The Idea

I first encountered the principle when doing an early version of JaKaTaK’s TheStaircase, so probably around 2012. Putting down measurable metrics down for every game and working towards hitting desired benchmarks while focussing on very isolated aspects of the game gave me a completely new spin on my Starcraft II journey:

Losing matches didn’t bother me anymore and even league placement (there was no visible MMR back in the days) lost its value. Even when losing matches I could consider it a win if I had been hitting my benchmarks. I was actively working on my spending skills (macro mechanics) and could just see by the extracted metrics how I was improving. Every time I didn’t hit the benchmarks it motivated me to do better next time and every time I hit the benchmarks I considered it a win - regardless of the game outcome.

That was 2013 – fast forward to now.

The Problem

When I picked up Starcraft again after so many years I knew what to expect. As I wrote in one of my first posts in this blog, I really wanted to focus more on improvement than on my league placement or my MMR. But slowly while improving and climbing the ladders and gaining that juicy MMR, I lost the focus on my actual goals.

I think two factors counted into that:

1. I reached the league/rating that was my highest back in the days.
2. After constantly climbing while re-learning and improving I started losing more games and my MMR started going up and down around my current skill ceiling.

I sometimes get the feeling of ladder anxiety, start getting slight episodes of tilt or end sessions with a pretty bad feeling if my MMR is lower than at the start of my session. But even though this is what many Starcraft players experience, I actively choose I don’t want that. I don’t want to be stressed out by a game I choose to invest a part of my personal time in. I want to enjoy the game and keep my focus on working on improvement. I want to have fun.

Regaining Mindfulness

So it happened in the perfect moment that some new player asked on the AllThingsZerg Discord how to improve at Starcraft and the awesome CDXFlames responded with “Stop trying to win”. I don’t remember the whole context but I instantly agreed. In an instant it shot back into my mind that this is the essence of healthy improvement in Starcraft. Sure, playing aggressive builds, trying to end games quickly, desperately playing to win while neglecting actual improvement will raise the MMR and also get me higher in the leagues - no doubt about that. But apart from being able to execute these builds better, am I actually a better player? I don’t think so.

I strongly believe that introducing new concepts and losing more after leaving ones comfort zone will eventually result into a higher skill level. After reaching a new comfort zone and gaining an edge over the matched opponents the dip in MMR could be seen as a long term investment instead of failure.

And now?

Play Unranked?

One measure to mitigate any stress related to MMR or league standing seems pretty obvious: Just play unranked. Playing unranked matches us against the same players as playing ranked. But although there is no visible punishment for losing, and thus also no real ladder anxiety, there is also no obvious reward for winning. No promotion screens and no easy readable value to compare our skill level to others. So the only viable measure for self-assessment would be either metrics and statistics derived from replays or by extracting the opponents MMR from those. But what’s the point in hiding the own MMR when guessing it by looking at the average opponents MMR? Right. And if we have metrics and statistics of our games and use these anyways, then with the right mindset it really doesn’t matter if we play ranked or unranked.

In addition to that I see one downside in playing both Ranked and Unranked: They don’t share the same MMR. So after playing one mode for a while is basically poison for the match making of the other mode. Only playing both modes on a regular basis and quantity would keep them on a similar internal MMR and suddenly we care about 2 MMRs. Didn’t we want to care less about MMR?

So let’s pick up the idea of the right mindset again. How do we achieve the right mindset and just stop caring?

Measurable goals

Thinking back at TheStaircase it was really easy to tie progress and success to the simple number of “Spending Quotient”. It is affected by multiple macro aspects and is lowered by a range of mistakes: Too many supply blocks, missing injects or not spending larvae. So only looking at the SQ can give a too blurry view on the actual performance. Adding a few more benchmarks gives a bit more detailed view on the personal development.

What I am currently checking after each game are the following metrics:

• Game duration
• Supply block in seconds
• Average idle larva count
• Inject efficiency
• Spending quotient
• Total workers created
• Supply and active worker count at 3:30, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00
• Time to 66 active workers
• Time to maxed supply

I am planning to add a few more like:

• Time to 2-base saturation (income based)
• Time to 3-base saturation (income based)
• Time Lair finished

I extract these data points automatically from the replay file after each game. So after each game I have instant access to the measurable goals I am aiming at. Watching the replay I can now focus on why I didn’t hit certain benchmarks in some cases.

This is where need to check for things like:

• (Overlord-)scouting the main 3:30-4:00?
• Blind Spore Crawlers at mineral lines vs Terran/Protoss?
• How did I handle drone harass?
• How did I react to scouting information?

Of course many these things are only applicable in standard games. But they are also especially valuable, since if the game wasn’t chaotic and I don’t hit the benchmarks, I need to check why.