Copper league players sticking it out?

[Dreuel]

OK, so I'm one of those people who came to the beta with about 3 hours *total* of playing sc1 under my belt.

I've been playing regularly in the beta and making my best attempt, but I have not yet managed a legitimate win in something like 25 games. I am getting better at preventing extremely early rushes and surviving to be demolished by tier 2 units, etc, but it's a steep learning curve and only once or twice have I been matched against anyone who's anywhere as new to the game (read "bad") as I am.

Thing is, when I go through the people in my division (copper division 4) the vast majority of players have not signed on in a while.

I guess what I'm wondering is: is it possible that people who are struggling in the lower brackets are getting frustrated and not signing on? Seems to me that would be a self-perpetuating problem, because lack of people signed on in the copper league means a harder slog for those of us who are logging on and making our best effort to learn the game the only way there is right now -- playing multiplayer matches against who-knows-who.

I am carefully watching replays, practicing tightening up my build order against the AI, reading all the info I can get my hands on, and playing games against human players despite the endless humiliation. And, I can see my skills improving, though not quite enough to beat the worst players I've faced yet. :)

Any other brand-new players having an experience similar to mine?

Edit: I should point out that I've had some good conversations with other players who have offered helpful suggestions in-game, though not all equivalent quality. The guy who pointed out that using my supply depots to wall off my choke point against zergling rushes would buy me some time is a hero, the guy who said "screw defense, just rush with tier 1 units" not so much. haha...

[Mut]

This is a problem with beta. Since the player pool is so tiny (~3000 online at prime time), at least half of which you can assume are not playing 1v1, that cuts your available matches down significantly.

When theres 100,000+ people online at once in release you will have a lot more even matches at your level.

The main thing you could do that is beneficial now is instead of just playing a ton of games and accepting what happens, watch every replay after each game (especially if your opponent is the same race you are) and watch what they do very carefully.

Common mistakes new players make include:
1) underestimating the importance of scouting, and understanding what units are good against what
2) not making enough harvesters. In the beginning you can pretty much just continually make harvesters, until you have like 30+ in your main base. There is an optimal number, but while you're learning you are best off to just keep pumping them out.
3) trying to tech too quickly and dying to an early rush. A lot of times this is a direct factor of numbers 1 and 2 combining. You should be scouting and keeping tabs on your opponent so you know if they have the capability of rushing or not. Also good to know if you should be rushing them.

[Zondrail]

Yeah, I think it's pretty bad now for new players, just because there are so few people playing, you're not getting the match-ups that you theoretically should be getting.

If I remember next time I get on, I'll try and add you as a friend. I am not great (Copper in 1s, Silver in 2s), but I'm more than welcome to play some custom map games to let someone learn and throw some ideas and advice in your direction.

[Dreuel]

Thanks for the response. I can tell you right now what I'm struggling with -- it's that when I'm focusing on economy I get stuck doing that and forget to scout, harass, etc., and when I'm on the offensive I forget to keep production going back at my base, or I distract myself to do that and my offensive units that I've left somewhere for a few seconds get owned by my opponent stumbling on them.

There's a concept from aviation called "instrument scan" where they explicitly train pilots to remind themselves what instruments to check in what order to avoid that kind of brain-lock. I'm thinking I may need to work out something explicit like that for myself just to get over this particular learning hurdle.

Edit: Problem #2 for me is that I'm taking a while to learn the endless combinations of this-unit-is-good-against-that-unit, and the game's a bit too fast to be looking that up in the help screens during a match. :) Also, having not played Protoss or Zerg very much I struggle to figure out what they're doing from what I learn while scouting, but that's something I'm working on by playing those races against the AI a bit.

Incidentally, I can destroy the AI without any difficulty, but it kind of helps that they are resource-poor and do not attack. :)

[Dreuel]

One advantage of getting repeatedly owned by better players is that I get to see what they're doing. If I were only getting matches in my league I might be left with the impression that good Terran players forego defense or expansion and just build eleventy-million reapers.

[Falryx]

I'm glad to hear new players aren't getting to discouraged, I was reading another newby on here that just out right slandered that game an was disappointed someone like that even got in the beta when their are tons and tons of players that really do enjoy the game and want to get in.

Also using replays excellent work their, learning from your mistakes, everything you put down their is what new players need to know to stick it out.

But from what iv read an watched the battle reports an so forth, every unit can be countered by another in each race, you just got to figure it out, like rock, paper scissors, they go reapers or maruders get air, put defense up near your mineral field so they don't get destroyed.

[Deviant]

I'll gladly play you a couple rounds after I get back from my sole class today. I'm finally pulling ahead of the copper league myself so I shouldn't be that much of a problem for you. And I may be able to point out a couple simple solutions.

[Zondrail]

Dreuel, it sounds like you have a very good plan for improving your game. Multi-tasking and remembering a sequence of checks that you constantly do throughout the fight are very important. Watching replays to see what happened is also a big one.

The better you get at the current things you already do, the easier it will be to do them with less thought and focus on other things.

[Jim]

I recommend you stick it out. I was placed in copper league to start with (perhaps due to two disconnects in my 10 placement matches) but after about 25 games it bumped me up to gold league.

Anyone who got into copper by sandbagging won't be there for very long and battle.net seems to try and match you up so that everyone's record ends up close to 0.500 with ranking determined by how good the people you beat were.

I noticed that when my record was 5 or 10 games above .500 I was consistently getting matches where the other player was favored. I recognize how this is good for the long-term health of the game, but it is a little discouraging for an individual.

[Tehschoolbus]

@OP: A problem with your situation is that a lot of people who haven't played SC prior to playing SC2 likely have no RTS experience because they do not really enjoy RTS all that much. They might just have been lucky of heard it was going to be cool or they went to blizzcon as a WoW fanboy. Regardless, a lot of people might not really be getting discouraged because of the lack of equal matches but because they do not have the will and patience to further themselves with this game.

I would be more than happy to play a couple games with you and give you suggestions. I'm actually a tutor at the local community college so I know a thing or two about helping others ^_^. My name's TehSchoolBus.thefirst; add me and msg me sometime. I live in EST but I'm on a lot.

[Lore]

What I'd like to know is who in their right mind would get a SC2 beta invite and then not play it...

[Baldey]

Im not rly as nub as you, but im at a similar problem. Im right in the middle. And the sytem decides for me whether i win or loose. If its time for a win, it finds me a platinum to stomp me into the ground, and if its tiem for a win, it finds me a copper guy i can stomp on. so its keeping my wins /losses 50/50, but the way its doing it is way too extreeme. Theres not enough people of my skill level around. Everyone is either waaaay better with hundreds of APM, or like the OP, doesn't know to wall of his choke as terran.

I guess the only way to fix this is make the next beta invite wave a big one :P . maybe invite some people that suck really bad lol, but that wouldnt be much good for actual beta testing. So what id like to see is a large second wave of random invites, and whoever didnt get invited yet from twiter comic contests and the such. in a week or so.

[Dreuel]

@OP: A problem with your situation is that a lot of people who haven't played SC prior to playing SC2 likely have no RTS experience because they do not really enjoy RTS all that much. They might just have been lucky of heard it was going to be cool or they went to blizzcon as a WoW fanboy. Regardless, a lot of people might not really be getting discouraged because of the lack of equal matches but because they do not have the will and patience to further themselves with this game.

That's possibly true to an extent, but you have to realize that in the twelve years since Starcraft came out, kids who were 8 or 9 and had no chance of succeeding at that game are now hitting 20 and will be a huge part of the market for this one.

I think that SC2's beta directing people straight into the pvp matches is a situation that's very friendly to people with Starcraft experience and pretty unfriendly to those without. I'm also slowly playing through the SC1 single-player content just to learn some basics that I might have missed otherwise, but I don't really like doing it because it's so slow and clunky compared to the much more fluid SC2, and the hotkeys don't always match.

As far as single-player SC1 as a training ground -- once I get to a single-player stage where the objective is "survive for 30 minutes," it makes me want to shut it off and just try another SC2 multiplayer game. :)

[Dreuel]

maybe invite some people that suck really bad lol, but that wouldnt be much good for actual beta testing.

Since the focus of beta testing so far appears to be on skill evaluation and the ladder system, it probably would be very good for beta testing to have a solid population at all levels. While I'm sure that game balance at the high end is an issue, they're probably getting tons of data on that as it is.

That said, I'm also sure that one reason for inviting in waves is to ensure that the back-end systems can scale up, and a lot of that may not really rely on having any particular mix of players at all, just people who will sign on and play.

[Mentlegen]

I got in silver league but in same boat as OP no matter what I do it always seems like:

My enemy can outproduce me with the same number of structures especially as zerg when i'm fairly consistent about using the queen's larva skill.

Or I lose to apparently god units. (30 lings vs maybe 8 roaches and the roaches won without burrow.)

Just lost a game cause 4 vikings on 4 warp rays 2 of which had zero shields still killed all my vikings only losing the two warp rays. Whats the disadvantage of those things? It just seems like they suck vs small groups due to the build-up but then are are good vs small groups as they don't get through the shields so they regenerate before the next fight.

Most of my loses are to warp rays and roaches as I don't see a counter to them except turtle or have a bigger army. (Which isn't a counter it's being a better player in the first place.)

Honestly at this point i'm leaning on not buying this when it comes out as this isn't at all fun being beaten when you have no clue what you did wrong or being beaten cause terran and protoss can turtle up easy while zerg get mobile useless defenses. They cost the same as a photon cannon while having what seems like half the strength.

Just lost another game due to a zerg spamming roaches that still overpowered my zealots despite two force fields at the choke separating them twice. This game for me is turning out to be spam the most overpowered unit for each race as fast as possible.

[Kaganda]

I'm at the very bottom of my division in the Copper League, but I enjoyed playing SC1 years ago against friends, so I'm sticking it out here. I got plastered during my 1v1 placement matches, and I quickly learned that this game is faster than I remembered (or I'm older and slower). Luckily I had a friend who also had a beta key, and after many 1v1 practice games in which he hit me with every trick he knew, things started to improve.

I still lose almost every time, but now I can see what I did wrong and try to adapt. I rarely get burned by an early rush now, and I've been able to make a few players adjust to my moves rather than the other way around. Last night I managed to win a ranked match, that wasn't a DC win by default, for the first time. I don't expect to leave the Copper League, but at least I can climb out of the cellar.

[Baldey]

As far as single-player SC1 as a training ground -- once I get to a single-player stage where the objective is "survive for 30 minutes," it makes me want to shut it off and just try another SC2 multiplayer game. :)

dont do this. the only SC1 training ground thats going to help u is ICCUP . if u dont know what that is, then dont try casue its gona be much much worce then sc2 beta as far as nub freindlynes. Playing sc1 single player is a waste of time.... the only thing it could teach u is hot keys, but as u said even those dont match. w/e u learn form the campaign will be worthless when it comes to player v player. Now, if you want a training ground, start watching SC2 videos. theres a tonn on youtube. If you still prefer to use the well understood SC1, then you can check this link out...

http://www.youtube.com/user/Jon747

its all the pro korean games, televised in korea. The only skills i may have come from watching that chanel every day for breakfast, and for dinner. I haven't played much SC1, but ive watched every single game ever televised. And im 1500 points in bronze tier2, taking down golds and platinums... sometimes :P . I would be in gold, but i let my very excited freinds play some of my placement matches...

[Dreuel]

dont do this. the only SC1 training ground thats going to help u is ICCUP

Mostly I was doing it in the hope of getting as far as the Protoss and Zerg campaigns so I could learn the very minimal basics of how those races differ from Terrans. However, I have to play through the Terran campaign to get there.

I can also learn that by simply reading tooltips and bumbling through it in SC2, so maybe I'll do that instead, but it's easy to miss even basic key unit abilities doing that, when there is probably a single player sc1 stage that will be all about using the whatever button on this or that unit.

As it stands right now, scouting a Zerg base doesn't help me at all because I don't know what anything does. I know a little more about Protoss, but not that much...

[Dreuel]

Honestly at this point i'm leaning on not buying this when it comes out as this isn't at all fun being beaten when you have no clue what you did wrong or being beaten cause terran and protoss can turtle up easy while zerg get mobile useless defenses.

If in fact having more players in the beta means closer matches, I'd stick it out through one or two more beta invite waves. That should help a lot.

[Baldey]

I

Most of my loses are to warp rays and roaches as I don't see a counter to them except turtle or have a bigger army. (Which isn't a counter it's being a better player in the first place.)



i play protos. so leme elaborate on this from a protos view point.

First, roaches. they do additional damage to bilogial units it seems. their tooltip must be broken, because it dsoesnt mention it like other tooltips do (warp rays do something like 12 dmg + 8 vs armored, says in the tooltip) . So no mater how many zealots u have, ur always gona get slaughtered by roaches. the best way ive found to counter roaches is get a couple cannons and expand with them if the map allows. if not, 1 base tech with cannons. some people prefer massing stalkers to deal with roaches, but this approach is much slower, and most roach builds are at ur door before u can have enough stalkers to take them down without much loss. Also, stalkers cant see burrowed roaches, but cannons can.

Second Void rays. I had this problem for much longer then i had a problem with roaches, and it still remains the #1 reason i hate pvp. Though they are counter able esially. like i mentioned earlier, they do extra dmg to armored units. so dont make those. like the zerg only air vs air unit, and the teran vikings are armored. What u need, is a mass of small units that are unarmored. like marines, hydras, or stalkers. for me the problem remans scouting void rays as a protos. probes are easially dispatched by a couple lots at the ramp, that any toss is gona have fearing the dreaded mass lot rush. and if u go robo bay, youre not gona have enough stalkers out in time to counter it. but maybe im just slow, so im gona keep trying to go robobay with obs every time...

[Baldey]

I can also learn that by simply reading tooltips and bumbling through it in SC2, so maybe I'll do that instead, but it's easy to miss even basic key unit abilities doing that, when there is probably a single player sc1 stage that will be all about using the whatever button on this or that unit.

As it stands right now, scouting a Zerg base doesn't help me at all because I don't know what anything does. I know a little more about Protoss, but not that much...

thats the first thing i did also. i was always gona play protos, but first 40 games or so that i played, i played as random. i already knew the basics though, but its helped me more then anything in knowing what to expect, and how to read my scouting info.

Last night though, i played a game vs a comp in SC2 (create custom, add a comp and start) . I almost killed him, but then i thoguth i coudl use this to read every tooltip for the zerg, and i learned a LOT from that experience. Thats actually when i noticed some attacks did more dmg to certain types of armor... also did u know an ultralisk, a hydralisk, and a mutalisk ALL attacking a single fully upgraded burrowed roach cant kill it? i think those things could be even more OP then they already are :P

also, after loosing, watch the replay and see what that person did. next time u play that race, do what he did and ull see the weaknesses and strengths of it.

[Rupert]

I'm doing much better now than I did my first day of playing (lost every game but 1), and I played a ton of SC1 so I wouldn't consider myself a total noob; it made me realize just how high of a learning curve there is for SC2. However beta isn't really a fair place to judge whether or not new players are going to learn what they need to stick around. When the game goes retail, there'll be a nice single player mode that will hook some players into wanting to try out multiplayer. By then there should be a large player-base that will allow for better skill match-ups.

[Aliven]

OK, so I'm one of those people who came to the beta with about 3 hours *total* of playing sc1 under my belt.

I've been playing regularly in the beta and making my best attempt, but I have not yet managed a legitimate win in something like 25 games. I am getting better at preventing extremely early rushes and surviving to be demolished by tier 2 units, etc, but it's a steep learning curve and only once or twice have I been matched against anyone who's anywhere as new to the game (read "bad") as I am.

Thing is, when I go through the people in my division (copper division 4) the vast majority of players have not signed on in a while.

I guess what I'm wondering is: is it possible that people who are struggling in the lower brackets are getting frustrated and not signing on? Seems to me that would be a self-perpetuating problem, because lack of people signed on in the copper league means a harder slog for those of us who are logging on and making our best effort to learn the game the only way there is right now -- playing multiplayer matches against who-knows-who.

I am carefully watching replays, practicing tightening up my build order against the AI, reading all the info I can get my hands on, and playing games against human players despite the endless humiliation. And, I can see my skills improving, though not quite enough to beat the worst players I've faced yet. :)

Any other brand-new players having an experience similar to mine?

Edit: I should point out that I've had some good conversations with other players who have offered helpful suggestions in-game, though not all equivalent quality. The guy who pointed out that using my supply depots to wall off my choke point against zergling rushes would buy me some time is a hero, the guy who said "screw defense, just rush with tier 1 units" not so much. haha...

I totally understand your frustration. This game is very fast paced and people with extensive SC1 experience have an advantage. The SC1 people who've played on ICCUP know what it means to play in a tough, competitive environment.

I recommend going to www.teamliquid.net and reading some of the SC2 posts there if you haven't already. Possibly watch some of Day[9]'s commentaries.

If you want to send me a msg when I'm on for some practice games and advice, I'm happy to help.

Keep at it and gl hf.

[Sempar]

A suggestion for new players is to go into a replay and and click "Help" in the top left corner. From there, you can view the tech trees for all the races, and all the units. It will provide you with each units strengths and weaknesses.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: The reason I suggest a replay is because it pauses the game automatically, instead of having to study it while someone rushes your base ;)

[Shurimpu]

This is going to sound completely patronizing and rude, but an ENORMOUS part of SCII and other RTSs is practice, practice practice until your brain scabs over. It IS hard to memorize what units are weak to what, when to expand, what tech to get and when, especially when you've played less than 50~100 games.

What is important, though, is you keep doing your best, and you'll innately learn the ins and outs of the games as you go along. Sadly, I'm sure many of the low-tier player are either playing badly or just cheesing, so it'll be less conducive to getting all the practice you need, but it's better than just reading forums or wiki's on what's good against what.

tl;dr Experience is a huge asset, go out there and do your best for a couple months so you can steamroll noobs when the game comes out for real c:

[Mut]

Thanks for the response. I can tell you right now what I'm struggling with -- it's that when I'm focusing on economy I get stuck doing that and forget to scout, harass, etc., and when I'm on the offensive I forget to keep production going back at my base, or I distract myself to do that and my offensive units that I've left somewhere for a few seconds get owned by my opponent stumbling on them.

There's a concept from aviation called "instrument scan" where they explicitly train pilots to remind themselves what instruments to check in what order to avoid that kind of brain-lock. I'm thinking I may need to work out something explicit like that for myself just to get over this particular learning hurdle.

Edit: Problem #2 for me is that I'm taking a while to learn the endless combinations of this-unit-is-good-against-that-unit, and the game's a bit too fast to be looking that up in the help screens during a match. :) Also, having not played Protoss or Zerg very much I struggle to figure out what they're doing from what I learn while scouting, but that's something I'm working on by playing those races against the AI a bit.

Incidentally, I can destroy the AI without any difficulty, but it kind of helps that they are resource-poor and do not attack. :)

What really helps with the harrassing/offense side of your problem is to hotkey your production buildings and set relevant rally points. That way while you are microing your harrassers or offensive army, you can just hit "9" and make a batch of whatever unit, then hit "8" to select another building type and make another group of units.

However, the problem you are having is just the kind of thing you need to set a plan for, and really work on. It's the whole backbone of the game, the ability to micro and macro everything that needs to be handled.

[Dreuel]

What really helps with the harrassing/offense side of your problem is to hotkey your production buildings and set relevant rally points. That way while you are microing your harrassers or offensive army, you can just hit "9" and make a batch of whatever unit, then hit "8" to select another building type and make another group of units.

Yeah, I'm working out how to do that and getting some practice at it, it's helping quite a bit.

However, the problem you are having is just the kind of thing you need to set a plan for, and really work on. It's the whole backbone of the game, the ability to micro and macro everything that needs to be handled.

Absolutely. I brought it up in particular because I've seen it's a weakness that loses games for me and something the good (and great) players are doing well that I'm not. :)

[Jim]

Just lost a game cause 4 vikings on 4 warp rays 2 of which had zero shields still killed all my vikings only losing the two warp rays. Whats the disadvantage of those things? It just seems like they suck vs small groups due to the build-up but then are are good vs small groups as they don't get through the shields so they regenerate before the next fight.

Vikings are good air-to-air units. He was probably focus firing and you weren't.

You should have had all your vikings attack the ones without shields one at a time first.

Also, if he puts all his units on one of yours you could run that one away, breaking the charge up effect of the warp ray beam.

[Darksquad]

This is going to sound completely patronizing and rude, but an ENORMOUS part of SCII and other RTSs is practice, practice practice until your brain scabs over. It IS hard to memorize what units are weak to what, when to expand, what tech to get and when, especially when you've played less than 50~100 games.

What is important, though, is you keep doing your best, and you'll innately learn the ins and outs of the games as you go along. Sadly, I'm sure many of the low-tier player are either playing badly or just cheesing, so it'll be less conducive to getting all the practice you need, but it's better than just reading forums or wiki's on what's good against what.

tl;dr Experience is a huge asset, go out there and do your best for a couple months so you can steamroll noobs when the game comes out for real c:
For most people, a game like Starcraft is a piece of casual entertainment, not a sport. If a recreational basketball league had half newb teams and half awesome teams, it'd be silly to tell the newb players, "Well, guess you'll just have to practice several hours a day, tell your wife and kids you'll miss them!" The whole point of automatching and the leagues is that people should play others close to their skill level, and if that level is "sucky", then so be it. Most people don't play video games to "train" or whatever, they play to have some good stupid fun.

[Thebeezitron]

What I'd like to know is who in their right mind would get a SC2 beta invite and then not play it...

i got 2, gave one to my roomate. :D

[Dreuel]

For most people, a game like Starcraft is a piece of casual entertainment, not a sport.

I'm no expert on the game (of course, being the OP) but it's pretty clear that there can be simple strategies that work against extremely new or unskilled players, while more complex strategies can be more demanding and require a lot more practice and learning to perfect, and become necessary in the upper tiers. So, the memorization until "one's brain scabs over" may be a fairly loose requirement in the copper league we'll see at release. For now, it's time to work my ass off. :)

[Darksquad]

I'm no expert on the game (of course, being the OP) but it's pretty clear that there can be simple strategies that work against extremely new or unskilled players, while more complex strategies can be more demanding and require a lot more practice and learning to perfect, and become necessary in the upper tiers. So, the memorization until "one's brain scabs over" may be a fairly loose requirement in the copper league we'll see at release. For now, it's time to work my ass off. :)
I'm not saying it's bad to train at Starcraft, just that most people have no interest in it, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I know for me, people always find all this deep meaning in movies and crap and I mostly just like to see explosions and car chases. Not everything in life has to be taken seriously.

[Annor]

I'm no expert on the game (of course, being the OP) but it's pretty clear that there can be simple strategies that work against extremely new or unskilled players, while more complex strategies can be more demanding and require a lot more practice and learning to perfect, and become necessary in the upper tiers. So, the memorization until "one's brain scabs over" may be a fairly loose requirement in the copper league we'll see at release. For now, it's time to work my ass off. :)

I'm online now if you want me to show you a bit?

[Tornare]

I have some advice for new players. Instead of playing 1v1 and 2v2 matches to learn, play in FFA matches where most of the time everyone holds back for a few minutes.

1v1 = fast fight to the death games
2v2 = fast fight to the death games with a partner
FFA = Let other players fight it out with any luck, then go in and own the field.

Some good players in FFA will do early attacks on others, but for the most part people play defensive.

[Dreuel]

BTW, thanks for the support, folks who have contacted me in-game. Our conversations have been very helpful!

[Thyco]

Dude...i think i just played against you about 3hrs ago. i watched the replay of our match and i think you and me are around the same skill level. feel free to add me as a friend, and we can increase in our noobness

[Tally]

Right now I'm sitting at 9-2 in the 1v1 gold league. While it's not platinum or anything, I could try to offer some tips if you want to play a couple games and just go over the basic strategies, timing, simple micro, and queues - the stuff that makes you roll units out quicker and allows you more free time to scout etc, instead of being overloaded. I think those are probably more important than learning any of the units and build orders when first starting out.

[Nightmare]

I didn't read every post in this thread as I am pressed for time. If this has been said already, I apologize, though I think it is some sound advice.

There's no need to feel humiliated when you lose; we all sucked at Starcraft when we started (and some of us still do 10 years later). But remember, you get better with every loss then you do whenever you win. By watching replays you can ask yourself "Why did I lose?", and you'll get more information then "Why did I win?"

Also, even if you lose every game, you're in the Beta and most everyone else is not. So I think you come out ahead in either scenario.

Enjoy the game.

[Jopte]

I'm like OP here. Learning tons and working hard to get better but its still been a brutal experience trying to learn off the ladders. We should all band together and learn off of each other in some custom games, or some 2v2 maybe.

If your interested send me a friend invite. My B.net name is to the left, of course.

[Burrich]

Thanks for the response. I can tell you right now what I'm struggling with -- it's that when I'm focusing on economy I get stuck doing that and forget to scout, harass, etc., and when I'm on the offensive I forget to keep production going back at my base, or I distract myself to do that and my offensive units that I've left somewhere for a few seconds get owned by my opponent stumbling on them.

There's a concept from aviation called "instrument scan" where they explicitly train pilots to remind themselves what instruments to check in what order to avoid that kind of brain-lock. I'm thinking I may need to work out something explicit like that for myself just to get over this particular learning hurdle.

Edit: Problem #2 for me is that I'm taking a while to learn the endless combinations of this-unit-is-good-against-that-unit, and the game's a bit too fast to be looking that up in the help screens during a match. :) Also, having not played Protoss or Zerg very much I struggle to figure out what they're doing from what I learn while scouting, but that's something I'm working on by playing those races against the AI a bit.

Incidentally, I can destroy the AI without any difficulty, but it kind of helps that they are resource-poor and do not attack. :)

I'm with ya buddy.

[Chax]

There's a concept from aviation called "instrument scan" where they explicitly train pilots to remind themselves what instruments to check in what order to avoid that kind of brain-lock. I'm thinking I may need to work out something explicit like that for myself just to get over this particular learning hurdle.

I have a list too. Haha
Cheers

Extra time/mins?
Expand
Upgrade armor/weapons
Unit upgrades
Tech Up (Airforce?)
Harass enemy econ/expansion
Build up defenses
Build up army
ATTACK!

[Tot]

Im in the same boat....cant figure out how to handle macro. If i go on offensive I have hard time controlling all the units plus i dont really know what units are good vs others. SC2 is my first RTS ever

[Sofa]

I'm currently ranked in the top 20 of Copper Division 1. Might go down some as people play tonight, but I try to play a couple games a night after work. I've definitely noticed that it pretty much never finds anyone within my division to play and there are around 90 in it at the moment. I don't know if it's going to the Bronze league to find my opponents of a different Copper Division, but as I've played more and more games, I've noticed the matches becoming a bit more balanced. Occasionally I'll get some opponents not used to a Protoss rush and win within 4-5 mins.

To me, however, a lot of the games I initially played were simply not fun. Winning/Losing within 5 mins is, well, lame. You don't get to do anything in the game. You don't get to build up an army or base, and there's no epic battle that either wins the game or loses the game. Tech's don't matter in the first 5 mins, and if you're making an offense/defense there's not a whole lot of options to choose from. I can definitely see why someone would stop playing after they were placed in the Copper and then lost a few matches in their Division too. Especially, if it's unable to find people with roughly the same skill level.

To the person who asked about not playing when you got into beta, I can give you a reason why I, personally, don't play in all of my free time. When I first got the Beta I thought I was going to get to test the campaign. To me that was the best part of SC1, and I was shocked, to be honest, when I got the invite, because I hadn't been following the game much for the news. When I found out it was just multi-player online matches, I was a bit put off. Don't get me wrong, the multiplayer is fun, but I prefer to play with friends, not random people online. I currently have no friends who are in the beta, thus I don't play that much. Also, I wasn't great at online matches in SC1, and the first few matches were brutal massacres for me. I've been pacing myself, so that I don't rage quit at the zealots in my base tearing my workers up because my marines can't take them 1v1 (or other such frustrating scenarios). lol

Obligatory Anecdotal Evidence of Learning From Playing and Replays:
My last game was pretty fun though. It was Protoss vs Protoss. He started rushing Zealots into my base just as I put up a cannon and managed to hold them off. Eventually he was just suiciding them and stopped. I started building up my resources and expanding via transport ship around the map. I then put up an observer outside my base where I saw he had a bunch of zealots ready to attack, so I started rushing DTs. Ended up wiping out his army with my DTs, and it then went around wiping out random parts of his expansions where he didnt' have any detection, while I mass produced carriers. I ended up winning at like 36 mins, but if I hadn't played 20+ games already and knew what was going to happen, it would have been over within 5 mins, and I would have been frustrated that I couldn't even play long enough to "test".

[Nexu]

I ended up winning at like 36 mins, but if I hadn't played 20+ games already and knew what was going to happen, it would have been over within 5 mins, and I would have been frustrated that I couldn't even play long enough to "test".
I love experiences like this. I'm a Bronze 1v1er myself, and there's nothing quite like holding on barely, even if you don't come back to win. I barely managed to fight off a serious Banshee harass in a TvT recently by popping out a ton of Vikings then going around to take out his expansions. I ended up losing, because he got Vikings too and Vikings + Banshees > Vikings, but it was a loss I felt good about.