Coming from warcraft 3 as my 1st RTS, I always focus on micro with heros, spell usage, and saving dying units. But after playing SC2 for sometime now (I am now stuck in platinum 1-10), I find economy efficiency and army allocation is time more well spent as you can easily overwhelm your opponent by simply out numbering them. In the past, I used to try to save every single dying marine or lings, (Now i find it a waste of time as they usually doesnt make any difference in any fight with 10+ units) so now I just focus on pumping more units or managing expo to try gaining advantage by producing bigger countering army. Sometimes if Im terran with MMM combo i don't even need to look at the fight as I know they'll PWN on their own, LOL!! The auto-attack in SC2 is so much smarter than WC3, i think blizzard took out lot of the 'human' factor required to micro them. Does anybody else feel the same?
You are correct to a certain extent. Your macro game can certainly carry you, but if you face someone on the same Macro level as you and they micro much better they are at a distinct advantage.
This was done on purpose. Starcraft focuses more on large armies than warcraft3, which focuses on heroes.
The game is suppose to be 50/50 macro micro. You'll find out damond players know how to do both. I've beaten an opponent with 12 blink stalkers vs probably 16 roaches + 6 hydras + some lings. I was running off of 1 base and 3 gateways, where he had a fully saturated expo. So you need both, and when to use one or the other. Your MMM would get mangled by my few high templars and charge lots, i would only need half ur army, in the mean time i would expand, so end result, i would still have my army and my expansion as well and in a position to find out what you are trying to build. If ur doing a fast MM i would be able to micro my stalkers and sentries or stalkers with immortals to fend u off or kill u since u arent microing lol
In situations where the rate at which targeted units die begins to exceed your capability to successfully micro them out of combat, either because the units have very low HPs are there is a lot of concentrated fire, I try to employ macro microing. I.e. rather than trying to select the exact individual ling getting fire on, I select a small number of lings in that area and have them all fall back a bit. I don't know if it is actually helping me or not, but my theory is that 1) I don't waste time trying to micro back a unit that ends up dying anyway, either because it dies too fast to move away or because I simply can't find or target the correct unit fast enough; 2) The other units immediately adjacent to targeted units will likely fall under fire next, either from player-control or AI auto-targeting, because they are the units closest (range/efficiency controlled factors). Edit: I view that as important because it both (A) increases the chance I will micro out a unit that gets targeted/injured by pre-emptively taking action and, (2) even if I make the unit fall back before it has taken significant damage, there is a good chance the opponent's units will still have targeted it....wasting time in either a firing animation or chasing a step or two. I really don't think it is fair to say micro matters less in SC2 so much as macro matters MORE than it did in WC3. And that, IMO, is simply because SC2 is designed to have larger amounts of units in play and has quicker unit/building production times. What you are able to SAVE with your micro is probably less, but it is still just as important.
From what I understand, Koreans are more micro intensive and tend to get as much as possible out of each individual unit as they can while American's and Europeans are more macro intensive (not to say the Koreans ignore macro, but they're APM is so goddamn high that they can do a quadrillion things at once). However, it always comes down to the individual's playstyle. Personally, I try to mix both, but my APM isn't high enough (on average around 60 or so) where I can do both intense macro and micro at the same time.
This, Korean rave so much about micro its crazy. I remember back in WC3 days a skilled micro player can defend his base with just a hero while slowly pump out higher tier units to recover. You probably never see this in SC because any base left vulnerable gets destroyed in 30seconds. I am not saying micro isn't important in SC but they no longer weigh as much as macro or a good strategy. Which is also why I think we see SC2 cheese strats are so effective in boosting ranks but most of them wont work in WC. It will take a hell LOT MORE of both Micro and Macro from the same level of player to defend and recover from a cheese strat in SC2.
I'm realatively a gamer of 10-12 yrs and I'm having a hard time in multiplayer mainly because this damn game has no instructions. What the hell is micro/macro? Is that how people are pumping out 3rd tier before I ever have 20marines built?? Just so sick of the snobbish way these young punks play in this game like their too smart to tell you anything but call u noob if u ask
Macro is the meat and potatoes of Starcraft 2, and micro is the gravy...the very tasty gravy. Essentially, macro is building up your economy, getting resources, expanding to other resources across the map, and buliding up your army and constantly producing workers. Micro refers to the control of individual units and using them effectively in battle (getting a surround on a group of marines with your zerglings for example). Basically, macro = the big picture, micro = the little picture. Your macro is limited by your APM (actions per minute) because while you may be controlling your army and moving across the map, you STILL have to keep up your army and worker production back at your home base (and quickly switching between both). To get good at both, practice practice practice! Start off slow with very easy A.I in a custom game with just yourself and a computer. I believe there are also tutorials you can play on Starcraft 2 and there should also be a help section on the row of buttons underneath "Singleplayer and Multiplayer".
im sorry for asking such a noob question but what the hell is micro and macro ( please make it simple, im tired )
I'm really suprised blizzard Don't include not even 1 Page of instructions for this damn game Nuthing like having to figure out pvp the hard way..
I'm really suprised blizzard Don't include not even 1 Page of instructions for this damn game Nuthing like having to figure out pvp the hard way..
Micro and Macro are strategy-related terms and not starcraft-related so blizzard isn't supposed to add such stuff in the manual(unless you expect a strategy guide packed up with the game). Terms like cheese/bioball/mech etc are terms used by players so you should look them up in the playerbase. Thing with internet-based games is that you can look up stuff on the internet(unlike 12 years ago when broadband connections weren't all over the place, and time spent online on your PSTN should be spent in-game or it was wasted money on your side ). Anyway, there's no easy way to figure out pvp, really. In any game. When you play with players you should be prepared to have your butt served on a plate for some time till you learn to counter, players are not AI I'm in a similar situation too, btw Just started strategy games again, and in addition to sucking more than I can describe(my 11 year old self could easily beat the crap out of me with only the mouse hand and a sandwitch on the other had) I have to google instructional stuff about the game again. On games such as this you can't learn to win before you learn to think(not thinking in general of course, but training your memory to remember stuff you do back in your base and not forget to look at the map, play your combat units, do your upgrades, expand, scout and do all other such stuff).
