My take on a guide to improvement

Pretty much everywhere you look you will see people asking for help on how to improve. Be they either noobs (like me), seasoned veterans, or even some of the more modest pros. People always ask for help on what to do in a certain situation. The problem with this is that those "certain situations" dont happen all the time, and most of the advice is something along the lines of "dont let the enemy put you in that situation".

In an attempt to rectify this situation I am writing this nifty cool kind of guide, kind of self help instruction set.



StarCraft 2 is divided into 2 main fields irrespective of race, map, or game mode. Those 2 main fields are Macro, and Micro (or Strategic, and tactical). Within the fields of macro and micro there are 2 Sub fields, Military, and Economic. Within each of these subsets there are additional subsets, but we will get to that in a moment.

Consider this, as a player you have a certain ability in each and every one of these skillsets. Every single one to a greater of lesser extent affects your ability to play. Let me go ahead and demonstrate

Skillset of player Bob

Macro
-Military
-Economic

Micro
-Military
-Economic

If you were to rate Bob (a low level bronze player) you would get something like this

Macro 3
-Military 2
-Economic 2

Micro 2
-Military 1
-Economic 2

As you can see, Bob has massive room for improvement in just about everything. However, lets break it down abit more to see exactly WHERE it is that Bob is lacking. What other sorts of skillsets are needed in sc2? Well, lets take the use of powers which obviously go under micro military. The use of spawn larvae, chrono, and mules micro economic. Rush defense once again micro military, quick teching macro economic, expanding macro economic, and etc. So lets go ahead and add those to bobs stat block to see what weve got.

Macro 3
-Military 2
--Varied Army composition 4
--Production of counters 1

-Economic 3
--Quick Teching 5
--Expansions 1

Micro 2
-Military 1
--Power Use 1
--Rush Defense 3
--Scouting 1

-Economic 2
--Main powers 4
--Supply blocking 1

As you can see, if you can look at your playstyle objectively and rate yourself on every area there is (obviously there are probably more, and if anyone thinks of em ill add it to the tree) you know what to focus on.

The fact of the matter is that if someone cant defend against a rush, telling them what to do wont help if they dont have the economic micro skills to be able to muster an effective defense. Idra himself couldn't defend 12 zealots with only scvs.... (ok theoretically its possible, just unlikely) My point is that its immensely easier to improve a 1 then to improve a 7, furthermore raising a 1 to a 4 will provide far more benefit then a 7 to an 8.

So there you have it, just like in a video game YOU are your character. Improve your stat points where they will provide the most benefit. Anyone want to rate themselves?

Macro
-Military
--Varied Army composition
--Production of counters
--Army direction via minimap

-Economic
--Quick Teching
--Expansions
--Production bottlenecking

Micro
-Military
--Power Use
--Rush Defense
--Scouting

-Economic
--Main powers
--Supply blocking

 

Nice
Although having one person just rate themselves is often times very subjective and can yield strange results. ALso, there is nothing to compare their "stats" to. What is a 1? 4? 9? 10? etc.
but good idea.

 

Macro
-Military 2
--Varied Army composition 2
--Production of counters 1

-Economic
--Quick Teching 2
--Expansions 2

Micro
-Military
--Power Use 2
--Rush Defense 2
--Scouting 3

-Economic
--Main powers 1
--Supply blocking (what is supply blocking?)

 

Not supply blocking one self may be better way to put this i like this idea im assumeing on a 1-10 scale with 1 being the worst and 10 being korean i feel this would be a good way to rate someone in order to help them improve with a good break down on whats going down, and also with this in mind while watching self.


Going with somethings real quick i would say something like this as a different break down i would have to look at my play to really dial in on each seperate part which i may do later

Macro
-early game 7
-mid game 5
-late game 3

Micro
-early game 6
-mid game 3
- late game 1/0 ( yes thats a math joke)


as i (you) can see i get worse at doing stuff the longer the game goes, probably cause there is more stuff to do and i cant fight and keep my money low at the same time yet, which is why im not diamond

 

Insanity, I agree, but I dont really see any way around it. If someones not going to be honest with themselves on where they need to improve then theres really no way for them to improve in the first place. I would say that a 1 would be subjective to whoever was doing the comparing.

For example, when you first started, and you made all those mistakes that you look back upon and laugh at, then those mistakes would be your 1 By the same token, the best player you have ever seen, the one who used those forcefields to hold your entire army under a blanket of psi storms while the phoenix's are killing your queens AT THE SAME TIME... well, that would be your 10

The biggest point for this whole post is to give people an actual diagram they can look at to realize where they need to improve instead of just knowing "I need to improve my micro because I keep getting killed in rushes"

Me555, Supply blocking in the context of the guide means keeping yourself constantly below your supply level. Never having wasted money on supply thats not being used, and never being unable to produce because you have no supply

Toochaos, So overall what ends up getting you bogged down? Would you say it would be a production bottleneck? (I think that would be.... macro economic) Or else possibly army direction via the minimap? (I think that would be the Macro Military)

 

Honestly, i don't think it's a good idea. New players won't know how to put themselves on this scale, because they don''t know how they should be playing optimally (therefore knowing what 10 is).

Moreover, i don't quite agree with the categories you have there:

varied army composition - is it really a matter of skills or rather your's / opponent's style?

quick teching, expanding - these too are not good indicators of skill, you can fast expand and make a large tier 1 army or quick tech to carrier's, both are viable strats, you don't have to do both. And if your opponent's putting early pressure you can do neither and still win with fast push.

To sum up: A standard strat guide with common mistakes listed (like production bottle-necking) is more useful imo.

 

the idea of breaking you game into parts is really awsome thought, although the way it was trigonally broken down is not how i would do it because i see micro and macro differently. which is why it may seem confusing and not useful because what he has in mind as to what something means is different than what you have in mind, which is even more useful. Hazza