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Good macro is a byproduct of SPEED
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| SuiChoy | Date: Tuesday, 2014/May/13, 5:01 AM | Message # 1 |
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Saturday, May 17th, 2014
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| Every Starcraft guide out there tells you to work on your macro. I think this is wrong. As long as you are following a set build, the process behind macro is extremely simple. For terrans, you press your production hotkey and make sure every building has a unit queued. There's nothing else to it.
What does it mean to macro "better"? It's not difficult to macro well if you plant your camera over your base and babysit your buildings all game long. The hard part is doing that while scouting and putting on pressure. The real challenge to your macro is keeping it up while you have to do something else.
At a certain point in the game, you will have to prioritize a micro action over a macro action. How well your macro holds up in this situation is not about your macro "skill", it's about the speed with which you execute actions in the game. How fast can you queue up units? Taeja does a production cycle between each banshee shot while he kites marines. How fast can you go back your base and place down 2 depots and a barracks and rally the scvs back to the minerals? How fast can you stim and split a group of 15 marines? The faster you can do an action, the more actions you can do. Ultimately, I think good macro is equivalent to having the speed to do lots of things.
I've found a lot of recent success trying to be fast, rather than trying to have better macro. I know a lot of you have excellent mechanics and I'm interested to see if you agree.
Message edited by SuiChoy - Tuesday, 2014/May/13, 5:05 AM |
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| Relay | Date: Tuesday, 2014/May/13, 3:26 PM | Message # 2 |
 Sunday, January 11th, 2015
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| I don't feel the secret is in raw speed. Raw speed comes from efficiency, not just in your hotkey setup but also the way you use your hands on the keyboard. Make yourself more efficient using your keyboard and controlling your units, and you automatically increase your speed, and automatically give yourself the ABILITY to macro better. I remember an old day9 daily (so Old it was actually just a podcast) called "the basics of mechanics". day9 describes good macro being less related to how fast you can press the keys, and more to how much stuff you can remember to do. It's not that the average player cant produce units inbetween banshee shots, its just they don't remember to while they are controlling that unit. I've found its much more useful to practice playing cleanly and efficiently, without wasted motions. As muscle memory builds your natural speed will increase.
I can play with 350 apm but am not comfortable, nor am I better at any part of the game. (actually the opposite) however I am at a point where 250 apm average is not difficult anymore, and I spent 0 time actually focusing on that.
Adversity doesn't build character, It reveals it.
Hello Vice Admiral
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| SuiChoy | Date: Tuesday, 2014/May/13, 6:41 PM | Message # 3 |
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Saturday, May 17th, 2014
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| Efficiency is definitely an important factor of speed. When I said speed, I meant how many seconds it takes for you to complete an action, which is determined by how fast you can press buttons + how few buttons presses you can reduce an action into. And I like how Day9 stresses the importance of not doing things that trick you into thinking you are playing fast. But in my experience, thinking "I need to be efficient" isn't as helpful to macro as thinking "I need to do everything faster" because macro is literally about checking your production so often that you reduce gaps in production to zero. It's not about doing good actions, but about doing lots and lots of actions.
Lapses in macro can happen because a person forgets, like you mentioned. But I don't think it's helpful to then go, okay, I need to focus on macro, then focus all your attention on that and neglect everything else. In my experience, the problem is less forgetting to macro, but taking so long to do something that by the time you finish, your macro has slipped. Everyone knows macro is important, but simply knowing that doesn't mean they can keep up their macro when the game really gets going.
I know that for myself, even if you remind me to macro while microing my banshee, would not be able to do it. I know what I need to do but my hands cannot do it. Doing that comes from speed.
Basically, I think it's a misnomer to say you can macro "better". The concept of macro is simple: constant production without queuing, don't get supply blocked. If all you do is macro, most players can have good macro. But say I have to spend 10 seconds microing my army and I miss a cycle, is the problem really that my macro is bad? Or am I just too slow?
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| Wanderer | Date: Wednesday, 2014/May/14, 0:32 AM | Message # 4 |
 Friday, May 2nd, 2014
Group: Graduate
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| Well, one of the most important aspects of macro (if not the most important IMO) is decision making about build order. This thing Day9 talks about a lot, decisions seemingly insignificant on their own but that have a huge impact later on. Like delaying a unit or building in favor of resources or certain units, etc. I think people does not give strategy the priority it should have and they focus in mechanics only instead.
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| Shadow | Date: Monday, 2014/June/23, 1:05 AM | Message # 5 |
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Friday, June 27, 2014
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| I think macro is more of a priority based thing where if you are attacking and youre about to be supply blocked you HAVE to go back and buld your building, but you sould always probably focus on your macro cause then you will have a bigger army faster and micro almost doesnt matter at that point
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| Nazty | Date: Monday, 2014/June/23, 2:19 AM | Message # 6 |
 Saturday, March 21st, 2015
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| I would agree that remember to do things is a problem rather than speed. I can play around 80 apm, and I've only played the game for about a month. I just forget to do things.. For instance, today I played a 2v2 and built 2 gases.. 5 mins later I remembered I never put probes there.
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| Nazty | Date: Monday, 2014/June/23, 2:20 AM | Message # 7 |
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Saturday, March 21st, 2015
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| Double posted..Oops!
Message edited by Nazty - Monday, 2014/June/23, 2:20 AM |
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| SuiChoy | Date: Monday, 2014/June/23, 2:50 AM | Message # 8 |
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Saturday, May 17th, 2014
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| Since I wrote the OP, I've come to realize that different races have different issues with macro. From a terran point of view, I think the greatest difficulty is mechanically keeping on top of production while microing my army, whereas zerg players might worry more about balancing droning and making army and other macro decisions.
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| Relay | Date: Monday, 2014/June/23, 2:24 PM | Message # 9 |
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Sunday, January 11th, 2015
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Messages: 28
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| Also, you must construct additional pylons
Adversity doesn't build character, It reveals it.
Hello Vice Admiral
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| BRISINGR | Date: Wednesday, 2014/July/02, 10:02 AM | Message # 10 |
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| What they mean by macro basically means keeping up your production with your economy as the game progesses while everything else is going done so basically a steady rate of production regardless of the other things that you have to do like micro, etc.
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