Sc2 fans, help me understand you - Page 6

On March 10 2011 05:14 buhhy wrote:


Most of the best player in BW have not been high APM monsters, but extremely intelligent players. OOV and savior both had low APM, but were so dominant because of their amazing strategies and game knowledge. The current best player, flash, isn't nearly the most technical player, but has shown incredible game-changing strategies, gamesense, and amazing metagames and mindgames.

People always have this misconception that BW favors high APM over gamesense and knowledge, it doesn't. Just like in sports, where a certain level of athleticism is a requirement, a certain level of mechanics is required to compete. After that, it's all about strategy. No one complains about needing good cardio and strength to compete in sports, why does anyone complain about requiring mechanics and APM in an ESPORT?

On March 10 2011 04:57 eviltomahawk wrote:

I actually got that from another post that was part of a thread of posts originating from your post (whatever that means lol). I guess the meaning got muddled in there somehow after several iterations of opinions.

But more seriously, for the people who are short on time and patience, watching SC2 hoping to see excellent micro/macro may not be the best way for them to enjoy the game. The game is gravitating towards higher quality matches, but the average match quality isn't up to the standards that the BW enthusiasts are looking for. Why make them watch a live match of MKP hoping for a sight of his marine micro when there is a VOD of MKP vs Kyrix available?

I guess what I'm trying to say, in vain, is that when trying to please SC2 doubters, it's best to show them the best VODs of matches instead of making them watch live matches and risk exposing them to less entertaining games in the hopes that one of the matches has the potential of becoming epic.

On March 10 2011 05:14 buhhy wrote:
People always have this misconception that BW favors high APM over gamesense and knowledge, it doesn't. Just like in sports, where a certain level of athleticism is a requirement, a certain level of mechanics is required to compete. After that, it's all about strategy. No one complains about needing good cardio and strength to compete in sports, why does anyone complain about requiring mechanics and APM in an ESPORT?

On March 10 2011 05:35 Kukaracha wrote:


I don't think it favours APM over gamesense, I just think that it favours APM. It doesn't make it more important than the rest, but it does make it more important in the end.

And why do we complain about game mechanics... well, I think that it's because APM only requires good fingers.
A sport requires a person to push the limits of their muscles and body structure; APM requires a person to push the limits of their fingers.

Chess is a sport, for example; but it's a brain discipline. As a physical discipline, E-sports have very; very little interest.


Comparing Michael Jordan and Flash in terms of speed, strenght, endurance is a joke. What they do are two different things.

On March 10 2011 05:14 buhhy wrote:
People always have this misconception that BW favors high APM over gamesense and knowledge, it doesn't. Just like in sports, where a certain level of athleticism is a requirement, a certain level of mechanics is required to compete. After that, it's all about strategy. No one complains about needing good cardio and strength to compete in sports, why does anyone complain about requiring mechanics and APM in an ESPORT?

On March 10 2011 05:14 buhhy wrote:


Most of the best player in BW have not been high APM monsters, but extremely intelligent players. OOV and savior both had low APM, but were so dominant because of their amazing strategies and game knowledge. The current best player, flash, isn't nearly the most technical player, but has shown incredible game-changing strategies, gamesense, and amazing metagames and mindgames.

People always have this misconception that BW favors high APM over gamesense and knowledge, it doesn't. Just like in sports, where a certain level of athleticism is a requirement, a certain level of mechanics is required to compete. After that, it's all about strategy. No one complains about needing good cardio and strength to compete in sports, why does anyone complain about requiring mechanics and APM in an ESPORT?

On March 10 2011 05:50 DTK-m2 wrote:
Yeah, professional pianists are thoroughly unimpressive. Seriously, fuck that Horowitz guy.

On March 10 2011 05:45 kzn wrote:


This isn't really right.

Chess has been mentioned, as a game that requires only "game sense" - but time-limited variants of chess place an additional constraint. If you made the time limit on a move 1 second, the "quality" of the moves made would fall significantly (and if you disagree I don't even know what to tell you).

This is because there exists a limit on the capabilities of humans. You can't just reach an infinite level of mechanical skill and focus on strategy at will. If you had a version of broodwar where players had to read and input binary code to do anything, I guarantee you wouldn't see 35 minute macro games. You'd see 6pools, at most, and then the game would die out.

I've said this before, and people have astonishing levels of difficulty with the concept - competitive games are literally reducible to a set of arbitrary constraints. If you ask "but why do you have to dribble in basketball?" nobody can actually answer that beyond "because thems the rules". The question becomes "is this a good rule for competition" - and that is entirely an issue of opinion. Some people like to watch golf, where "game sense" or strategy is almost invisible compared to the mechanical skills, and some like chess with no time limits, where its the reverse. BroodWar is more mechanical than SC2, which means by necessity it has less of a focus on strategy than SC2.

This does not mean that BW has less strategy - the "length" of a game's mechanics/strategy line can differ, and perhaps it is the case that BW has a flat out longer line, and thus has more mechanics AND more strategy.

That kind of conclusion is really really hard to support, though. What is not debatable is that the skillset of a "perfect" BW player is more heavily biased towards mechanics than the skillset of a "perfect" SC2 player. Whether or not this is a good thing is an opinion, nothing more.

On March 10 2011 05:48 Spazer wrote:
To add onto this, having APM opens up new strategical opportunities. For instance, corsair reaver is arguably one of the most difficult PvZ openings, but when executed successfully, it can be extremely rewarding. Two hatch mutas lets a zerg harass a terran player in the early game in order to secure map control. Broodwar would not be where it is today strategically if the APM of progamers had not increased.

Actually, I'm not even sure why people bring up the APM argument all the time. One of the main reasons people cite for having automine/MBS in SC2 is because it frees up APM for army control. There's no reason why high APM players wouldn't be able to develop strategies in SC2 as demanding as those in BW in terms of APM and multitasking.

On March 10 2011 05:49 Amanebak wrote:
I used to play BW campaign years ago as a kid. Then in late 2009 I came across some videos on YT with Stork and Jaedong and so.. I couldn't believe my eyes that such big armies could be trained and so much stuff could be happening all the game through. So I found TL.net and started following BW competitive scene in SK. Besides a few LAN games just for fun with my friends I was never really a BW player.
Then SC2 came out. I was sceptical because those games I watched then weren't very interesting nor eye pleading. I bought WoL nevertheless and play 1v1/2v2/3v3 with friends but after some time it started to be boring. As a casual player I would prefer to play BW over sc2 because units in BW seems as they are more interacting with you and, as if they had a personality.
My roommate on the other hand never followed BW scene and is a sc2 fan. Sometimes I watch a game with him but when he is super excited over some action there I just feel like: "well, that was nice but such things are common in BW matches."
I don't understand his enthusiasm and he doesn't understand mine. He says: "BW has no future. Why should I watch it?"
Overall I prefer BW over sc2 as a spectator because in BW matches, there is more action, I even prefer old BW graphics - that of sc2 seems a bit childish to me.
The absence of moving shot in sc2 and clumping of units is so unrealistic, not convincing...
Mutas and vikings. Unable to shoot when moving. Sorry but this is ridiculous. Imagine this in "reality".
Lastly I don't care that BW is very old. I just chose the better game to follow.
PS: Not that I am not going to check sc2 in the future.

On March 10 2011 05:52 etheovermind wrote:

Horowitz? Watch Hamelin or Kissin just someone with actually good technique.

On March 10 2011 05:52 etheovermind wrote:

Horowitz? Watch Hamelin or Kissin just someone with actually good technique.

On March 10 2011 06:00 DTK-m2 wrote:


I just mentioned Horowitz because I thought it would be a more familiar name. I bet there are more people who know who Horowitz is than there are who know who Kissin is.

On March 10 2011 05:56 corumjhaelen wrote:
6 pools ???? What the hell ? Why ? What makes you think that ?

And no there are pretty strong arguments in favor of bw being inherently more strategic, the strongest being that focus becomes another ressource, so you have to choose how to use it.

Plus you're thinking as though in every game mechanics+strategy= contant or something, and as though you can draw an axis and put every game on it, which seems... unsupported.

On March 10 2011 06:03 kzn wrote:


Because, if you're limited by having to input binary code (and read it) to do anything, the best strategy quickly becomes whichever one you can actually execute. Maybe it wouldn't be 6pools, I dont actually know how many commands are necessary, but it wouldn't be a 35 minute macro game.

[edit] or 4pools, whatever



That makes strategy less important, because people have finite resources and having to devote more to focusing on mechanics subtracts from the focus you can place on strategic concerns.



Which is precisely why I said that wasn't what I was saying.