Starcraft 2 - Read Post #2 for a useful beginner guide

[Train]

Letting all your marines shoot any target instead of focusing down one target at a time isn't no macro, it's bad micro. Not feedbacking medivacs and letting your high templars just sit in the group because you did not click anything isn't no macro, it's bad micro.

No, there are THREE options

Good Micro - focus firing the marines to make them more effective
Bad Micro - focus firing them on the wrong things, stimming them when they are already at low health, clicking them to move instead of attack.
No Micro - letting them use their pre-programmed default actions of target selection and firing.

 

[dank69]

Letting all your marines shoot any target instead of focusing down one target at a time isn't no macro, it's bad micro. Not feedbacking medivacs and letting your high templars just sit in the group because you did not click anything isn't no macro, it's bad micro.

The person doing those things has bad micro skill. The individual acts are a lack of micro.

 

[DrunkenSano]

That's where I disagree, lack of macro is equivalent to bad micro in my book in a competitive battle. Bad micro skill = bad micro.

Mainly because when we describe micro in Starcraft two, most players who are watching are not talking technicalities on whether or not someone is pushing buttons or just auto-attacking, but how well they are managing the battle instead of just moving the army from point A to point B and letting it roll.

 

[HomerX]

Letting all your marines shoot any target instead of focusing down one target at a time isn't no macro, it's bad micro. Not feedbacking medivacs and letting your high templars just sit in the group because you did not click anything isn't no macro, it's bad micro.

like train wrote:

Good Micro - focus firing the marines to make them more effective
Bad Micro - focus firing them on the wrong things, stimming them when they are already at low health, clicking them to move instead of attack.
No Micro - letting them use their pre-programmed default actions of target selection and firing.

having high templars sitting in your group doing nothing (no micro) is still better than casting psi storm on your own troops (bad micro)...

really is it THAT difficult to understand?

 

[DrunkenSano]

like train wrote:



having high templars sitting in your group doing nothing (no micro) is still better than casting psi storm on your own troops (bad micro)...

really is it THAT difficult to understand?

That's where I disagree, lack of macro is equivalent to bad micro in my book in a competitive battle. Bad micro skill = bad micro.

Mainly because when we describe micro in Starcraft two, most players who are watching are not talking technicalities on whether or not someone is pushing buttons or just auto-attacking, but how well they are managing the battle instead of just moving the army from point A to point B and letting it roll.

Is this too hard to understand?

 

[dank69]

Is this too hard to understand?

Moving an army from point A to point B is micro.

 

[DrunkenSano]

Moving an army from point A to point B is micro.

Not according to them since they aren't individually targeting stuff, it isn't micro.

 

[dank69]

Not according to them since they aren't individually targeting stuff, it isn't micro.

No, you are misinterpreting what they are saying.

 

[HomerX]

Mainly because when we describe micro in Starcraft two, most players who are watching are not talking technicalities on whether or not someone is pushing buttons or just auto-attacking, but how well they are managing the battle instead of just moving the army from point A to point B and letting it roll.

like dank69 wrote:

The person doing those things has bad micro skill. The individual acts are a lack of micro.

i think you are confusing those two things...

some palyers are good at micro, some are bad at micro... in this case bad means they are not spending enough time at micromanaging their units or they are even mismanaging their units sometimes... often these players are more focused on macro.
in an individual battle this means that he just a-moves his units into the other players base while focusing on macro... so in this battle there is a lack of micro (no micro) and the player overall is considered bad at micro..

 

[DrunkenSano]

like dank69 wrote:
in an individual battle this means that he just a-moves his units into the other players base while focusing on macro... so in this battle there is a lack of micro (no micro) and the player overall is considered bad at micro..

This is where I disagree on the (no micro) part, he made a decision to focus on building more probes or tech, that is still a micro-decision on the battle. In battles, micro basically comes down to making decisions, you don't have to click. Like the example of storming your own units over not storming, the correct micro decision is to not storm your own units. Just because you didn't click doesn't mean he didn't micro the templars.

Moving a group of units from a to b to fight and deciding to let them duke it out automatically while you watch is making a bad battle decision, thus bad macro. If you have something else that you think is more important that you have to do, then it is still micro, whether it is bad or good depends on if what you move onto doing is actually more beneficial than managing that battle.

 

[dank69]

This is where I disagree on the (no micro) part, he made a decision to focus on building more probes or tech, that is still a micro-decision on the battle. In battles, micro basically comes down to making decisions, you don't have to click. Like the example of storming your own units over not storming, the correct micro decision is to not storm your own units. Just because you didn't click doesn't mean he didn't micro the templars.

There is a difference between no micro and bad micro, and you don't see that difference. Consider the following example:

In a PvZ the terran builds a rax at the top of his ramp. He queues some marines but doesn't even set a rally point, just lets the marines spawn next to the rax. The zerg pokes 2 lings up the ramp which get killed by the marines in 2 seconds, before the terran even gets the message that there is combat. There is no micro here by the terran, but does it mean he used bad micro?

 

[HomerX]

This is where I disagree on the (no micro) part, he made a decision to focus on building more probes or tech, that is still a micro-decision on the battle. In battles, micro basically comes down to making decisions, you don't have to click. Like the example of storming your own units over not storming, the correct micro decision is to not storm your own units. Just because you didn't click doesn't mean he didn't micro the templars.

focusing on yout tech/production/build order etc is generally viewed as macro and not micro...

decisions are exactly that -> decisions...

i can decide to let every marine run in a different angle away from the baneling while letting the marauders attack them at the same time... DOING that is micromanaging my units... and that requires you to click..
letting them just auto attack while switching to my base in order to call down some mules is a lack of micro...
selecting all marines and letting them run in the wrong direction because i misklicked is bad micro...

 

[DrunkenSano]

There is a difference between no micro and bad micro, and you don't see that difference. Consider the following example:

In a PvZ the terran builds a rax at the top of his ramp. He queues some marines but doesn't even set a rally point, just lets the marines spawn next to the rax. The zerg pokes 2 lings up the ramp which get killed by the marines in 2 seconds, before the terran even gets the message that there is combat. There is no micro here by the terran, but does it mean he used bad micro?

What was he doing at the time? Was he watching the battle? If he was, did he feel that the Marines needed to move? If the marines could've killed the two zergs without taking damage but they took damage and he watched, it is still bad macro. Even though he won that battle, he took damage he didn't have to which weakened his units.

 

[DrunkenSano]

focusing on yout tech/production/build order etc is generally viewed as macro and not micro...

decisions are exactly that -> decisions...

i can decide to let every marine run in a different angle away from the baneling while letting the marauders attack them at the same time... DOING that is micromanaging my units... and that requires you to click..
letting them just auto attack while switching to my base in order to call down some mules is a lack of micro...
selecting all marines and letting them run in the wrong direction because i misklicked is bad micro...

Yes, the tech/econ portion is macro. But your decision to move your army to that location without concaving first, selecting a target, attack moving or regular moving, is still a micro decision. You are making the choice of doing nothing.

In the end, I'm not going to convince you guys and vice versa, so it's just different viewpoints.

 

[dank69]

What was he doing at the time? Was he watching the battle? If he was, did he feel that the Marines needed to move? If the marines could've killed the two zergs without taking damage but they took damage and he watched, it is still bad macro. Even though he won that battle, he took damage he didn't have to which weakened his units.

He took absolutely no damage and was looking at porn on another monitor at the time.

 

[HomerX]

What was he doing at the time? Was he watching the battle? If he was, did he feel that the Marines needed to move? If the marines could've killed the two zergs without taking damage but they took damage and he watched, it is still bad macro. Even though he won that battle, he took damage he didn't have to which weakened his units.

do you mean micro when writing macro? or are you confusing those two terms?

lets say the terran focused on his macro during this battle -> building supply deptos, building workers etc... so he used NO micro in this specific battle... hte marines killed the zerglings on their own...

lets assume the terran decides to be cool and tryied to stutter-shot-move away from the zerglings... but unfortunately he is not so good at that and the dps of the marines takes a massive hit and the zerglings are able to kill one marine.. so he focused on his micro, forget about the macro (supply blocked himself, no workers build etc) and he even lost a marine in the process... this is BAD micro...

 

[DrunkenSano]

He took absolutely no damage and was looking at porn on another monitor at the time.

Is that a serious response? I assumed we were debating the concept of macro, not the exact Merriam-Webster definition of micro. If you want to debate about the dictionary definition of micro, then you win. But when discussing the concept of micro that applies to SC2, which most high level players and gamecasters use, your scenario has nothing to do with what we are talking about. Concept vs definition, take your pick.

do you mean micro when writing macro? or are you confusing those two terms?

lets say the terran focused on his macro during this battle -> building supply deptos, building workers etc... so he used NO micro in this specific battle... hte marines killed the zerglings on their own...

lets assume the terran decides to be cool and tryied to stutter-shot-move away from the zerglings... but unfortunately he is not so good at that and the dps of the marines takes a massive hit and the zerglings are able to kill one marine.. so he focused on his micro, forget about the macro (supply blocked himself, no workers build etc) and he even lost a marine in the process... this is BAD micro...

I don't even consider the Marines killing a scouting zergling as an actual battle when talking about the general concept of micro for SC2. Like my response to dank, dictionary definition you are probably right, that was no micro. But I assumed we were discussing the general concept of micro, the word being used by high level players and gamecasters.

 

[dank69]

Is that a serious response? I assumed we were debating the concept of macro, not the exact Merriam-Webster definition of micro. If you want to debate about the dictionary definition of micro, then you win. But when discussing the concept of micro that applies to SC2, which most high level players and gamecasters use, your scenario has nothing to do with what we are talking about. Concept vs definition, take your pick.




I don't even consider the Marines killing a scouting zergling as an actual battle when talking about the general concept of micro for SC2. Like my response to dank, dictionary definition you are probably right, that was no micro. But I assumed we were discussing the general concept of micro, the word being used by high level players and gamecasters.

The first part was serious and the second part was a joke because what he was doing during the incident has absolutely no bearing on the question. You said that no micro = bad micro and I provided a theoretical situation that shows that no micro does not always equal bad micro. You then grasped at straws trying to add a bunch of additional irrelevant info instead of answering the question. If the zerglings did 0 damage to anything, was his lack of micro bad micro?

And in SC, micro refers to control and always has. There is good control, bad control and no control.

 

[DrunkenSano]

Micro refers to decision and control, not just control. What you see as irrelevant info is actually pretty important.

 

[Train]

Micro refers to decision and control, not just control.

And what are you basing this assertion on? Just whatever you feel like?

 

[HomerX]

I don't even consider the Marines killing a scouting zergling as an actual battle when talking about the general concept of micro for SC2. Like my response to dank, dictionary definition you are probably right, that was no micro. But I assumed we were discussing the general concept of micro, the word being used by high level players and gamecasters.

Micro refers to decision and control, not just control. What you see as irrelevant info is actually pretty important.

so considering you are talking about the general concept of micro/macro etc regarding starcraft, will you probably accept the definition of teamliquid? This is one of the biggest Starcraft communities in the world!

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Micro

 

[dank69]

Micro refers to decision and control, not just control. What you see as irrelevant info is actually pretty important.

Micro does not refer to decision. I don't know where you came up with that.

 

[Dumac]

lol nice try.

lol nice lack of any attempt to validate your opinion

you could at least try to backpedal

 

[Train]

lol nice lack of any attempt to validate your opinion

you could at least try to backpedal

sigh... its like arguing with an 8 year old.

Here is what I said:

All micro is combat, but not all combat is micro. Get it?

Here is what you quoted:

All micro is combat

Hmm, seems to be half missing there. Why don't you start with that?

And by "more than just combat" I meant it is a more specific topic, I never said it excludes combat. In no way was I contradictory. If you have been reading all the discussions about micro in this thread, you'll get the idea.

 

[JTsyo]

This argument doesn't really matter. If someone says I need to improve my mirco both sides would think of the same thing same as if someone told you to micro your units away from psi storms.