Tales from the Perilous Realm - Page 6

RevTiberius

Canada353 Posts

January 31 2012 03:03 GMT

#101

A few weeks into season 5 I can see the pattern of doom emerging once again... the more allies I have, the better the league I am in... That's not very flattering I guess... but most likely explained by the fact that I play team games mostly with people who are much better than myself...

Shiver

United States41 Posts

January 31 2012 03:41 GMT

#102

You're getting really close to platinum Tiberius keep going man!

RevTiberius

Canada353 Posts

January 31 2012 03:54 GMT

#103

On January 31 2012 12:41 Shiver wrote:
You're getting really close to platinum Tiberius keep going man!

Thanks my friend. But I'm in platinum already

I know what you mean though and I appreciate the help and support!

Merc Scout

Canada11 Posts

January 31 2012 04:02 GMT

#104

Like many have stated, mechanics are not simply pressing keys on a keyboard. To say that, a similar chess argument would be to say chess requires no skill aside from moving peaces on the grid. Most people can move the pieces, but its the ability to represent strengh and divide your attention that is key.

With chess one does not need to divide attention but rather a strong enough brain to analyse the whole situation. Note that I do play some chess myself and usually land around 1700 ELO online so I do know what I'm talking about.

With Starcraft 2 however the "mechanics" are in fact the brains ability to multitask. It is not simply your hands doing it but your brain conciously commanding you to do so while multi tasking other things. People that cannot execute proper mechanics simply lack the ability to divide their attention, or MORE LIKELY don't even try. I say this so critically because it is not that hard to build scvs from 1 CC until you have 200 scvs... similarily supposed you expand every 400 minerals and just build 2x then 3x scvs... if you need not build ANYTHING else, one should be able to do this yet players at gold and platinum still get supply blocked. Why is that? The only goal is to make scvs and they fail, and even people with learning disabilities should be able to do this properly... therefor one would conclude that it isn't that some people CANNOT do it. Its that some people choose to not try and expect a reward to be given to them without trying.

Since we're referencing chess, suppose you always look at other players playing games (to learn mechanics) but have no idea why pieces go where. Whereas if you stare at a fixed position (chess puzzle, win in 5 ie) for long enough you will either 1 - find a solution or 2 - FINALLY appreciate what other players discover.

Overall, the lower level leagues aren't actually players struggling to improve against impossible odds but rather people who feel its their right to improve without effort. (Assuming they want to improve, some people don't care and my argument isn't aimed at them)

Sounds harsh but to be honoust people have gone from bronze to diamond (legitly) in a week simply because they realized this concept. Best of luck <3

PS. The difficulty comes in around high masters when your ability to multitask is finally excercized as you must finally keep track of dozens of variables and elements in the game. This is a completely different story and is something I'm working on improving. But up until low masters no game sense is needed, simply make units.

RevTiberius

Canada353 Posts

February 03 2012 20:40 GMT

#105

I've been in this situation many times before. Ranked #1 in my division, good winning ratios vs. top 8 platinum and diamond league players. And yet, not quite good enough for a promotion. I hope it'll be different this time...

RevTiberius

Canada353 Posts

February 06 2012 02:48 GMT

#106

I meant to write about something else here tonight, but due to recent events I just want to share this:

I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now, so I'm gonna leave it at that!

JOJOsc2news

3000 Posts

February 06 2012 09:59 GMT

#107

Congratulations mate!
Next blog: Diamond to Master in 2 weeks ???

RevTiberius

Canada353 Posts

February 06 2012 21:50 GMT

#108

Yesterday, when I no longer expected it to happen in season 5, I was suddenly promoted to Diamond League after a win, just when my previously excellent win ratio had fallen back to about 50% again.

The two screen shots below show my last 20 games before the promotion.

I was doing pretty well, I was on a long winning streak and beating a lot of diamond players along the way. And yet, I didn’t get promoted. Just when my win ratio dropped again to about 50% - and I had given up all hope of making Diamond in season 5 – I was suddenly promoted. I was under the impression that I had to go on an insane rampage with like 10 straight wins or so before I would get promoted.
So yes, the promotion was definitely a surprise, though a welcome one.

It’s interesting to note that I’ve had similar winning streaks and win ratios in previous seasons without getting a promotion. Maybe was closer to a promotion than I thought, or maybe I am playing better now than I realize. Hard to tell. I think I still don’t analyze my replays enough.
My snap judgment now is that rather than becoming a better player overall, I have simply become a lot better at executing all-ins in TvP and TvZ. This seems to be supported by the fact that some of my losses in TvT are truly awful and definitely not worthy of diamond league. It’s going to be interesting to see how the match ups will evolve now that I’ll supposedly get better opponents.

Finally, and I am not sure if this made any difference in getting promoted at all, but I started the season pretty late, only a few days after new years. I think the season started in mid-December. By the time I played my first game I had a significant bonus pool saved up, and the leading players in my division were at 350-450 points already when I had 0. I thought I’d never catch up, but it was surprisingly easy. I prefer playing few sessions of many games rather than frequent sessions of few ladder games, and having enough bonus pool saved up for that was definitely useful.

I’m not going to ladder again until they lock down the leagues tomorrow. I played about 60 or 70 1v1 this season (won 43) and do not plan on playing more than that. Including team and custom games I think I played around 100 games this season, significantly less than in previous seasons. I would like to keep it that way going forward.

Of course my immediate goal must be to hold on to my spot in Diamond. I don’t want to play a placement match in season 6 only to get placed in platinum again… but then I don’t know how serious a danger that really is, and whether losing the placement match would indeed result in placement in platinum again… Once my spot in Diamond is secured, I think I have the potential for top 50 but going beyond that would require serious work. Whether I have the skills and inclination for that remains to be seen.

I guess I have to rename this blog “RevTiberius and the Quest to Cling on to Diamond”…
My next blog is going to deal with the feedback I received on practicing 1v1 with far superior players.

You know the name. You know the number. RevTiberius is James Bond in “DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER”. RevTiberius – He got a license to kill!

RevTiberius

Canada353 Posts

February 08 2012 20:50 GMT

#109

I know… I am dating myself… but Rocky IV is a great film.

Does it make sense to practice 1v1 with players much better than you? Or is the time better spent on the 1v1 ladder? That’s the question I recently posed to the Team Liquid community, as well as on reddit.

The feedback was overwhelming, and almost unanimous. To my surprise, the community recommended to play with superior practice partners as much as possible, presumably to benefit from their better understanding of the game. So I decided to give it another try, and played a lot more 1v1s with such players than before, despite the reservations I expressed about it in an earlier post here on this blog.

Here are some these games, the outcomes of which should of course not come as a surprise to anybody. I don’t just lose, the score difference is quite substantial in every game…

And yet… from time to time and much to my own surprise I am able to beat some of these players. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I feel pretty good about myself…

But my skepticism remains. Of course it is great fun to play 1v1 with grandmasters and leading master league players, and I’ll keep doing it for that reason alone. However, I am very skeptical about how much this helps my game.

My main point is that when I play people at my level (high platinum to mid-diamond) it really matters what I do. Build order changes, experiments with timings etc. all have a very direct effect on the outcome of the game. When I ladder and change something about my game, it is easy for me to look at the replay and figure out whether that change was a good idea or not. When I play GMs however, everything I do is overshadowed by their superior skills, and what I do does not really seem to matter. And because the outcome of the game is never in question, it is much harder for me to decide whether I was on the right track or not. Small improvements (or mistakes) that might very well decide the game vs. a player of equal skill, are easily overlooked when you get steamrolled by a GM.

Another point is that people who are good at something are not necessarily good at explaining it, too. I know quite a few very strong players who are incapable of giving me any kind of useful advice. A lot of GMs for example, will readily tell me how they play and why their game is good. What I need to know however is what I am doing wrong and what I should do to improve it. So rather than “This is what you need to know to play like a GM” kind of advice, I simply want advice to become a better diamond league player. Advice on all the great things I could be doing if I had 150 APM doesn't really help. Nor does advice such as "macro better".

Here, a comparison to my chess training is permissible. I have analyzed some of my competitive chess games with grandmasters before, and the very same problem exists there, too: just because someone is a chess grandmaster that does not automatically make them a great coach, and much of their advice is not really applicable to players at lower levels.

[image loading]

So my conclusion is simple: I will keep playing GMs for fun. But I think future improvements in my game will come from two different sources: 1v1 ladder practice, and analysis of these games with GMs.

So rather than playing GMs and top level master league players, I think for someone at my level it is much more useful to analyze my replays with them.

Again my question to the community: Am I overlooking something here? How come everybody is so in favor of grinding out games with GMs, when it seems that I have good reasons for not doing so?

RedDragon571

United States633 Posts

February 08 2012 21:51 GMT

#110

I think all the advice people give you about what you could be doing at 150 apm is there way of enticing you to try and work specifically on your mechanics. I personally hit a plateau until I increased my mechanical skill. The reason GM and High masters players play so much better is fundamentally all mechanics. There are many ways to work on mechanics and I would be willing to specifically help you improve your mechanics personally if you would like. Once you have mechanical skill, You can look at a GM level build and execute it with almost the same timings, micro and macro. I know I am a bit nuts about mechanics but too many people obsess over stuff that will not make them any better. The main thing is it takes work to get better, if you put in the time you'll get better, so many students of mine, get a lot of good information but never actually practice it.

MacGuffinSC

New Zealand15 Posts

February 09 2012 00:16 GMT

#111

I do linguistics studies and in learning a language there is something called L+1, which basically stands for language plus 1 obviously. The basic idea is that if you are practising reading, you should read a text where you know everything apart from 1% of the content (the actual % depends on who you talk to) the idea being that it will improve your fluency and from what you already know on the page you can figure out the gap from the information around it.

I think this approach can be applied to many things, and in Starcraft I also think that training with someone that is just a little bit better than you will be the best as you will need to play at your current level, but innovate or improve just a bit to overcome the new challenge.

I think this is basically what you already said, but from a different learning perspective =)

DarQraven

Netherlands553 Posts

February 09 2012 11:22 GMT

#112

I fully agree. Having played a lot of Quake 3 some years ago, the same phenomenon was apparent.
A lot of the game revolved around controlling certain powerups like armor, health pickups and weapons/ammo.
When I watched (or played) a game between a good player and a mediocre player, the mediocre player almost never got a single powerup. The good player had those entirely on lockdown.

Then, when we reviewed that match, the advice was always the same: You have to control the items. Yet, even if I directly told them (while spectating) which items were going to spawn and where, how they should get to them, etc... they still weren't getting the items and losing horribly. Even though one aspect of their play improved dramatically during that match (map/item awareness), they were losing just as badly.

This is because it is nigh impossible to improve all aspects of your play at once, and unless you do, you won't notice any difference in the match outcome - this eliminates negative/positive feedback, making the learning process that much harder.
Even though they were now quite on top of being around when items respawned, their better opponents were too, as well as having better accuracy, better dodging, better prediction and probably more items left over from previous engagements.

Traditionally, we say that "the better player wins". However, if you phrase that, instead, as "the player with the least weakness wins", then the above situation becomes apparent. Even though one aspect of your play improves, you still have a lot more weaknesses than your opponent, and as such the outcome of the match won't change.

I feel the same applies to Starcraft. Microing really well during a match won't make you win unless you also increased your macro, build and timings to the level of the player you are facing. Even then, it's a 50-50 tossup. As such, you might notice that your micro was slightly more effective this match if you study the replay attentively, but chances are you'll just miss this significant detail.

SirPinky

United States525 Posts

February 10 2012 07:03 GMT

#113

Tiberius, Nice Postings...I love Rocky IV. It is the best Rocky in the series in my opinion. I wanted to get ripped afer I saw Dolph in the 6th grade.

Anyway, to the point of playing people better than you: I agree. Just like the piano or any other skill there are mechanics. To tell you the truth i play this game drunk more than 50% of the time, yet my hands move by themselves because each mule, scv, depot, racks and rally is without thought.

You shouldnt have to think to build more scvs or depots or call-down mules etc. When all of this becomes a moot point, then you are really playing the game. If it means you have to be like GoOdy and make 5 depots at a time and queue up units (like me) so be it, but you are putting your mind into the game intead of worrying bout small crap like being supply blocked.

RevTiberius

Canada353 Posts

February 11 2012 09:43 GMT

#114

On account of my recent promotion to diamond, here's the real thing:

Welcome to hell, Blofeld! Maybe I should start saying that on ladder... but I guess most people wouldn't get the reference... alas, I'm dating myself again...

@RedDragon571:
I'd defintely be interested in advice on how to improve my mechanics. That's most certainly the area where I can improve the most. The first post of this blog has a lengthy discussion of my mechanics. It is noteworthy that a lot of people tell me to improve my mechanics, but it is not so easy to find ways to actually do it. Is RedDragon571 your in game ID?

@MacGuffinSC:
Good stuff. I didn't expect anybody to bring in linguistics to the discussion. I know a little bit about the Chomskyan hierarchy, but my knowledge of linguistics does not go further than that.
I have studied several foreign languages in my life so far - English being one of them - and I would very much agree with you. Learning the missing 5% when you know the surrounding 95% is the easiest way to acquire a foreign language. Though I have to say that learning foreign languages is definitely the most challenging intellectual task I have faced in my life so far.
And you really start making progress learning a new language when you reach a level where you can start filling in the gaps yourself.

@DarQraven:
That's an interesting comparison. I don't play first person shooters, but just like you are saying I can imagine that it makes even less sense there to play with someone who is much better just because the game is even more based on pure mechanics. Which is why I stay away from such games...

@SirPinky:
I think the entire Rocky franchise is awesome. Parts III and V slightly less so, but all Rocky movies are very good.
And I absolutely agree. When I finally begin to do some of the common sense stuff - depots/SCVs - without even thinking about it then I'll jump to another level. In particular the SCVs bother me. There's really no reason not to have constant SCV production, but for some reason I am usually on a lower worker count than my opponent, even in games I win.

In other news:
- slightly updated the intro on first page
- expanded the BM section on first page

RevTiberius

Canada353 Posts

February 13 2012 21:17 GMT

#115

I have a question for the community. Is it BM to deny a request to pause a ladder game?

Last night I was playing 1v1 when my opponent asked me whether he could pause the game. I was in a rush and probably shouldn't have gotten into that game in the first place, but before I could say anything he already paused the game. I unpaused immediately and said "If you don't even wait for my answer I won't allow you to pause". He then spent quite some time heaping scorn and abuse on me, calling me BM and all kinds of names. Then he just left.

I recognize that not allowing someone to pause may not be the nicest thing to do, but at the same time if you make a genuine request you should at least allow for the possibility that it gets denied. I don't consider my behaviour BM at all.

Shiver

United States41 Posts

February 13 2012 21:31 GMT

#116

Usually when I pause I try to wait for the other players reply but sometimes I need to pause immediately because the door bell rang or something or maybe something is on fire so I have no time to await their reply. I usually give someone the benefit of the doubt for a few seconds if they don't say anything but after like 15 seconds I'll unpause if they don't say anything.

Kevsta

United States9 Posts

February 13 2012 21:36 GMT

#117

It is not BM to pause a ladder game. It is however bm to un-pause a person who paused the ladder game. It is just polite to let them pause because someday you will be in that same situation and you don't want your opponent to un-pause the game do you? They pause the game not to make you wait, but because they have some unforeseen circumstance that requires immediate attention.

Gunz24

United States19 Posts

February 13 2012 22:32 GMT

#118

I think it's BM as all hell. It's a game man; what's a minute or two out of your life to be polite and allow someone else to enjoy playing it with you? I'd argue not much. Aside from that do you really need the advantage of unpausing when you KNOW FOR A FACT that your opponent is afk? I'd call that an empty win but hey I guess ladder points are super important to you.

RevTiberius

Canada353 Posts

February 13 2012 22:39 GMT

#119

On February 14 2012 07:32 OGZ24 wrote:
I think it's BM as all hell. It's a game man; what's a minute or two out of your life to be polite and allow someone else to enjoy playing it with you? I'd argue not much. Aside from that do you really need the advantage of unpausing when you KNOW FOR A FACT that your opponent is afk? I'd call that an empty win but hey I guess ladder points are super important to you.

Hm. This blog makes it abundantly clear that ladder points are not "super important" to me.

Anyway... to the point. Of course there can be legitimate reasons (door/toilet etc.) to pause, but surely you can take the 1 second it takes to say that? I have no problem waiting for an opponent if and when they give me a reason. But if you simply pause without saying anything then you shouldn't be surprised if you don't get what you want. And the fact that my opponent suddenly had a lot of time to insult me after I unpaused seems to suggest that there wasn't really anything super urgent to begin with.

So, in summary

- No, ladder points don't mean much to me
- If you can't spare 1 second to explain yourself before you open the door or w/e, don't be surprised if your request for pause will be denied.
- Anybody who's played SC2 with me will confirm that I am not BM at all. Quite the contrary

Disconnect

United States84 Posts

February 13 2012 22:47 GMT

#120

It is within your rights to REQUEST a pause. It is a request and is fully within the rights of the other player to deny the request.

If you don't have the ability to play the game all the way through and the opponent does not allow the pause then you forfeit. Nothing wrong with that.

If that bothers you then you probably take ladder way to seriously and you value your time more than your opponents.

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