling.
Top-level players have no idea what they're doing.
Now, don't misunderstand, they can DO what they're doing. They can do it well, they can repeatedly do it. But they don't know what it is that they're doing. Here's a fun experiment. Pick a certain micro task that's been stumping you. For me, I picked "microing ling/bane vs ling/bane." I don't know HOW to do this. Like, I know what it should look like, and what end result I want, but I have no earthly clue what buttons to press in what order to make it happen.
So, I asked my buddy who plays Zerg at masters level and another buddy that plays masters toss and offraces Zerg at about a high diamond level, probably how. They were completely unable to explain it. I got stuff like:
"The right way is to kill as many of his lings as possible and banes" "With banes, you either trade well, poorly, or even; You want to, in a perfect world, always trade well" "If you go ling bane it lets you take an expand" "You make banes and transition into whatever because ling bane loses after point x" "I dont see what the problem is"
I think what's happened here is somewhere along the line, maybe in SCBW, maybe in Beta, maybe in SC2, these players figured out the mechanics of how to control a certain unit to get from point A to end result B effectively. Maybe not perfectly, but effectively, and they started practicing it. They practiced it for so long and so hard that the process became muscle memory and subsequently was 'lost' from their ACTUAL memory.
They no longer have any clue what they're doing, just that they can do it. It would be, I think, a lot like asking a track athlete how they run, like the actual physical breakdown of which muscles to move in which order. You'd probably just get blank looks. And that's all I get from Master-level SC2 players when I ask how do I control my ling/bane.
Both utterly hilarious to me, and deeply frustrating.
Surely they must have an idea of what their micro techniques are if they are winning games. Generally, I try to distract my opponent to deal with banelings by sending 2 to his mineral line. I do this repeatedly while micro-ing my lings. I often morph a third banelings in a different location, to suprise his group of lings while he is sending some to fight my two banelings. I send individual Zerglings to fight off his banelings. If time is short I send two. If time is shorter I trade evenly by sending 2 banelings (1 baneling alone can be dealt with by a well positioned queen). I'm a masters Zerg and I have a pretty good idea of how to do things perfectly, but often I don't have the required APM and some actions are botched, but I'm working on it!
I figured that those sorts of micro techniques are simply difficult to explain well to those who don't have much of a clue; it requires intuition, if you will. Saying that Master players don't know what they're doing is a bit sensationalist. It's clear that they know WHAT they're doing, and WHY, but because they can't explain HOW to do it in detail, they're oblivious? It's like asking me to define the word "that". I don't know the definition of "that" in dictionary terms, but it's clear that I can use the word correctly. If I can't define it adequately to you, do I have no clue what I'm saying?
I wasn't talking about just baneling ambushes, like 'surprise! 2 banelings in your drones!" I mean, like, you and I both have bane ling. We both know we both have bane ling. One of us is trying to attack into the other, while the other defends. The battle comes down to who micros his units best and lands the best baneling explosion on or near the bulk of his opponent's units.
How do I control my units, in this sort of battle, to maximize my chances of landing that critical explosion near my opponent's units without him blocking it? I've tried a lot of stuff on my own. I've 'praticed' it for a long time. I put practice in quotes, because I'm not really 'practicing', I'm just trying different, randomly though-up techniques, all of which have failed me.
This is actually true, and there has been research behind it. Check out the 2005 National Geographic documentary that follows Xellos, the entire thing is a great watch but at 13 minutes is the part relevant to your OP.
Top players (at least top Korean BW players) don't deliberately think about what strategic moves they are making, it comes instinctively to them.
On August 31 2011 14:05 Aeres wrote: I figured that those sorts of micro techniques are simply difficult to explain well to those who don't have much of a clue; it requires intuition, if you will. Saying that Master players don't know what they're doing is a bit sensationalist. It's clear that they know WHAT they're doing, and WHY, but because they can't explain HOW to do it in detail, they're oblivious? It's like asking me to define the word "that". I don't know the definition of "that" in dictionary terms, but it's clear that I can use the word correctly. If I can't define it adequately to you, do I have no clue what I'm saying?
A word isn't an action. I know the word 'throw', I can throw a ball. I know how, I might be able to teach someone how by showing them.
Do I know each muscle used, the order it tenses in, and by how much? Not at all.
I'm sure if I was able to sit in the room with one of these players and watch over their shoulder and see what they do, I'd learn VOLUMES...
So, they know what they're doing, but they don't know HOW they're doing it.
Undoubtedly not even the best professionals in the world at SC2 "know" what they are doing by your standards. It is the continuous grinding of games and strategies and situations that allow us to readily identify patterns and their correct responses.
In any competition (esports or otherwise), you don't necessarily have to "know what you are doing", but you just have to either have a better approach or better execution. But you mention this point in your post anyway.
On August 31 2011 14:05 Aeres wrote: I figured that those sorts of micro techniques are simply difficult to explain well to those who don't have much of a clue; it requires intuition, if you will. Saying that Master players don't know what they're doing is a bit sensationalist. It's clear that they know WHAT they're doing, and WHY, but because they can't explain HOW to do it in detail, they're oblivious? It's like asking me to define the word "that". I don't know the definition of "that" in dictionary terms, but it's clear that I can use the word correctly. If I can't define it adequately to you, do I have no clue what I'm saying?
A word isn't an action. I know the word 'throw', I can throw a ball. I know how, I might be able to teach someone how by showing them.
Do I know each muscle used, the order it tenses in, and by how much? Not at all.
I'm sure if I was able to sit in the room with one of these players and watch over their shoulder and see what they do, I'd learn VOLUMES...
So, they know what they're doing, but they don't know HOW they're doing it.
What if you were to watch a replay and 1st person them, allowing you to see what they select, and how they move the unit ^
This seems like your best bet in understand the "how" as you put it.
In your ling bane example, you say you know what it should look like, well what happens when you attempt to emulate what it "should look like" ? Do you have good results, bad results? Did you actually emulate it as you were supposed to ? Perhaps post a replay of yourself trying to emulate something you've seen in another replay, or even analyze them yourself.
There are some people that can describe things well but can't really carry it out, thus tinting their opinions towards a different viewpoint. There are people who can do it but can't describe the things they do, creating misunderstandings. Gifted speakers and gamers I think are few and far in between, especially for the lay people that aren't like oho I get what you meant by predicting base locations dependent on scouting timing/pattern just by saying the clock positions.
A lot of SC knowledge is gathered from repeated visual clues though, so...keep watching those VODs frame-by-frame like I do >___>;;;
If you had asked me"how do i micro ling/bane", I would have said:
Keep lings away from banelings Engage smaller numbers of zerglings, get hits, micro away when banes get close if micro is good, pick off two lings from group and right click bane Keep lings away from banes Go roach
To be fair, I'm sure there are plenty of inarticulate sc2 players at the high level, but that doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing... they're just bad at articulating it.
If your friend plays zerg as an offrace at a 'high diamond level' I don't think that he qualifies as a "masters player who doesn't know what hes talking about" even if it is his offrace. A high level masters toss should at least have an offrace at a mid-high masters level. My terran is my current 'main' but I am high masters as zerg/protoss as well. Ling bane is something that you have to practice where you get used to the speed of zerglings outrunning banes, it revolves around proper clicking and removing certain units from your control group to get them wasted on banelings etc. Either your friends can't teach right or they are not very good if they can't explain it. Just saying.
On August 31 2011 15:19 Candide wrote: If your friend plays zerg as an offrace at a 'high diamond level' I don't think that he qualifies as a "masters player who doesn't know what hes talking about" even if it is his offrace. A high level masters toss should at least have an offrace at a mid-high masters level. My terran is my current 'main' but I am high masters as zerg/protoss as well. Ling bane is something that you have to practice where you get used to the speed of zerglings outrunning banes, it revolves around proper clicking and removing certain units from your control group to get them wasted on banelings etc. Either your friends can't teach right or they are not very good if they can't explain it. Just saying.
were you trying to give an explanation on the micro? if so, it sucked quite a lot aswell. just saying bro
"Ling bane is something that you have to practice where you get used to the speed of zerglings outrunning banes" ... how will that statement help anyone? just gives the student a headache due to unneccessary information.
"it revolves around proper clicking and removing certain units from your control group to get them wasted on banelings " .... you have to click properly? no shit? thanks dude. how come i never realized :D. removing certain units, you say? damn, you put it really really badly here.
dude. you're bad at explaining things.
just saying! no offense! really! no ban hammer please. i'm trying to be constructive
On August 31 2011 14:59 BrassMonkey wrote: If you had asked me"how do i micro ling/bane", I would have said:
Keep lings away from banelings Engage smaller numbers of zerglings, get hits, micro away when banes get close if micro is good, pick off two lings from group and right click bane Keep lings away from banes Go roach
Perhaps its more about WHO your talking too.
Diamond zerg
he's good at explaining things. look at how he's doing it. try to emulate!
i think we can draw the conclusion that masters do indeed know what they're doing (at least in the case of ling bling vs ling bling), but suck at explaining it.
OK i think that was constructive enough to not get banned for this post. love you mods. <3
On August 31 2011 15:19 Candide wrote: If your friend plays zerg as an offrace at a 'high diamond level' I don't think that he qualifies as a "masters player who doesn't know what hes talking about" even if it is his offrace. A high level masters toss should at least have an offrace at a mid-high masters level. My terran is my current 'main' but I am high masters as zerg/protoss as well. Ling bane is something that you have to practice where you get used to the speed of zerglings outrunning banes, it revolves around proper clicking and removing certain units from your control group to get them wasted on banelings etc. Either your friends can't teach right or they are not very good if they can't explain it. Just saying.
were you trying to give an explanation on the micro? if so, it sucked quite a lot aswell. just saying bro
"Ling bane is something that you have to practice where you get used to the speed of zerglings outrunning banes" ... how will that statement help anyone? just gives the student a headache due to unneccessary information.
"it revolves around proper clicking and removing certain units from your control group to get them wasted on banelings " .... you have to properly click? no shit? thanks dude. how come i never realized :D. certain units, you say? you put it really really badly here.
you're bad at explaining things.
just saying! no offense! really! no ban hammer please. i'm trying to be constructive
His explanation made sense to me; try to trade small, small groups of lings for individual banes (like, 1-2 lings) by peeling them off, since lings are faster than banes! remove them from the control group when you do this with precision clicking. This was legitimately helpful for me to understand lingbane vs lingbane.
On August 31 2011 15:19 Candide wrote: If your friend plays zerg as an offrace at a 'high diamond level' I don't think that he qualifies as a "masters player who doesn't know what hes talking about" even if it is his offrace. A high level masters toss should at least have an offrace at a mid-high masters level. My terran is my current 'main' but I am high masters as zerg/protoss as well. Ling bane is something that you have to practice where you get used to the speed of zerglings outrunning banes, it revolves around proper clicking and removing certain units from your control group to get them wasted on banelings etc. Either your friends can't teach right or they are not very good if they can't explain it. Just saying.
were you trying to give an explanation on the micro? if so, it sucked quite a lot aswell. just saying bro
"Ling bane is something that you have to practice where you get used to the speed of zerglings outrunning banes" ... how will that statement help anyone? just gives the student a headache due to unneccessary information.
"it revolves around proper clicking and removing certain units from your control group to get them wasted on banelings " .... you have to properly click? no shit? thanks dude. how come i never realized :D. certain units, you say? you put it really really badly here.
you're bad at explaining things.
just saying! no offense! really! no ban hammer please. i'm trying to be constructive
His explanation made sense to me; try to trade small, small groups of lings for individual banes (like, 1-2 lings) by peeling them off, since lings are faster than banes! remove them from the control group when you do this with precision clicking. This was legitimately helpful for me to understand lingbane vs lingbane.
of course it made sense. the explanation was still badly put. glad you understood it.
On August 31 2011 14:07 c.Deadly wrote: This is actually true, and there has been research behind it. Check out the 2005 National Geographic documentary that follows Xellos, the entire thing is a great watch but at 13 minutes is the part relevant to your OP.
Top players (at least top Korean BW players) don't deliberately think about what strategic moves they are making, it comes instinctively to them.
AHHHHHHHH
Those guys were setting IVs with no gloves wtf!!! sorry, I had something to say about the OP and the video but now I can't think about anything else ><
Ahm... Your asking for stuff that is really, really hard to explain?
I mean, the situation is simple: You wan't to kill as many lings per Bane as possible (or get the Banes into the Drones whiteout losing them). You wan't to kill as many banes per ling or bane as possible (so you want ideally trade 0/1 ling per bane, 2 are ok, more is probably not in your interest but still can be...). Your enemy wants ~the same... But it depends... Are there Queens/Spines involved?... Are you on the offense/defense? . .
Basically it's just about control, no one can exactly say you how to do it and about everyone does it differently.
The most basic level would be having your Lings in a Group and your Banelings in another... The "best" possible way would be to control every unit individually.... NO ONE can tell you "how" to do that... You are either naturally pretty fucking fast/good at microing or you need to practise it to become able to control more/smaller groups of ligns/banes individually...
What do you expect form your friends to tell you? How to hold your Mouse? How to select units?
Your title is misleading. It seems like you are saying masters players' muscle memory causes them to actually forget what buttons they are pressing to accomplish tasks - meaning they have no idea what they are literally doing. If this is correct, I agree, but that is not a bad thing. Every situation is slightly different and these players have a ton of multitasking that is largely muscle memory and reaction to what they are seeing; it's no surprise they can't remember the exact buttons pressed during a micro war. I admit I'm not a zerg, but I really don't know how one would explain ling/baneling micro better than "well you want to kill his banelings with a single ling and set up traps with your banelings to kill of his pack of lings." What more do you expect? Microing is just completely different than a memorized build order; it's 100% reactionary to how your opponent is microing.
Think of those typing speed tests. You can't explain what buttons you press to achieve your goal because the words are randomized, different every time. You are just reacting to what you see on the screen, at your own pace. Can you explain to me what buttons you press to do well on a typing speed test? I will imitate the buttons you press and see how well I do...doesn't work right? The same is true of a micro battle. All you can do is describe the overall idea. You see the units and what is happening, and a pro will just "know" what to do as if he was copying words off the screen.
To answer it most simply, send Banes to groups of Lings, and use individual or minimal amount of lings to kill banes.
To do something, the best way to learn it is to simplify it as much as you can so your brain can handle thinking about it as well as reacting to the game and doing everything else you need to do. If you have a simple goal, you can just FIND your way to execute. And as you practice and practice, all you have is that simple goal and you just execute (at least when you have master's level mechanics).
Like, if you Bunker rush (2 rax) a Zerg, what's your main goals? Make sure the Bunker goes up and keep your Marines alive. To do that, you use halt micro, mineral micro, and stutter step micro. As you keep practicing, it just becomes "oh shit! keep everything alive!" and it just happens. The bottom line is keep things alive and be cost efficient.
Then there's the goal or reason behind the idea. Like, if I 2 rax someone, I'm unlikely to be pressured back as long as I execute the build properly. If I epically fail a 2 rax and force like 20 Lings, the natural follow up is to make banes and kill me. But I'll basically force some lings, keep the Zerg focused on his base, and get my expansion up, so basically a 2 rax allows me to get my expansion up safely as long as I do it properly.
And at the master's level, you start to get an understanding of timings, so it's pretty important to know when you can do something. Like ling/bane, obviously you can't really use small Marine pressure past maybe the 6 or 7 minute mark. Or how Infantry play vs Protoss basically DIES around the 12 minute mark unless you get the appropriate support. (Which is why you should aim to hit around the 10-11 minute mark which is before Protoss can get Thermal Lance and will likely only have 1 Colossus, 2 max).
But overall, I only really agree with the first 2 statements, and partially agree with the 4th statement. In SOME games, ling/bane does allow you to expand. But in ling/bane vs ling/bane, you CAN'T expand because if you don't have enough units, you just DIE. The only way to expand in ling/bane vs ling/bane, you have to be THAT much more cost efficient than your opponent that you can afford it (300 minerals). That's why you generally sneak in a few Drones as opposed to a whole freakin' expansion. A 50 mineral+1 Larvae investment isn't as bad as 300 minerals+1 mining Drone. If your opponent goes JUST speedlings, then ling/bane DOES allow you to expand safely because you just morph a few defensive banes and your opponent can't really do too much about it since they can also use their leftover lings to protect the banes and protect them from getting sniped by individual lings. You can't fight ling/bane without banes or Roaches.
Also, with ling/bane vs ling/bane, if you can find the money for the transition, then you're solid. Roaches basically negate ling/bane unless they have "too much stuff", which is why it's only good if you can find the extra money to support the army and still invest in the tech. Ling/bane vs ling/bane is a tug of war setup like 4 Gate vs 4 Gate... It's hard to afford anything else unless you're being more cost efficient than your opponent (which at the high level is basically the one making less mistakes).
For the 3rd and 4th statements, they are true if it's NOT ling/bane vs ling/bane. If it's ling/bane vs ANYTHING ELSE, they're true. Like I said earlier, defensive banes keep you safe from speedlings. And Roaches or 2 Queens blocking your ramp basically negates ling/bane. But if you're both doing the same thing, where one unit can be insanely cost efficient against the vast majority of the units you will have (you're going to have WAY more lings than banes), if you fall behind, you're that much closer to dying. 150 Minerals=6 Lings. It may not seem like much, but it is since you're unlikely to be in the situation where it's 24 lings vs 30 lings. It's more like 8 lings vs 14, which is a pretty big disparity.
I don't know... Maybe they just didn't understand the question or you didn't phrase EXACTLY what kind of response you wanted. If you just pose a general question, people just throw up the first thing that comes to mind.
Too bad I was looking forward to this thread when I saw the title. This was dissappointing. You should maybe have named it "Masters players can't explain how to micro bane/ling".
If you want to make rational decisions about every situation in starcraft 2, you will be sitting down in each situation doing something like counting units and thinking about odds. This will take you at least 10-20 seconds before reaching a proper weighted decision, and this is 10-20 seconds wasted.
Your brain is very good at calculating things for you, and will tell you in the way of "This feels good", or "Doesnt feel right!". Maybe your brain will make a mistake, but at least you didnt sit still for 10 seconds. Not acting can be even more damaging than doing something wrong.
This also makes sense in an evolutionary type of way. Remember when we were still clubbing rabbits in the jungle? When we encountered a tiger, we weren't like "What's the odds? Let's plan a strategy". We just did something that felt good. Like run the #$%# away :D Jimmy died however cuz he thought tigers couldnt climb. He made a shitty decision basically. Noone else made the decision because their instincts said "Keep running, trees are prolly not safe!".
We didnt tell this to Jimmy's grandmother btw, so can everyone please shush to her? We told her that Jimmy was fighting the tiger with his teeth and hands, because he wanted to solve the tribes food problems. If you ever encounter Jimmy's grandmother, please tell her that! Tell her he died as a hero!
Yep, biggest dissappointment yet. Most lower Masters are good at mimicing builds, microing and macroing. But they can't adapt! I hoped that this thread would've had something to do with that, not something this silly. I can't explain how to micro my marauders/rines/hellions the way I do, u need to learn the timings. If i explained it u'd learn less. Eg. "Move marauders 0.4339s in opposite direction then press stop, repeat."
You're essentially saying that it's incredible to you that people can be good at starcraft2 and bad at explaining themselves. I really don't see the necessary connection that a top level sc2 player NEEDS to be able to explain themselves. Nerds (the generalization for players who play this game) arn't always the most articulate, which makes sense if you follow the generalization that they're not the most social of people. How many top level sc2 players are on the debate team or constantly giving speeches? Some, not many. Your frustration is directed at the wrong thing.
As far as helping you out, explanations only go so far. The top players (GM) are generally so because they make really really good in game decisions in situations that last for seconds. Surprise attacks, holding off big pushes and macroing afterwards, etc, and most definitely ling/baneling micro are really really hard to explain. It helps a bit with a replay to explain why a certain decision was made, but muscle memory and countless interactions are really what help.
I pretty much learned that when you can't explain something properly, you don't really understand it. Maybe you know the endresult but you have no idea how to elaborate it yourself.
Simple "fake" example: People know that 2 + 2 equals 4, 1 + 1 equals 2, but when you ask them what 2 + 3 is they'd have to guess as they just learned the other 2 fixed results but not the actual rules of calculating stuff.
It's just the way people learn it: They keep the results, maybe even just read it on the internet, but never actually evaluate it so that they are not able to explain it properly.
Try to teach someone, whiteout the person actually doing the "thing" himself, how to Ski, Snowboard, Cycling... Play the Guitar/Piano... whatever....
People bloody well know how to Ski/Snowboard/Piano/Guitar... But explaining it? Yeah... No problem, but even if i make a perfect explanation you won't "get it" and eventually even think my explanation was not correct...
On August 31 2011 18:19 Velr wrote: That has nothing to do with it:
Try to teach someone, whiteout the person actually doing the "thing" himself, how to Ski, Snowboard, Cycling... Play the Guitar/Piano... whatever....
People bloody well know how to Ski/Snowboard/Piano/Guitar... But explaining it? Yeah... No problem, but even if i make a perfect explanation you won't "get it" and eventually even think my explanation was not correct...
Yeah that is a very good example. I am a pretty good skier, but whenever people ask me for help I am at a complete loss.
It's probably like that with everything that you haven't learned systematically but just by trying.
On August 31 2011 18:19 Velr wrote: That has nothing to do with it:
Try to teach someone, whiteout the person actually doing the "thing" himself, how to Ski, Snowboard, Cycling... Play the Guitar/Piano... whatever....
People bloody well know how to Ski/Snowboard/Piano/Guitar... But explaining it? Yeah... No problem, but even if i make a perfect explanation you won't "get it" and eventually even think my explanation was not correct...
Yeah that is a very good example. I am a pretty good skier, but whenever people ask me for help I am at a complete loss.
It's probably like that with everything that you haven't learned systematically but just by trying.
Well the op claims to know what it should look like, and is trying that without any luck. Perhaps the real issue is that he does not actually know what it should look like, and as a result when he emulates it, he emulates it wrong. However, it appears right to him due to his initial misconception of what is right.
On August 31 2011 18:19 Velr wrote: People bloody well know how to Ski/Snowboard/Piano/Guitar... But explaining it? Yeah... No problem, but even if i make a perfect explanation you won't "get it" and eventually even think my explanation was not correct...
Thats a pretty bad example imho and it doesn't fit the criteria at all. Snowboarding, Skiing is all about your body and moving it in right ways, explaining that is really hard as you have to really get a feeling for what you have to do. Also it is really dependant on people.
But explaining which buttons to press is super easy. Or did you ever hear someone say "Ough, I don't know how to explain this but you have to build a roach, how you exactly do that... I don't know, it's just something you have to learn." No, it's not like that. It's about knowing what and how to scout and also knowing the specific responses in advance. This is nothing about bodyfeeling or something you can't explain, it's all just logical and based on previous analysis. Sure there is something like "I feel like I can do this now and attack here bla" etc but it is all based on things you can explain easily. (You have more or better units, you have better upgrades, you are way behind in economy etc)
I don't think we need a replay here as this is quite true for most of the players(Note: I know that there are people around that aren't like that but you can't deny that there also many people that are exactly like that): They learn build orders and then play them out without thinking about it. When they have to explain it they can't as they just copy what others did.
There was a game on crevasse (or was it crossfire? I don't know.) a few months ago where IdrA did some sweet roach stuff vs a terran. People went like "Okay now this is the new must-play build vs Terran apparently because IdrA won with it", and IdrA responded by saying "This was just the answer to his weird play, I made it up based on what I saw" etc. THIS is someone who has the game knowledge and can explain it. You might think of IdrA what you want, but he clearly has the game knowledge and you see that he doesnt say "Well uhh I don't know I just did something ..." He always has a specific answer.
Theres a big difference between just executing build orders etc and actually have the game knowledge to do all that stuff yourself. Did you ever see IdrA post in a guide to a specific build he wants to use? No, he doesn't need it.
Do you think NesTeal lurks the strategy forum to copy the next meta-game build orders or find out how to counter them? He doesn't need to as he has the proper gameknowledge.
On August 31 2011 16:48 Meborg wrote: We didnt tell this to Jimmy's grandmother btw, so can everyone please shush to her? We told her that Jimmy was fighting the tiger with his teeth and hands, because he wanted to solve the tribes food problems. If you ever encounter Jimmy's grandmother, please tell her that! Tell her he died as a hero!
On August 31 2011 18:19 Velr wrote: People bloody well know how to Ski/Snowboard/Piano/Guitar... But explaining it? Yeah... No problem, but even if i make a perfect explanation you won't "get it" and eventually even think my explanation was not correct...
Thats a pretty bad example imho and it doesn't fit the criteria at all. Snowboarding, Skiing is all about your body and moving it in right ways, explaining that is really hard as you have to really get a feeling for what you have to do. Also it is really dependant on people.
But explaining which buttons to press is super easy. Or did you ever hear someone say "Ough, I don't know how to explain this but you have to build a roach, how you exactly do that... I don't know, it's just something you have to learn." No, it's not like that. It's about knowing what and how to scout and also knowing the specific responses in advance. This is nothing about bodyfeeling or something you can't explain, it's all just logical and based on previous analysis. Sure there is something like "I feel like I can do this now and attack here bla" etc but it is all based on things you can explain easily. (You have more or better units, you have better upgrades, you are way behind in economy etc)
I don't think we need a replay here as this is quite true for most of the players(Note: I know that there are people around that aren't like that but you can't deny that there also many people that are exactly like that): They learn build orders and then play them out without thinking about it. When they have to explain it they can't as they just copy what others did.
There was a game on crevasse (or was it crossfire? I don't know.) a few months ago where IdrA did some sweet roach stuff vs a terran. People went like "Okay now this is the new must-play build vs Terran apparently because IdrA won with it", and IdrA responded by saying "This was just the answer to his weird play, I made it up based on what I saw" etc. THIS is someone who has the game knowledge and can explain it. You might think of IdrA what you want, but he clearly has the game knowledge and you see that he doesnt say "Well uhh I don't know I just did something ..." He always has a specific answer.
Theres a big difference between just executing build orders etc and actually have the game knowledge to do all that stuff yourself. Did you ever see IdrA post in a guide to a specific build he wants to use? No, he doesn't need it.
Do you think NesTeal lurks the strategy forum to copy the next meta-game build orders or find out how to counter them? He doesn't need to as he has the proper gameknowledge.
I'm sorry but, people who just follow builds without understanding them are bad. And they don't get super far in starcraft 2 ( 111 is an exception because it's silly right now, so lets not consider this. 4gate also had this phase before it was figured out/patched).
Most of the people who just learn build orders without understanding are players who are trying to play a strategy game without having a strategy of their own... this is in itself, stupid wouldn't you agree?
I mean, at best you can argue that their strategy is listen to what Internetguy333 said in his forum post and win. But honestly, this isn't going to get you very far in an evolving strategy game, let alone one was competitive as starcraft.
A replay would be nice, and is often needed.
As for Idra, he is a very good players with years of experience. But if you recall his comments about winning IPL, it was something along the lines of "I dunno I just did random all ins and they worked". So, sometimes players do just do builds, in the case of all ins.
On August 31 2011 21:07 Vlare wrote: So, sometimes players do just do builds, in the case of all ins.
Well this pretty much sums it up: Sometimes they do that, but also just if it is needed.
But most of the time it is the knowledge of the game and previous analysis that brought the play to where he is now, and that is what most "ladder-players" don't have.
On August 31 2011 21:07 Vlare wrote: So, sometimes players do just do builds, in the case of all ins.
Well this pretty much sums it up: Sometimes they do that, but also just if it is needed.
But most of the time it is the knowledge of the game and previous analysis that brought the play to where he is now, and that is what most "ladder-players" don't have.
Rather depressing isn't it. Masters is top 2-3% per region, and about half of masters players suck...
"The right way is to kill as many of his lings as possible and banes" "With banes, you either trade well, poorly, or even; You want to, in a perfect world, always trade well" "If you go ling bane it lets you take an expand" "You make banes and transition into whatever because ling bane loses after point x" "I dont see what the problem is"
These had me on the floor. :D
But that happens all the time in life, something you know how to do and understand, and then you try to explain to someone and they just don't understand. It's both frustrating and hilarious in hindsight.
A lot of people here had really good points. Sometimes things are hard to explain. Sometimes people just aren't articulate. Sometimes people aren't good teachers or good coaches.
But if you asked someone about the body mechanics of skiing, they'd at least understand the question enough to go, "Well, that's really complex, here are a few things you need to watch out for, but you're gonna need to practice A LOT." You're probably not gonna just get, "I dunno, you just...uh...skii? You know, you just....go down the mountain. With skiis. The skiis help you go fast on the snow. I don't understand the question."
The point is, asking a lot of higher-league players in SC2, those ARE the answers you get. The 'explanation' of how to do some tasks simply become, "Hell, I dunno, just DO it." And they really, honestly, don't seem to understand how it could possibly involve any more complex thought than that. As if there was just a button on the keyboard that said "Micro banelings," and I'm being super retarded because I'm asking how to press it. Like I just asked them where the 'any' key was.
On August 31 2011 23:19 Reithan wrote: A lot of people here had really good points. Sometimes things are hard to explain. Sometimes people just aren't articulate. Sometimes people aren't good teachers or good coaches.
But if you asked someone about the body mechanics of skiing, they'd at least understand the question enough to go, "Well, that's really complex, here are a few things you need to watch out for, but you're gonna need to practice A LOT." You're probably not gonna just get, "I dunno, you just...uh...skii? You know, you just....go down the mountain. With skiis. The skiis help you go fast on the snow. I don't understand the question."
The point is, asking a lot of higher-league players in SC2, those ARE the answers you get. The 'explanation' of how to do some tasks simply become, "Hell, I dunno, just DO it." And they really, honestly, don't seem to understand how it could possibly involve any more complex thought than that. As if there was just a button on the keyboard that said "Micro banelings," and I'm being super retarded because I'm asking how to press it. Like I just asked them where the 'any' key was.
Perhaps many people you ask come from RTS background where "micro' is something that is colon to them. From the sounds of it, you don't come from a micro intensive background, so when someone just says 'micro your x" you don't really understand.
This is a common assumption made with people of higher levels, people assume you have some sort of base knowledge where they can use words like micro and macro and other common RTS lingo.I could go on giving hundreds of examples, but I think people in this thread have already done that.
I'll give you an example for the hell of it though. When I have my friends watch me play (irl or in vent) there are points in the game where he will say, "macro macro macro, micro your X, chrono". Now, I know what this means, and I understand what the idea's behind these words mean, but if your friend told you "ok micro micro, macro macro" Would you really be in a position where you know what he means? - From the sounds of it, you simply don't understand the nature of the words, and as mentioned above, this may simply stem from a lack of background, or base knowledge.
This is sort of why Universities/Colleges in first year give everyone classes to equalize everyone's base knowledge, so they can begin building under the assumption that everyone has the same understanding of idea's, concepts and meanings. In SC2 there isn't something like this, there is simply assumptions that people are familiar with RTS and gaming.
Edit: Was just watching white-ra's stream while eating breakfast, if you notice he says things like "Here you need just micro". I'm 100% sure white-ra DOES know what he's talking about. And it really seems like the issue is what I've mentioned above.
It's both 2 sides of the same coin. When you create a lexicon, internally or externally to quickly describe a given phenomenon, you often lose a lot of granularity of explanation that may be needed to explain the concept to a novice in the field. This is what people talk about when they use the term "jargon" or "techno-babble."
In this case, maybe it's craft-babble? I duno.
I have an understanding of what the terms macro and micro mean, but a lot of my fundamentals in accomplishing either are sorely lacking. In terms of how to streamline certain procedure, what's good or bad in terms of common practices I should or shouldn't use. When to box units, when to single-select, what to hotkey, when and how, etc.
Even though, as mentioned in a previous blog of mine, and also noted by Day[9] in his daily the day directly after that blog (LOL!) Macro and Micro are often used as answers to a question or discussion that should really have a lot more content.
Too often people, as you said, give advice such as "ok micro micro, macro macro." Even if you understand what those terms mean in broad strokes, you may not grasp the mechanics or execution of those tasks well enough to use that advice. (Not to mention APM or focus not being sufficient, which is a separate problem)
Sometimes you really DO need to break these terms back down to basics. Maybe you DO need to tell the person you're admonishing, "Hey, you need to stay on top of your larva injects, your queen energy is way too high. You're missing OLs all over the place, you need to work on not getting supply blocked. Your expansions are waaay late. Expand sooner." Or whatever. Just because you invoke the term macro, and they acknowledge that their macro is bad, they're floating resources, not getting expansions, have pitiful food counts, etc...doesn't mean they know the individual actions they need to take to fix these problems.
Additionally, even if they know the actions they need to take, especially in micro more than macro, they may not know the mechanics of how to accomplish those actions competently. Do they need to box units? Make more control groups? Set rally points? A-move, or normal move? Patrol??
On September 01 2011 07:40 Reithan wrote: It's both 2 sides of the same coin. When you create a lexicon, internally or externally to quickly describe a given phenomenon, you often lose a lot of granularity of explanation that may be needed to explain the concept to a novice in the field. This is what people talk about when they use the term "jargon" or "techno-babble."
In this case, maybe it's craft-babble? I duno.
I have an understanding of what the terms macro and micro mean, but a lot of my fundamentals in accomplishing either are sorely lacking. In terms of how to streamline certain procedure, what's good or bad in terms of common practices I should or shouldn't use. When to box units, when to single-select, what to hotkey, when and how, etc.
Even though, as mentioned in a previous blog of mine, and also noted by Day[9] in his daily the day directly after that blog (LOL!) Macro and Micro are often used as answers to a question or discussion that should really have a lot more content.
Too often people, as you said, give advice such as "ok micro micro, macro macro." Even if you understand what those terms mean in broad strokes, you may not grasp the mechanics or execution of those tasks well enough to use that advice. (Not to mention APM or focus not being sufficient, which is a separate problem)
Sometimes you really DO need to break these terms back down to basics. Maybe you DO need to tell the person you're admonishing, "Hey, you need to stay on top of your larva injects, your queen energy is way too high. You're missing OLs all over the place, you need to work on not getting supply blocked. Your expansions are waaay late. Expand sooner." Or whatever. Just because you invoke the term macro, and they acknowledge that their macro is bad, they're floating resources, not getting expansions, have pitiful food counts, etc...doesn't mean they know the individual actions they need to take to fix these problems.
Additionally, even if they know the actions they need to take, especially in micro more than macro, they may not know the mechanics of how to accomplish those actions competently. Do they need to box units? Make more control groups? Set rally points? A-move, or normal move? Patrol??
While I do agree with what you're saying. It sounds like what you're looking for is a coach rather than some friends to explain things to you. Honestly the amount of time/effort it would take to go over teaching someone all of these things would take an incredible amount of time, unless they were very broad with it.
I think a big difference when you ask someone for help, or you ask someone to coach is you, if you just ask for help from a stranger, they will give you basic help. If you ask for coaching, you will get indepth coach-like help, going through mentality, execution etc..