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From reading this forum far too much, and from playing a decent amount of Starcraft, it seems like no one is honest about their level of play. Endless threads in the strat forum from people claiming to have perfect macro in silver or scouting really well in diamond. Even in conversation with friends who play this game, their perfect macro when i can see for myself they average the best part of 2k unspent most games.
I've stopped even reading the strategy forum because of it. I'm not a high enough level player to give too much meaningful advice about being good, but i do like to give pragmatic advice to people hoping to get from the lower leagues into diamond and beyond, because I've coached 4-5 people through it already. But It's impossible to gauge peoples real skill level when 99% of people make ridiculous claims about their play which are just obviously not true.
some anecdotal evidence of what my level is, and I have extremely high master team 2v2 and pug 3v3/4v4 ratings. playing in diamond league 1v1 because i don't play many games (leading to inexperience and no refinement)
I make plenty of workers most games, but i dont spend the money. I often have the highest income as terran but then float so much money its actually irrelevant. i dont micro well, often getting caught off guard or being late with any spells. i steer away from making infestors, ghosts and high templar because they require more micro than i have.
I still get supply blocked on a regular basis, even in the early game. I often forget to put people in gas as protoss (seems to be an issue only as this race oddly -_-) my forcefield control is getting much better but then I don't control the sentries well and they die mid fight. i still normally put all my units on 1 control group, rarely 2 if I'm playing Protoss (warpgates on W frees up an easy key). 0 refinement in my builds, only the very basics of a game plan, which leads to either not having enough gas, or having far too much. Oh and while i can make a good read on someones build (assuming they play a standard build) from the early game scout, i struggle to remember to scout into the late game, maybe 1 scan a game if i can be bothered.
All this, and like i said, I'm comfortable at a high level of team games and an ok level at 1v1, and thats all good. But all i read from other people is about how they 'just cant understand' how they are stuck in gold. or best yet 'platinum players have really good builds, its hard to beat them'.
Am I the only person who feels this way? That in a competitive environment everyone is scared to be honest about the help they need, even when admitting to needing help. Even when watching day9 talk about low level players during funday monday i find a guy who spends a lot of time analyzing low level games has a warped view of peoples skill levels.
It really feels like mid and low level players would get so much more out of Teamliquid if they could really be honest about their problems rather than making endless excuses 
 
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I think this is all due to the fact that people look down on lower level players and some people can be really elitist and smug about being in X league. I do think some platinum level players have solid builds but lack of execution and macro to pull off what they need to.
I'm in diamond and still float a ton of minerals and have 1v1 jitters, I have refined builds up to a point in the game and then I get harassed or attacked and start playing with tunnel vision and not paying attention to the minimap or supply or money.
Anyway, the problem isn't going to stop anytime soon. Anyone who says they are high gold or high platinum/low diamond just can't take the fact that they haven't been promoted yet. Eventually in many years after the casual base dies down and more people care more about learning than impressing other people it will change.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
"I'm D+ but if I kept laddering I'd be C+"
"Yeah I'm a B- protoss" -- checks profile -- only C- with a 65% winrate.
It's all the about the e-penis man. Just like how in sports guys like to extrapolate to make it seem like they have huge dicks, we have people in Starcraft1/2 inflating their rank to grow their e-peen.
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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
It's not easy to admit your own shortcomings-- at least, it isn't for me, and I assume it isn't for most people. I'm sure it starts off innocently enough, with someone reasoning that "oh, I'm actually HIGH silver" and from there he says "well I played a Gold player the last time I laddered, last week, so I'm basically High Silver / Low Gold" and 5 posts later he's claiming to be a Platinum player with perfect macro but he loses to cheese which is really the only thing holding him back from being GM...
I think Plexa is basically correct about peens: whereas in sports people argue (presumably) about peens, in e-sports its all about e-peens.
EDIT: I'm also willing to admit I only added the last bit just so I could write "peens" and "Plexa" in the same sentence.
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On October 12 2011 00:51 Plexa wrote:
"I'm D+ but if I kept laddering I'd be C+"
"Yeah I'm a B- protoss" -- checks profile -- only C- with a 65% winrate.
It's all the about the e-penis man. Just like how in sports guys like to extrapolate to make it seem like they have huge dicks, we have people in Starcraft1/2 inflating their rank to grow their e-peen.
but everyone is so happy to be an ass on the internet because of the anonymity, why cant we have a culture of honesty about everything else :D
"no one knows who i am so i can admit to being shit"
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On October 12 2011 00:51 Plexa wrote:
"I'm D+ but if I kept laddering I'd be C+"
"Yeah I'm a B- protoss" -- checks profile -- only C- with a 65% winrate.
It's all the about the e-penis man. Just like how in sports guys like to extrapolate to make it seem like they have huge dicks, we have people in Starcraft1/2 inflating their rank to grow their e-peen.
Yeah, I especially love how people qualify their ranks with stuff like "Yeah, I'm C right now, but if it weren't for X, I'd be at B-." Rankings don't mean anything if you're going to artificially inflate your rank based on excuses. Irritates the hell out of me, but what can you do?
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Honest self-assessment is one of the singled hardest thing for the modern day person to do accurately. Most people can't be honest with themselves, let alone others.
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I think it is because they put so much emotional value into their game, suddenly everything is black and white and they are playing some strange version of starcraft where they are the white knight and every other opponent is a cheesy scumbag. Also known as the IdrA syndrome.
I think it's hard for a lot of people to be able to say that they suck at something, which basicly is what starcraft boils down. You know that you know stuff how to play starcraft when you see all the flaws in your play and there arent a lot of players at that level.
...And since most TL users are men they think with their penis. Even on the internet, hence the amount of "im a high bronze macroplayer" kind of guys.
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On October 12 2011 00:34 turdburgler wrote:
playing in diamond league 1v1 because i don't play many games (leading to inexperience and no refinement)
Even you had to qualify the fact that you are a diamond player so don't bust other ppl too hard
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On October 12 2011 01:28 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 00:34 turdburgler wrote:
playing in diamond league 1v1 because i don't play many games (leading to inexperience and no refinement)
Even you had to qualify the fact that you are a diamond player so don't bust other ppl too hard
look at the qualification to my qualification  , and i already explained my bad macro/micro in the post so i thought that kind of went without saying
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Completely agreed, the proportion of Masters/High Masters/B-/B kids are way too high even for a forum like TL.
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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
On October 12 2011 01:57 HardMacro wrote:
Completely agreed, the proportion of Masters/High Masters/B-/B kids are way too high even for a forum like TL.
It's not just that, though-- I think there's also some criticism here for the "I'm in silver league but really I'm a Master level player" kind of post of qualification that we see as well. I believe that criticism of that sort of sentence to be entirely valid.
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exactly,i even forget about reasearch and then its like.."what the freak my tanks are not sieging" or " hell where is my psi storm"
Well i dont even play this game becouse i have really really bad feeling when i loose game and i just cant take it.
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Your username :D
People are dishonest because they are afraid they'll get laughed at, often by elitists.
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My favorite is when someone says "I'm a high level plat player". No, you are plat, there is no such thing as "high" plat, its all plat.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
I don't play the game at a high level but my knowledge is that of a high masters.
or something like that.
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i'm high diamond but will be masters after the ladder lock
......
In all seriousness though i'm masters but should be GM based on the players i'm matched against.
.......................................
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i should be in diamond but I won all my placement matches! LOL Screwy ladder i'm telling ya!!!
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I'm perfectly honest. On the rare occasions I play, I'm in Bronze, because I'm too lazy to practice anything. Ergo, I suck.
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Well, i'm currently in Silver and I suck. I would really like to be better but I actually don't work enough to improve. I have fun when playing, specially if I win and sometimes Iget frustrated when I lose. Nowadays I play more team games (3v3) because they are more forgiving skillwise.
But in real life I'm a musician, doing for a living what I ever dreamed. I also have an awesome girlfriend who doesn't mind the time I spent in the computer playing games and checking SC streams (although I should give her a little more attention...). We currently live in a 3 bedroom apartment about 10 minutes from both our workplaces and I have my own car, a not so new VW Golf.
My theory is that people tend to make their e-life 'bigger' than it really is because they aren't completely happy with their real life. So they compensate in the internet where nobody can really check the facts. And like IRL if everybody were more honest, life would be much much nicier because everybody would see that everyone else is basically the same but in different bodys. No need to be ashamed about anything.
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The strategy forum is full of supposedly master players who never, ever make this or that mistake to the point that the mere mentioning of it requires everyone to be reminded that this mistake "only happens in platinum or lower".
Meanwhile we see the same mistakes in grandmaster and the fucking GSL.
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Oh, and TB is pretty honest too. Although I make him look like MMA or Puma.
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lying about rank is one thing, but interpretation of one's own skill (my macro is good, I am an awesome poster, etc) is not necessarily a lie. Personal bias and such, and not realizing where you actually stand vs others is not the same as out and out lying.
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5226 Posts
If I posted more Id be top 50 posters on TL easily.
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On October 12 2011 03:49 Hawk wrote:
lying about rank is one thing, but interpretation of one's own skill (my macro is good, I am an awesome poster, etc) is not necessarily a lie. Personal bias and such, and not realizing where you actually stand vs others is not the same as out and out lying.
The interpretation of one's own skill is ok-ish IF you keep it relative.
And willful ignorance implies someone who shouldn't be wasting the time of the people responding.
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On October 12 2011 03:51 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 03:49 Hawk wrote:
lying about rank is one thing, but interpretation of one's own skill (my macro is good, I am an awesome poster, etc) is not necessarily a lie. Personal bias and such, and not realizing where you actually stand vs others is not the same as out and out lying. The interpretation of one's own skill is ok-ish IF you keep it relative. And willful ignorance implies someone who shouldn't be wasting the time of the people responding.
well yeah when you have willful ignorance those two spheres will overlap! There was a cool thread about this once. I think hot_bid made it.
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On October 12 2011 03:58 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 03:51 JingleHell wrote:On October 12 2011 03:49 Hawk wrote:
lying about rank is one thing, but interpretation of one's own skill (my macro is good, I am an awesome poster, etc) is not necessarily a lie. Personal bias and such, and not realizing where you actually stand vs others is not the same as out and out lying. The interpretation of one's own skill is ok-ish IF you keep it relative. And willful ignorance implies someone who shouldn't be wasting the time of the people responding. well yeah when you have willful ignorance those two spheres will overlap! There was a cool thread about this once. I think hot_bid made it.
By nature, willful ignorance is intentional, in this case through a lack of honest, critical introspection.
Don't think I'm implying people should know everything, but not being willing to learn is the sign of willful ignorance, and it's vile. The most vital virtue of the intellect is also the deadliest sin: Pride.
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the Dagon Knight4006 Posts
It's time to come clean...
I am a D- poster
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I'm honest, no reason to lie about my 1v1 rank. I'm in plat.
...
Or at least I was the last time I played 1v1 sometime in August 2010.
...
After my placement matches because I didn't play any other ones.
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The thing actually is, unless you are open to notice your own flaws and mistakes you will never get any better.
The first thing one should notice is that losses are more help than wins. If you lose to someone, even if you think that player is inferior, there is a reason you lost and it's not just luck or the better build in most cases. If you cannot make out your mistake from the game itself, go watch the replay to see where you failed and you will have to focus on these things until they become normal.
Cheating yourself is just holding you back from what you could archieve, the real thing is:
"I am silver but I could be grand master", yes, if you would stop trying to impress other people claiming you play perfect instead of working on the flaws, practice alone isn't the key.
The same goes for all the B rank players that are stuck on high C.
I also went from saying I could get B/B+ if I am actively playing ladder to simply saying that I am B-, what do I care what the other person thinks? What should he even think? "Oh, he is B-, damn he is bad!". Or even with C rank, or D+, I actually do not care, I know I will most likely not have a balanced game with you but I don't care about it any further.
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Like WhiteRa said,
MORE GG, MORE SKILL
People can choose to lie and deceive others but there's no way to lie to yourself. Deep down everyone has to honest with him/herself. That's called self-actualization, coming to terms with who you are, and nothing can give you greater self-satisfaction and peace of mind.
I also agree with that guy who said that some people are not particularly satisfied with their RL so they choose to create a larger-than-life e-personality (they try to compensate for RL shortcomings on the internet).
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In social psychology, there is an area of study called "Illusory superiority." It's well known that the average person tends to overestimate their positive abilities and underestimate their negative ones when measuring relative to others. This bias is seen in a wide range of areas where you might have to self-reflect, such as testing, overall intelligence and so on.
It's also more common in the "lower half" of any bracket, i.e. someone "above average" in any area is more likely to be able to accurately weigh where they rank on the whole than someone who is below average. Ask 20 friends where they would rank themselves in terms of intelligence. Chances are not many of them will say "below average," and unless you're at the local MENSA club, chances are not all of them are truly above average intelligence.
Another related concept that's particularly prevalent on the SC scene (and probably gaming in general) is the "bias blind spot," or when someone tends to think common biases don't apply to them, even when they do. A great example would be a sub-masters player, whom in general, probably don't have great micro or macro, but you often see them defending themselves and putting themselves in a positive light when compared to everyone else in their same situation:
"Well I'm in diamond, but the MMR machine is broken and I can't get promoted."
"Well I'm in Platinum, but it's rank 4 platinum so I'm basically diamond."
"My micro and macro are great, I just can't stop losing to cheesers so I'll never get out of gold."
This effect is well proven in many areas. The Starcraft scene is a great example. It's not necessarily people being dishonest on purpose, rather the human ego protecting itself from accurate (and sometimes depressing) introspection.
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For me the main reason that I am not moving up right now, is based around the lack of consistency within my play, I do not get my regular schedule going and I am prone to dropping back if I don't play enough. Aside of that, my execution isn't totally crisp, and I need to work on my scouting and decision making.
These issues combined make me screw up other aspects of my game when not 100% focused.
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i'm in masters but i could be in grandmasters if i cheesed more or if i played terran
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I've been in master league since the day it was introduced
and I'm fucking awful
like, seriously, I don't do anything well
:D
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What is honesty outside outside of your perception of the truth?
What I'm saying is, delusional or not from your point of view, other don't feel they need to improve.
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I'm low masters due to not playing more than a handful of games since the first few months of the game, but keep getting placed highly each season due to an artificially high MMR that has been retained from back when I was relatively good due to decant mechanics and no one knowing what they were doing. I want to get demoted, so I don't have to keep playing people way better than me.
This does not stop me from bragging about being in masters, however.
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create a thread in general asking people to post what their iq is
i guarantee you everyone will put 130+ even though it's complete bullshit. people are like that they wanna feel better than they are and what better place to do that than the internet
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I think it partially comes down to how easily we call people bad. I don't know how many times I've heard "so-and-so is bad in Code S/A" "That masters player is terrible" I think we need to realize nobody in masters is bad at sc2. their mmr is higher than 98% of the total population who plays the game. If people put more pride in THAT fact, I think people in plat would actually be an achievement for some.
I know people always say that D starts in masters, but thats mostly said by people who were fking TERRIBLE at broodwar and don't understand that D players were honestly as bad as silver players on sc2 in terms of skill of the game.
so obviously people will lie because they don't feel like being made fun of or just want people to acknowledge them.
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On October 12 2011 13:02 OmniEulogy wrote:
I know people always say that D starts in masters, but thats mostly said by people who were fking TERRIBLE at broodwar and don't understand that D players were honestly as bad as silver players on sc2 in terms of skill of the game.
Thats actually 100% not true, the only people who think that are plat/diamond sc2 players who like to think that they have some form of actual skill. Go and play 10 games of BW vs D/D+ players, if your not convinced.
Actually most of the people who say masters starts at D are higher level BW players who don't need an artificial ego boost because they think they are geniuses who magically improve at the game without any hard work.
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On October 12 2011 13:35 Lumire wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 13:02 OmniEulogy wrote:
I know people always say that D starts in masters, but thats mostly said by people who were fking TERRIBLE at broodwar and don't understand that D players were honestly as bad as silver players on sc2 in terms of skill of the game.
Thats actually 100% not true, the only people who think that are plat/diamond sc2 players who like to think that they have some form of actual skill. Go and play 10 games of BW vs D/D+ players, if your not convinced. Actually most of the people who say masters starts at D are higher level BW players who don't need an artificial ego boost because they think they are geniuses who magically improve at the game without any hard work.
I did play ICC. D/D+ players were pretty trash. Sorry to burst your bubble but any high ICC players don't need to brag about how good D was. lol cause... they weren't very good at all.
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Yeah I agree. I was D+ and I was pretty damn bad. Most D and D+ player's were somewhere between bad and ok-ish. D+ really wasn't hard to get into.
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a solid D player in BW is like already better than 95% of everyone that has played BW
when i say "solid D," I mean someone who has played a lot of games and still maintains rank D. Most bad D people you face are actually D- and worse but they just haven't played enough to get that lower rank yet
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On October 12 2011 13:39 OmniEulogy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 13:35 Lumire wrote:On October 12 2011 13:02 OmniEulogy wrote:
I know people always say that D starts in masters, but thats mostly said by people who were fking TERRIBLE at broodwar and don't understand that D players were honestly as bad as silver players on sc2 in terms of skill of the game.
Thats actually 100% not true, the only people who think that are plat/diamond sc2 players who like to think that they have some form of actual skill. Go and play 10 games of BW vs D/D+ players, if your not convinced. Actually most of the people who say masters starts at D are higher level BW players who don't need an artificial ego boost because they think they are geniuses who magically improve at the game without any hard work. I did play ICC. D/D+ players were pretty trash. Sorry to burst your bubble but any high ICC players don't need to brag about how good D was. lol cause... they weren't very good at all.
I'm not saying they aren't terrible im saying that gold/plat players are even worse. Any D player can make at least mid/high diamond pretty easily. And i hate to burst your bubble but i think i would know quite a bit more about the skill of D/D+ players then you...
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On October 12 2011 00:51 Plexa wrote:
"I'm D+ but if I kept laddering I'd be C+"
"Yeah I'm a B- protoss" -- checks profile -- only C- with a 65% winrate.
It's all the about the e-penis man. Just like how in sports guys like to extrapolate to make it seem like they have huge dicks, we have people in Starcraft1/2 inflating their rank to grow their e-peen.
This. People can't be honest with themselves and prefer to make themselves to be better than they are. It's just easy to say, "Hey I'm this good cause look at my win rates", when you'd probably end up around 50% if you kept playing. People like to think they're special and or better than everyone else so people lie.
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Psh I have perfect macro............ Until I move out....... Then I'm just rich.. Hellllllllooo 1k~2k
Seriously though, Plexa said it the best. It's all about that e-penis.
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EPT
