Training Night One

Ever had a job or a volunteer position or even a classroom where you had an authority figure (boss, teacher) standing over your shoulder and supervising everything you do?

Not a pleasant feeling, usually.

Atlas Gaming, the gaming community that I'm in, hosts weekly training nights in which a bunch of low-league players (Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze) play 1v1 obs games while trainers observe. When each match begins, the players are moved to separate lobbies on the TeamSpeak and assigned a trainer to help them as they play.

It's actually in ingenious set up! Now, the trainer doesn't tell you HOW to play. For example, a nightmare conversation would be:

Trainer: "Alright, he's Protoss and you're Terran so you need to one Barracks, fast expand into five Barracks Marine/Marauder, heavier on the Marauder with Stim Pack and Concussion Shells while aiming for a seven minute timing push!"

Trainee: "Uh..."

Trainer: "Alright, start with your Supply Depot at 10, Barracks at 12, Command Center at 16, make sure you get another Supply Depot at 17..."

That would be worthless. One, you wouldn't actually learn much because you're being controlled by a puppeteer rather than taught why you're doing what you're being told to do. Two, it's been proven time and again that people learn more when they're taught to think for themselves rather than told what and how to think. Finally, you'll never actually be as fast as you need to be because the Trainer is going to tell you what to do and when to do it and you're going to have to keep up, which is really, really difficult for lower league players (that's why we're in the lower leagues).

Instead, the Trainer actually helps you keep track of minor details. Mine asked my game plan at the very start.

Trainer: "Alright, so he's Protoss and you're Terran. What's your game plan?"

Me: "Well, I was thinking of opening with a single Barracks into expansion then getting Marauders and going for a Stim push up the middle."

Trainer: "Alright, solid plan. I'll sit back and let you work on it, I'll keep you focused on things you forget."

What that meant was that he'd warn me when I was getting close to supply blocking myself (not having enough Supply Depots, Overlords or Pylons to keep producing units). He'd remind me when I wasn't upgrading at my Engineering Bays or when my money was getting too high. He wouldn't always tell me what to do with my idle Engineering Bays or my banked money, he'd just point out that it was there.

The result? I learned A LOT! I've gained a better understanding of when I should be considering expanding, how many Barracks I can support on one, two and three bases, how to make better use of the money I have (getting upgrades constantly rather than infrequently), the frequency of which I should be building Supply Depots and how to keep track of all of this at once (or at least I'm much better at it now).

WOW, it's a lot to keep up with! The biggest lesson I learned during training night? I have a LONG way to go and a LOT to learn. In the end though, isn't that the most important lesson?