This once again will be a slightly more theoretical post.
I want to address a thought for some, and a burning question for others. To some, the answer may be obvious, but it wasn't always that clear for me.
What exactly separates someone like you or I from one of the higher level players in the scene. I'm not talking about the Korean progamers, since if you want to know how they play so great, take a look at their 15 hour a day practice schedule. I'm actually talking about the great foreign players around, namely people like Shauni, Oystein, Nony, JF, and others. I've listed these particular players because they are my favourite foreigners. I always wanted to know how they were able to reach high ranks on the ladders and become starcraft powerhouses without a corporate sponsorship backing them up.
The first piece of the puzzle is one which I located in a few interviews of people such as these. I noticed that just about all of them had ample time to practice, i.e. most of them started playing competitively at least before 2004. The only exception to this rule was a player named mouz.kolll or something, who apparently reached B- on iccup in 5 months. He went on to do great in WCG I believe, making it to fourth place behind Jaedong, Bisu, and Stork. Although he was without a doubt a very strong player for a foreigner, he likely got very lucky with his bracket placement, and despite not playing starcraft until very late, he did have experience with other rts, point being he also had a decent amount of time to practice.
Hopefully you are starting to see what I'm getting at, but I'll continue regardless. The next thing which I noticed, is all of these players played incredulous amounts of games. Don't believe me? Download one of their replay packs. The replay programs automatically sort them by number, and each account for these guys can rack up a few thousand replays. This is often known as mass gaming, and it's something which just about every strong player has done.
I needn't go further with the puzzle analogy. That's it. Time and Practice. If you want to get good at starcraft, you need time and practice. Don't make the mistake I did and focus most of your attention on watching replays of great players rather than playing. Of course you must always be up to date on the latest builds, but if you spend most of your time watching rather than playing, you'll find it difficult to execute any of these strategies you've learned about. In my case, I got very good with the strategy part, but it took me two years have dicking around to figure out that what I needed to do was put my nose to the grindstone and start playing a ton of games. Unfortunately a few months after I actually started doing that, I had to quit in favour of school grades. I'm going to help all of you now.
TL;DR UNTIL HERE:
1. You won't become a great player quickly. It takes time, no matter how talented you are. Don't let that discourage, instead let it enlighten you that you'll need to put effort into it.
2. Watching replays and studying is important, very important, but don't make the same mistake I did and spend most of your time on that. You might be able to think like bisu, but until you can play half as good as he can, you're still going to get manhandled by everyone from D+ on in iccup.
3. If you have several hours a week (or day for that matter) free, then you are a prime candidate to become great a starcraft player, whether it be Brood War or SC2. Don't let it govern your life though. The moment it adversely affects your schoolwork or employment is the moment when you need to stop. If there was a time when you actually could make a living from playing Starcraft Broodwar, it's gone now with the demographic shift to SC2.
4. The best thing you can do to practice extensively is to get some friends interested in Starcraft. I've been very fortunate to have a brother that was once as interested in Starcraft as I was, and while we've both alt+qq starcraft for the most part, we had a great deal of fun playing against each other, and the competitive nature of our rivalry was largely responsible for me getting anywhere at all in SCBW.
gl hf
Rad301
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Monday, 14 March 2011
Playstyles
This will be a more abstract, but still applicable post.
When I was first starting to regularly practice build orders-something that every strong player on the planet has practiced endlessly-I always had trouble deciding which ones I should focus on. The simple answer is a solid background with all styles of build order is a great start, but being realistic, you have to figure out what will play to your strengths. You may be in the same position, or may shortly end up there, so I'm going to lay down some things to consider. By the way, don't be disappointed if you aren't sure what your style is. It can take quite a while to develop one, but it comes with time.
Safety First - If you are like me, then your style fits into this category. Please don't assume that this means you are a timid turtling sissy who get's slapped around at the first sight of someone aggressive. This type of player focuses on using "safe" builds which guarantee survival into the later stages of the game, while slowly overtaking your opponent with superior mechanics and flawless build order execution. This style is best suited to people with a lot of dedication to practice, as you'll need exactly that to be able to play safe builds to your advantage. This style also allows for a lot of variance as a player.
Risk Taker - If you are more this sort of player, then you like to add a certain amount of luck into your game. You'll choose build orders which when not seen coming cause a lot of damage to your enemy, but if scouted you can pretty much type gg right then and there. This style makes for some interesting games, but also be aware that there just because you may play some less mainstraim builds (you hipster, you), you'll still need to have stellar mechanics to capitalize on whatever advantage you may get.
Macro Drone - This style is not all that common, but it is implemented by some of the best players in starcraft, including flash (he's an exception though), best, nada, and a few others. This type of player uses his ungodly strong mechanics to overwhelm his opponent. You'll want to use builds which give you lots of macro capabilities quickly, and you'll want to stray away from macro intensive builds. This type isn't quite as versatile as safetoss can be, but likely just as safe.
Cheeseball. I'll quit starcraft again if you play like this. ;,,,,,;. These players use the riskiest types of builds imaginable and will use all-ins, proxies, rushes, and anything they can think off to one hit punch you out of the game. I don't recommend you play like this. The only person who gets away with it consistently is iefniaj (aka JF), and he can do it because he can still out play many people playing standard.
There's a little insight into playstyles. Like I said before, it took me quite a while to figure out what my style was, but it came eventually, and it was a big force in deciding what builds I should use. Play to your strengths, and don't be a fucking chobo.
gl hf
Rad301
When I was first starting to regularly practice build orders-something that every strong player on the planet has practiced endlessly-I always had trouble deciding which ones I should focus on. The simple answer is a solid background with all styles of build order is a great start, but being realistic, you have to figure out what will play to your strengths. You may be in the same position, or may shortly end up there, so I'm going to lay down some things to consider. By the way, don't be disappointed if you aren't sure what your style is. It can take quite a while to develop one, but it comes with time.
Safety First - If you are like me, then your style fits into this category. Please don't assume that this means you are a timid turtling sissy who get's slapped around at the first sight of someone aggressive. This type of player focuses on using "safe" builds which guarantee survival into the later stages of the game, while slowly overtaking your opponent with superior mechanics and flawless build order execution. This style is best suited to people with a lot of dedication to practice, as you'll need exactly that to be able to play safe builds to your advantage. This style also allows for a lot of variance as a player.
Risk Taker - If you are more this sort of player, then you like to add a certain amount of luck into your game. You'll choose build orders which when not seen coming cause a lot of damage to your enemy, but if scouted you can pretty much type gg right then and there. This style makes for some interesting games, but also be aware that there just because you may play some less mainstraim builds (you hipster, you), you'll still need to have stellar mechanics to capitalize on whatever advantage you may get.
Macro Drone - This style is not all that common, but it is implemented by some of the best players in starcraft, including flash (he's an exception though), best, nada, and a few others. This type of player uses his ungodly strong mechanics to overwhelm his opponent. You'll want to use builds which give you lots of macro capabilities quickly, and you'll want to stray away from macro intensive builds. This type isn't quite as versatile as safetoss can be, but likely just as safe.
Cheeseball. I'll quit starcraft again if you play like this. ;,,,,,;. These players use the riskiest types of builds imaginable and will use all-ins, proxies, rushes, and anything they can think off to one hit punch you out of the game. I don't recommend you play like this. The only person who gets away with it consistently is iefniaj (aka JF), and he can do it because he can still out play many people playing standard.
There's a little insight into playstyles. Like I said before, it took me quite a while to figure out what my style was, but it came eventually, and it was a big force in deciding what builds I should use. Play to your strengths, and don't be a fucking chobo.
gl hf
Rad301
Hotkey cycling
If you don't know what hotkeys are or how they work, look at my other post on them.
Hotkey cycling is a technique I learned a long time ago which allowed me to more effeciently maintain my unit production, and it gave me a final apm boost to get me from 150 to 200+. It's a simple idea, with big results.
A long time ago I was watching an fpvod by a very well known American starcraft player named Nony (pronounced like noonie). In the video I noticed that he was constantly cycling through through his hotkeys (not necessarily in any specific order mind you), even when it wasn't necessary. While normally this wouldn't be too big of a developement, later on he was using it to keep tabs and manage his entire base. By constantly selecting different structures, he never skipped a beat when it came to keeping the units pumping (although I can't claim that this strategy alone was thanks to that,). Sure enough, when I loaded up a bisu fpvod, he played similarly. I suggest you watch a few fpvods from both if you are a protoss.
By implementing this little strategy into your play, you are guaranteed to speed up your apm, and eventually it will become much more effective.
gl hf
Rad301
Hotkey cycling is a technique I learned a long time ago which allowed me to more effeciently maintain my unit production, and it gave me a final apm boost to get me from 150 to 200+. It's a simple idea, with big results.
A long time ago I was watching an fpvod by a very well known American starcraft player named Nony (pronounced like noonie). In the video I noticed that he was constantly cycling through through his hotkeys (not necessarily in any specific order mind you), even when it wasn't necessary. While normally this wouldn't be too big of a developement, later on he was using it to keep tabs and manage his entire base. By constantly selecting different structures, he never skipped a beat when it came to keeping the units pumping (although I can't claim that this strategy alone was thanks to that,). Sure enough, when I loaded up a bisu fpvod, he played similarly. I suggest you watch a few fpvods from both if you are a protoss.
By implementing this little strategy into your play, you are guaranteed to speed up your apm, and eventually it will become much more effective.
gl hf
Rad301
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Increasing your APM
If you are just beginning your quest to become a progamer for SKT1, then you probably haven't heard about such things as micro, macro, apm, multitask (that one is fairly self explanatory), or possibly even zergling rush kekeke.
Here's a little snippet explaining APM.
APM - Stands for Actions Per Minute. Believe it or not, starcraft replays record more or less every mouse click and key press you make in a game of starcraft. A while ago some awesome person created a program which analyzes these replays and gives you all sorts of information on whoever is in the replay you are looking at. Among this info is their APM.
APM is a general measure of how fast a player is in starcraft. The average progamer has an apm of anywhere from 200-400. That's right, they are pressing a key or clicking the mouse more than 3 times a second (often far more) during the course of a game. The average noob will have an APM of anywhere between 14-70, 70 being quite a rare case for someone who has just started, but I've seen it before. Please not that in order to be a very solid starcraft player, you don't actually need a ridiculously over the top apm. A decently fairly accomplished foreign player named Testie was known for having a very low Apm, although from what I've heard it was still 100-150. He is a very special case, and although he was good, he wasn't the best. Point being You'll need to at least be over 100 to play properly. Anything less and you aren't played as fast as you need to be. If for some reason you care, my apm sits from 200-240.
Increasing APM is a very commonly debated topic in the forums. Some recommend forcing yourself to play as fast as possible, even at the expense of efficiency to get your apm higher, and others recommend focusing on efficiency, with the idea that speed will come with time. Since I am writing all of this out of experience, I'll explain the way I did it, and I couldn't give half an uncleanly homeless person if you feel like refuting it.
For the most part, I used the former approach to getting a high apm, that being constantly forcing myself to play fast. I would load up games I just played into BWChart and check my apm. Over the course of a few months, I noticed that my apm was slowly increasing from a meager 40, to 70, then 90, then 110, then capped at 150 for a while, simply by forcing myself to play fast. Unfortunately it stayed around that area for a long time, and it didn't change for many months. In the end I needed to change not only my hotkey set up, but the way I use my hotkeys to get my apm up to what it is now.
When you first start trying to play with a high apm, you'll notice that you make a huge amount of pointless actions. This will be the case for a very long time, and it is also known as spamming. If you watch any of my fpvods where I'm actually playing, you get to see ample spammage. Many argue about the point of doing it, but all of the pros do it so I don't care what those many say.
One last tidbit. Fortunately when practicing mechanics, one of the best opponents ever is the computer. 75% percent of the games I've played have been against the computer practicing my mechanics, but this is mostly due to the fact that I've always felt that they aren't adequate for playing against difficult opponents. You can be the judge of when your ready. I don't recommend you try iccup until it is quite savvy, but bnet apms are usually around 50-150, so if you are in that range then jump right in.
gl hf
Rad301
Here's a little snippet explaining APM.
APM - Stands for Actions Per Minute. Believe it or not, starcraft replays record more or less every mouse click and key press you make in a game of starcraft. A while ago some awesome person created a program which analyzes these replays and gives you all sorts of information on whoever is in the replay you are looking at. Among this info is their APM.
APM is a general measure of how fast a player is in starcraft. The average progamer has an apm of anywhere from 200-400. That's right, they are pressing a key or clicking the mouse more than 3 times a second (often far more) during the course of a game. The average noob will have an APM of anywhere between 14-70, 70 being quite a rare case for someone who has just started, but I've seen it before. Please not that in order to be a very solid starcraft player, you don't actually need a ridiculously over the top apm. A decently fairly accomplished foreign player named Testie was known for having a very low Apm, although from what I've heard it was still 100-150. He is a very special case, and although he was good, he wasn't the best. Point being You'll need to at least be over 100 to play properly. Anything less and you aren't played as fast as you need to be. If for some reason you care, my apm sits from 200-240.
Increasing APM is a very commonly debated topic in the forums. Some recommend forcing yourself to play as fast as possible, even at the expense of efficiency to get your apm higher, and others recommend focusing on efficiency, with the idea that speed will come with time. Since I am writing all of this out of experience, I'll explain the way I did it, and I couldn't give half an uncleanly homeless person if you feel like refuting it.
For the most part, I used the former approach to getting a high apm, that being constantly forcing myself to play fast. I would load up games I just played into BWChart and check my apm. Over the course of a few months, I noticed that my apm was slowly increasing from a meager 40, to 70, then 90, then 110, then capped at 150 for a while, simply by forcing myself to play fast. Unfortunately it stayed around that area for a long time, and it didn't change for many months. In the end I needed to change not only my hotkey set up, but the way I use my hotkeys to get my apm up to what it is now.
When you first start trying to play with a high apm, you'll notice that you make a huge amount of pointless actions. This will be the case for a very long time, and it is also known as spamming. If you watch any of my fpvods where I'm actually playing, you get to see ample spammage. Many argue about the point of doing it, but all of the pros do it so I don't care what those many say.
One last tidbit. Fortunately when practicing mechanics, one of the best opponents ever is the computer. 75% percent of the games I've played have been against the computer practicing my mechanics, but this is mostly due to the fact that I've always felt that they aren't adequate for playing against difficult opponents. You can be the judge of when your ready. I don't recommend you try iccup until it is quite savvy, but bnet apms are usually around 50-150, so if you are in that range then jump right in.
gl hf
Rad301
*Important
After creating my previous post, I'd like to make a short one about one of the most important things you'll need to know, and a lesson which this game has taught countless people including me.
It doesn't matter how many times you fall, but how many times you get up.
Well, maybe I ripped that off of Rocky 6, but you get the point. There will be times when you have 20 game losing streaks, there will be times when you screw a build order up 30 games in a row, there will be times when you log onto iccup and those assholes won't stop using cheese builds. All of these things and more will make you want to tear your hair out, but you need to keep moving forward. I didn't stop playing starcraft because I god tired of practicing, life got in the way and I refuse to be someone who's life revolves around such a thing, regardless of how great starcraft is. I have lost far more games than I've one, and I have practiced that god damned forge fast expansion build well over 200 times. You will screw things up, but if you don't give up then it will pay off.
Rad301
It doesn't matter how many times you fall, but how many times you get up.
Well, maybe I ripped that off of Rocky 6, but you get the point. There will be times when you have 20 game losing streaks, there will be times when you screw a build order up 30 games in a row, there will be times when you log onto iccup and those assholes won't stop using cheese builds. All of these things and more will make you want to tear your hair out, but you need to keep moving forward. I didn't stop playing starcraft because I god tired of practicing, life got in the way and I refuse to be someone who's life revolves around such a thing, regardless of how great starcraft is. I have lost far more games than I've one, and I have practiced that god damned forge fast expansion build well over 200 times. You will screw things up, but if you don't give up then it will pay off.
Rad301
Defeating the Computer
Let's be perfectly honest, I could sit here and prattle on about advanced strategies and techniques which would make absolutely no sense to anyone who hasn't been playing starcraft for at least a year, or I could focus on the basics which so seldom seem to be touched upon. I may end up moving into some more advanced stuff later, but to be honest there is lots of great information out there regarding that type of thing, and I think I'd be better of to focus on the basics.
I've said it time and time again, defeating the computer in a no cheat one on one is the first step a person must take to becoming good at competitive starcraft. It seems like an impossible task at first, as the computer appears to have the ability to do everything at once. By the time you are just getting started, they've already rolled out with a fair sized army and taken an expansion.
While this seems to be discouraging, hopefully by the end of this post you will realize that it the computer plays like a handicapped child. To begin with, we will look at some of the advantages that you will always have over the computer:
You can adapt - The computer is almost completely incapable of changing it's game plan. If you watch a few replays of you (or someone else) against the computer, you'll notice that 90% of the time they do the same build. Basically the Terran AI does a medic/marine/firebat push, the Protoss will either 3 gate zealot rush or do this idiotic fast expansion build which makes a ton of cannons rendering the build pointless, and the Zerg AI will either do a standard zergling rush (I think it's a 9 pool but I don't remember), or they will do an in-base two hatch build and roll out later with a large amount of hydras and lurkers. Once you learn the never changing and always monotonous builds which the computer employs, you'll be able to know exactly what you'll need and when you'll need it.
You can play better - To put it simply, regardless of technically being able to do everything at once, the computer plays terribly. If you've ever watched a replay against the computer and watched one of their production buildings by clicking on it, you'll notice that they constantly queue and un-queue units up for no concievable reason. 90% of the time you should never queue units up beyond two of them. If you need more units, make more damn production buildings. Humans can also multitask far better than the computer with practice, and the computer will quickly be over run by any human who has had a bit of practice with macroing.
You can even bug out the AI - Let's be honest, this is a pretty cheesy tactic, but you have to start somewhere. Tired of getting rushed by zealots every game? block your ramp. Trust me, it works.
Those are a few advantages you have over the computer. Now we'll talk about what you'll need to practice.
To begin with, you will need to learn *A* build order. No, it doesn't need to be creative, and it doesn't need to focus on getting a late game goon/temp/arbiter push. The focus of the build will be as follows, and in proper order:
1 - Defend the first rush
2 - grab atleast an expansion
3 - set up a solid economy
4 - attack the computer (gasp)
That's basically it. Keep in mind that this is not how you should play against humans, and focusing on those things in that order will only help you with the computer primarily. Also note the sometimes 1 and 2 will be interchangeable as you may be doing a fast expansion build.
If you don't understand how build orders work, I'm not going to explain it again, but either google it or check my youtube page for a video of voice-cracking fun on build orders. Unfortunately I'm not going to write out a list of build orders you may want to use, as one order might only work for one match up, and I'm not writing them out for every bloody match up. Google liquipedia, go to the starcraft broodwar one, and look up some builds on your own. Try to focus on what goes on early game. Late game will come when you can beat the computer easily.
Aside from the build order, you need to practice your mechanics. Mechanics is a fancy word for speed and efficiency, and it's what separates the pros from the joes in starcraft. A friend of mine would always try to create innovative strategies to fool me and my brother when we played starcraft, and invariably they would fail because he would never take the time to manage his base while he was busy making sure the barracks he placed half way across the map was completely queued up with firebats. Point being, when your starting out you need to focus on player mechanically correct. It doesn't matter how creative you think you are, without the mechanics to back up annoying crap like that it won't work.
To practice mechanics, you simply need to play a lot of games with the intention of playing faster, and getting things right. I recommend watching my video on starcraft tricks as it has a whole bunch of nifty ways to play faster and smarter, as well as some other tidbits of info I don't feel like repeating.
The last thing you need to do, is simply watching your replays. It doesn't take a keen eye to see that your minerals and gas had built up to the size of a wall-street bailout 5 minutes into the game.
I left a lot of info out of this one, namely how to manage your economy properly, because it's already been said and done. I don't need to reiterate how to keep your minerals and gas low, so it is your responsibility to search for that info on your own.
*If any of the words I used in this post, or any other post are unclear to you, please visit this page:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=61389
support that website and don't be a dick or you'll face the ban hammer.
Thanks, peace off
Rad301
I've said it time and time again, defeating the computer in a no cheat one on one is the first step a person must take to becoming good at competitive starcraft. It seems like an impossible task at first, as the computer appears to have the ability to do everything at once. By the time you are just getting started, they've already rolled out with a fair sized army and taken an expansion.
While this seems to be discouraging, hopefully by the end of this post you will realize that it the computer plays like a handicapped child. To begin with, we will look at some of the advantages that you will always have over the computer:
You can adapt - The computer is almost completely incapable of changing it's game plan. If you watch a few replays of you (or someone else) against the computer, you'll notice that 90% of the time they do the same build. Basically the Terran AI does a medic/marine/firebat push, the Protoss will either 3 gate zealot rush or do this idiotic fast expansion build which makes a ton of cannons rendering the build pointless, and the Zerg AI will either do a standard zergling rush (I think it's a 9 pool but I don't remember), or they will do an in-base two hatch build and roll out later with a large amount of hydras and lurkers. Once you learn the never changing and always monotonous builds which the computer employs, you'll be able to know exactly what you'll need and when you'll need it.
You can play better - To put it simply, regardless of technically being able to do everything at once, the computer plays terribly. If you've ever watched a replay against the computer and watched one of their production buildings by clicking on it, you'll notice that they constantly queue and un-queue units up for no concievable reason. 90% of the time you should never queue units up beyond two of them. If you need more units, make more damn production buildings. Humans can also multitask far better than the computer with practice, and the computer will quickly be over run by any human who has had a bit of practice with macroing.
You can even bug out the AI - Let's be honest, this is a pretty cheesy tactic, but you have to start somewhere. Tired of getting rushed by zealots every game? block your ramp. Trust me, it works.
Those are a few advantages you have over the computer. Now we'll talk about what you'll need to practice.
To begin with, you will need to learn *A* build order. No, it doesn't need to be creative, and it doesn't need to focus on getting a late game goon/temp/arbiter push. The focus of the build will be as follows, and in proper order:
1 - Defend the first rush
2 - grab atleast an expansion
3 - set up a solid economy
4 - attack the computer (gasp)
That's basically it. Keep in mind that this is not how you should play against humans, and focusing on those things in that order will only help you with the computer primarily. Also note the sometimes 1 and 2 will be interchangeable as you may be doing a fast expansion build.
If you don't understand how build orders work, I'm not going to explain it again, but either google it or check my youtube page for a video of voice-cracking fun on build orders. Unfortunately I'm not going to write out a list of build orders you may want to use, as one order might only work for one match up, and I'm not writing them out for every bloody match up. Google liquipedia, go to the starcraft broodwar one, and look up some builds on your own. Try to focus on what goes on early game. Late game will come when you can beat the computer easily.
Aside from the build order, you need to practice your mechanics. Mechanics is a fancy word for speed and efficiency, and it's what separates the pros from the joes in starcraft. A friend of mine would always try to create innovative strategies to fool me and my brother when we played starcraft, and invariably they would fail because he would never take the time to manage his base while he was busy making sure the barracks he placed half way across the map was completely queued up with firebats. Point being, when your starting out you need to focus on player mechanically correct. It doesn't matter how creative you think you are, without the mechanics to back up annoying crap like that it won't work.
To practice mechanics, you simply need to play a lot of games with the intention of playing faster, and getting things right. I recommend watching my video on starcraft tricks as it has a whole bunch of nifty ways to play faster and smarter, as well as some other tidbits of info I don't feel like repeating.
The last thing you need to do, is simply watching your replays. It doesn't take a keen eye to see that your minerals and gas had built up to the size of a wall-street bailout 5 minutes into the game.
I left a lot of info out of this one, namely how to manage your economy properly, because it's already been said and done. I don't need to reiterate how to keep your minerals and gas low, so it is your responsibility to search for that info on your own.
*If any of the words I used in this post, or any other post are unclear to you, please visit this page:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=61389
support that website and don't be a dick or you'll face the ban hammer.
Thanks, peace off
Rad301
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Learning Hotkeys and Shortcut Keys
To begin:
Hotkeys - The keys 1-9, 0, can be hotkeyed to a single building, or a maximum of twelve units by selecting the given object, holding down the control key (ctrl) and pressing one of the number keys. To be sure no one misunderstood that, I'm not talking about the num pad.
Shortcut Keys: Ever notice how when you hold your mouse over the icon to build a unit or building, there is always one letter in the name which is a differently colour? That's right, if you press that key then it's the same as mouse clicking the icon, accept faster by an incredible amount. This also goes for spells, commands, upgrades, and possibly a few other things I can't think of right now.
F keys: The keys F2, F3, F4 all hold a special purpose in starcraft, which I actually didn't learn about until quite a bit later in my starcraft career. It's a bit difficult to explain, but try it out and you'll see. If you hold down the shift key, then press one of the above F keys, then the position of the screen on the map will become hotkeyed to the corresponding key.
Alright, now that the definitions are out of the way, I'll explain why these things are important. By utilizing hotkeys, shortcut keys, and F keys efficiently, you'll be able to play a lightning fast speeds, which in turn will enable you to control your units better, create more units faster, and manage your economy with ease. Believe me, I've been through the denial that I can still be good at starcraft without utilizing these features, but the sooner you accept them as your friends, then you'll be a step further to become a great player. To anyone who disagrees with this statement, you are wrong and a terrible player. No one, and I mean no one out there who is/was a great starcraft player never uses these features.
I'm going to be honest, the following methods were utilized by me, and created by me from my own experience. There may very well be faster ways of getting used to using these features, but this is how I did it and it worked for me.
The shortcut keys are by far the easiest of the three methods to learn. Fortunately blizzard was nice enough to make most of the keys logical, so all you need to do is just make a concerted effort to use them in game. Just play a whole bunch of games and force yourself to use the keys rather than mouse clicking things. In a short period of time, it will become second nature.
*There is one acception to this rule which I'll mention later
The hotkeys in contrast take a very long time to set up properly. Although the hotkeys are incredibly useful, and at first you have no clue how you would ever use all of them, you'll soon learn that there is never enough. Part of the challenge in competitive starcraft is deciding what is most important to hotkey. Many players develope their own hotkey set ups, and I encourage you to do the same, however you must examine those created by others, lest you make some terrible decisions. In general the set ups will look something like
1 - Scout/units
2 - units
3 - units
4 - units
5 - nexus/hatchery/CC
6 - production building/hatchery
7 - production building/hatchery
8 - production building/hatchery
9 - production building/hatchery/comsat
0 - production building/hatchery/comsat
Before people start complaining and telling me these set ups are terrible, first stop qqing then realize that trying to make a hotkey diagram universal to all races is like trying to solve (sqrt(-1)/0). This will give you the idea, but nothing more, and until you start examining some set ups in broodwar chart, the diagram probably won't make much sense anyway. Download BWChart, download some replays, and use it to look at some hotkey set ups. Find one you like, and give it a shot, or try modifying it, but either way don't be stupid. I'll give you the set ups I use for each race (I play protoss primarily):
Protoss:
1 - scout probe/units
2 - units
3 - units
4 - building probe
5 - nexus
The rest are gateways. In mid-late game I'll usually reassign my nexus to an expansion nexus, and in very late game 5 and 6 may become units as well.
Zerg:
1 - scout drone/units
2 - units
3 - units
4 - units
Rest are hatcheries.
Terran:
1 - Command center
2 - Barracks/factory
3 - factory
4 - factory
rest are usually units
You'll notice that all of these set ups call for using the majority or close too of your hotkeys for buildings rather than units. This is due to the fact that you don't need all of your units hotkeyed all of the time, but you'll want to have as many production buildings as possible hotkeyed at all times.
To get used to one of these hotkey set ups, start small. To begin with, ALWAYS HOTKEY YOUR NEXUS/HATCHERY/COMMAND CENTER. Always have these buildings hotkeyed and unless you play Protoss, never mouse click your gatherers. The key here is simple repition, as with the shortcut keys.
A note for Protoss Players: Unfortunately we got saddled with a crappy shortcut key set up which makes it so that we need to decide whether to hotkey our nexus to one of the higher numbers, making pressing our d and z keys difficult, or assigning our nexus to one of the lower keys and mouse clicking to make probes a decent amount of the time. I use the latter approach, and it works great for me, decide what works for you.
To finish off this mouth full, we have the F keys. To be perfectly honest, I never was very good with these. Most authorities on strategy say that it is far more efficient to assign these keys to your expansions to defend against harass. This is correct, and the Korean progamers use this formula quite often. I always found that if I tried to use it then my expansions would not create adequate probes, especially during forge fast expansions. I ended up only using these keys for third, fourth, fifth etc. expansions. Yes, I give you the right to crap on me there, but I play better using this set up so I'll continue to use it (if I ever play again). Getting used to pressing these keys is very akward, so have fun and practice practice practice. Also note that some keyboards have an F-lock which turns these keys off, so take note if you have that too.
This ended up being an incredibly long post, and I'm quite tired so it may not be of great quality, but no one is paying me to do this so fuck off if you don't like it, and otherwise gl hf (good luck, have fun)
Rad301
Hotkeys - The keys 1-9, 0, can be hotkeyed to a single building, or a maximum of twelve units by selecting the given object, holding down the control key (ctrl) and pressing one of the number keys. To be sure no one misunderstood that, I'm not talking about the num pad.
Shortcut Keys: Ever notice how when you hold your mouse over the icon to build a unit or building, there is always one letter in the name which is a differently colour? That's right, if you press that key then it's the same as mouse clicking the icon, accept faster by an incredible amount. This also goes for spells, commands, upgrades, and possibly a few other things I can't think of right now.
F keys: The keys F2, F3, F4 all hold a special purpose in starcraft, which I actually didn't learn about until quite a bit later in my starcraft career. It's a bit difficult to explain, but try it out and you'll see. If you hold down the shift key, then press one of the above F keys, then the position of the screen on the map will become hotkeyed to the corresponding key.
Alright, now that the definitions are out of the way, I'll explain why these things are important. By utilizing hotkeys, shortcut keys, and F keys efficiently, you'll be able to play a lightning fast speeds, which in turn will enable you to control your units better, create more units faster, and manage your economy with ease. Believe me, I've been through the denial that I can still be good at starcraft without utilizing these features, but the sooner you accept them as your friends, then you'll be a step further to become a great player. To anyone who disagrees with this statement, you are wrong and a terrible player. No one, and I mean no one out there who is/was a great starcraft player never uses these features.
I'm going to be honest, the following methods were utilized by me, and created by me from my own experience. There may very well be faster ways of getting used to using these features, but this is how I did it and it worked for me.
The shortcut keys are by far the easiest of the three methods to learn. Fortunately blizzard was nice enough to make most of the keys logical, so all you need to do is just make a concerted effort to use them in game. Just play a whole bunch of games and force yourself to use the keys rather than mouse clicking things. In a short period of time, it will become second nature.
*There is one acception to this rule which I'll mention later
The hotkeys in contrast take a very long time to set up properly. Although the hotkeys are incredibly useful, and at first you have no clue how you would ever use all of them, you'll soon learn that there is never enough. Part of the challenge in competitive starcraft is deciding what is most important to hotkey. Many players develope their own hotkey set ups, and I encourage you to do the same, however you must examine those created by others, lest you make some terrible decisions. In general the set ups will look something like
1 - Scout/units
2 - units
3 - units
4 - units
5 - nexus/hatchery/CC
6 - production building/hatchery
7 - production building/hatchery
8 - production building/hatchery
9 - production building/hatchery/comsat
0 - production building/hatchery/comsat
Before people start complaining and telling me these set ups are terrible, first stop qqing then realize that trying to make a hotkey diagram universal to all races is like trying to solve (sqrt(-1)/0). This will give you the idea, but nothing more, and until you start examining some set ups in broodwar chart, the diagram probably won't make much sense anyway. Download BWChart, download some replays, and use it to look at some hotkey set ups. Find one you like, and give it a shot, or try modifying it, but either way don't be stupid. I'll give you the set ups I use for each race (I play protoss primarily):
Protoss:
1 - scout probe/units
2 - units
3 - units
4 - building probe
5 - nexus
The rest are gateways. In mid-late game I'll usually reassign my nexus to an expansion nexus, and in very late game 5 and 6 may become units as well.
Zerg:
1 - scout drone/units
2 - units
3 - units
4 - units
Rest are hatcheries.
Terran:
1 - Command center
2 - Barracks/factory
3 - factory
4 - factory
rest are usually units
You'll notice that all of these set ups call for using the majority or close too of your hotkeys for buildings rather than units. This is due to the fact that you don't need all of your units hotkeyed all of the time, but you'll want to have as many production buildings as possible hotkeyed at all times.
To get used to one of these hotkey set ups, start small. To begin with, ALWAYS HOTKEY YOUR NEXUS/HATCHERY/COMMAND CENTER. Always have these buildings hotkeyed and unless you play Protoss, never mouse click your gatherers. The key here is simple repition, as with the shortcut keys.
A note for Protoss Players: Unfortunately we got saddled with a crappy shortcut key set up which makes it so that we need to decide whether to hotkey our nexus to one of the higher numbers, making pressing our d and z keys difficult, or assigning our nexus to one of the lower keys and mouse clicking to make probes a decent amount of the time. I use the latter approach, and it works great for me, decide what works for you.
To finish off this mouth full, we have the F keys. To be perfectly honest, I never was very good with these. Most authorities on strategy say that it is far more efficient to assign these keys to your expansions to defend against harass. This is correct, and the Korean progamers use this formula quite often. I always found that if I tried to use it then my expansions would not create adequate probes, especially during forge fast expansions. I ended up only using these keys for third, fourth, fifth etc. expansions. Yes, I give you the right to crap on me there, but I play better using this set up so I'll continue to use it (if I ever play again). Getting used to pressing these keys is very akward, so have fun and practice practice practice. Also note that some keyboards have an F-lock which turns these keys off, so take note if you have that too.
This ended up being an incredibly long post, and I'm quite tired so it may not be of great quality, but no one is paying me to do this so fuck off if you don't like it, and otherwise gl hf (good luck, have fun)
Rad301
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)