I have been thinking a bit the last few days about the concept of playing the perfect game, and how it is making people lose. For example, a Terran, who only puts up one missile turret in his main and one in is natural, and then not putting up that much more when mutas grow larger in number because he wants to "waste" as little minerals as possible. Another example is a Zerg who takes 3 bases on 4 lings and 1 spore in his natural, and then makes nothing but drones for a very long time, to get a huge economy.
Lets compare this to a sport that I am very familiar with, hockey. One of the biggest thing your coach will tell you is that when the opponents are pressuring your team in your defensive zone, and you get the puck at the blue line, your number one goal is to get the puck out of the zone. This will most likely just give the puck back to the other team but it will not give them the puck in your defensive zone, which means that your team will be able to switch the players etc.
In a perfect game, you don't just shoot the puck out of the zone, but find a teammate who is free with the goalie and your team score. But since pretty much no one can play the perfect game, your goal will be to do the safe thing and just get the pfuck out of there.
This is not saying you should NEVER try to find your teammate with a beautiful assist, but you should only do it when you are 100% it will not give back the puck to the opponent in your zone.
Now, there is a fine line in starcraft between playing safe and playing stupid, and you can also say that just shooting the puck out of the zone is playing the perfect game. The perfect game in this case tho, is where everything you do gives you an advantage, and I think players need to play more to not give the opponent a too big advantage, then giving them self a big advantage.
Depends on the system in place when in the defensive zone as well, and whether criteria is met for a certain pass or breakout. Realistically, if options are limited, banking off the glass or just lobbing it out of the zone for forwards is safe, easy and might always be better.
Even if you are to make a nice pass to a teammate, the opposition's positioning may limit whatever chance they have at advancing or having a good opportunity to score; I'd almost always argue that unless you have a nice play planned in advance, safe is always the better option.
You should watch professional BW. At the A-class player level or higher, to have a shot at surviving a game against the opponent you have to play, by your definition, 'perfect' (No unnecessary wastage, almost none at all. If so, it is probably because of a fake etc., and by then you have to proceed to try for a comeback.).
On December 22 2011 21:30 paulinepain wrote: I don't really get your point bro...
"and I think players need to play more to not give the opponent a too big advantage,"
It makes sense but isn't what everybody is trying to do?
My point is that you shouldn't always play to get an advantage, but to not give your opponent a too big advantage. For example:A terran only making 1 turret, and trying to defend with marines and repair to gain a big advantage, rather than popping up 3 to be safe enough not to die. This will ofc not be as efficient as the one turret, but it will overtime work more often and better then 1 turret.
I think what he means is that perhaps you should concede a small advantage to avoid potentially giving the opponent a big one. For simplicity's sake, let's say there are exactly two ways you can reply to muta harass. Either you make 1 turret at each mineral line, or you make 3. If you make 1 turret at each mineral line, you gain an advantage of 400 minerals over making 3. This is a small advantage. But if you don't micro perfectly, you could lose half your mineral line to mutas, thus giving up a big advantage in your quest to seek the "perfect" response that uses the absolute least minerals required.
Pros do this because pros play on the limit and have to seek every edge, but for the average player, sometimes putting up a few more turrets when you aren't sure of your micro or multi-tasking is just safer. By trying to respond perfectly, you open up yourself to losing the game if you play less than perfectly. By responding adequately (Namely, using a few more spore crawlers or lings or turrets than strictly required), you only need adequate play to fend off that muta harass / 2-rax / void ray harass.
TL;DR: A perfect response requires you to play perfectly.
On December 22 2011 21:42 shucklesors wrote: You should watch professional BW. At the A-class player level or higher, to have a shot at surviving a game against the opponent you have to play, by your definition, 'perfect' (No unnecessary wastage, almost none at all. If so, it is probably because of a fake etc., and by then you have to proceed to try for a comeback.).
I haven't watch that much BW, but my idea kinda started there. I was watching a old day9 dayli or something like that between a Terran and Zerg. And when the first mutas hit, he placed 3 turrets where the mutas would come in to harass, making that space impossible for a long time for him to get in. He didnt place 1 and then tried to run the marines back etc.
On December 22 2011 21:30 paulinepain wrote: I don't really get your point bro...
"and I think players need to play more to not give the opponent a too big advantage,"
It makes sense but isn't what everybody is trying to do?
My point is that you shouldn't always play to get an advantage, but to not give your opponent a too big advantage. For example:A terran only making 1 turret, and trying to defend with marines and repair to gain a big advantage, rather than popping up 3 to be safe enough not to die. This will ofc not be as efficient as the one turret, but it will overtime work more often and better then 1 turret.
I still don't really get it, when you gain advantage you automatically decrease your opponent's advantage... Whatever is your game play, weather it's aggressive with minimum defense, ninja turtle or even in between those... I think you simply mean that players should not over do their strategies and keep balance between playing risky or too safely, that would be more appropriate, because this advantage stuff doesn't make sense at all to me.
as you learn more about SC, these "perfect things" will become more and more and more apparent to you (at least that happened in BW). you'll find yourself becoming less excited and suspensed about certain things because you already know whats gonna happen, but more excited and appreciative about other certain things :D
@paulinepain: If you can gain a GUARANTEED small advantage, such as sending a stalker out to snipe marines or lings at the watchtower and then come home, ofc you should take it. But what the OP is referring to are risky advantages, where your advantage is only preserved if you play perfectly. If you make a mistake, your advantage is suddenly neutralised and suddenly it's the OPPONENT with the advantage. Such is the risk of those thin advantages like defending with the absolute minimum.
Idk, I like trying to hold on to strategies with nearly no leeway; practice makes perfect and it's much more satisfying when you master it on another level. Specially in BW(although some SC2 scenarios apply as well, the game's not as solved yet).
On December 22 2011 22:37 Salivanth wrote: @paulinepain: If you can gain a GUARANTEED small advantage, such as sending a stalker out to snipe marines or lings at the watchtower and then come home, ofc you should take it. But what the OP is referring to are risky advantages, where your advantage is only preserved if you play perfectly. If you make a mistake, your advantage is suddenly neutralised and suddenly it's the OPPONENT with the advantage. Such is the risk of those thin advantages like defending with the absolute minimum.
There is no way it's guaranteed since you will never be sure of what is gonna happen... Am I weird or what? :/
I kind of see where you are going with this, but I think it doesn't apply to the top top players. When my friends and I analyze each others play we tend to say things like "you can do this because it works in platinum, but realize it is wrong". For example, my friend has been experimenting with mutas a lot more lately. He decided that he wants to make a lot of spine crawlers for early defense. Idra would cringe if he saw the amount of spine crawlers he was making. However, it was helping him make his transition successfully. When we discussed it we came to the realization that it is not the most optimal way to play, but it is helping him get into the mid game where he wants to work in some mutas. Eventually as he gets better he can cut down on his spine crawlers and defend in a more efficient manner.
Your comparison, using hockey, doesn't really hold up. When you clear the puck out of your zone, you're resetting the encounter almost entirely. There isn't really a good analogy for this in SC2. If your opponent is pressuring you, there are certainly ways to get rid of the pressure but pretty much everything you do in SC2 expends resources and you can never go back to the beginning of the match. So, mitigating opponent pressure may just end up putting you further in the hole, resource-wise. In hockey, you can clear the puck from your zone for free.
You have a good point. An example of someone doing this is just dropping a tonne of cannons at their new expansion. Its not the "most efficient" but it is safer. Throwing up those extra turrets will take away from your army but it will keep you safe. Of course if you build them and more mutas do not come your smaller army will lose. It relates to the basic principles of finding out whats coming and preparing for it.
Dumping the puck or hard countering a muta ball with 10 turrets can give you a needed break/advantage.. The pros of course do know this and know what they are doing and make the decision that other things are a better investment. This idea of yours works better for non pros who do not have perfect marine control and decision making. Covering your ass by sacrificing unit production for lag defense can thwart your enemies main game plan and at the lower levels this can win you the game.
You should watch some of Jaedong's games when he was at his prime. He would literally cut every single corner possible, but still time things perfectly. Especially noticeable in ZvT, there's so many games where the big terran push is at his front door and it looks likes he's fucked. Then a defiler pops the moment consume finishes and suddenly the push is broken.
I think most people understood what i was trying to say. I agree that the more skilled people get the more corners you have to cut.What I'm really trying to say is that if you want to go for a long macro base where you get 3-4-5 bases,spending 400 minerals extra to be extra safe when you are on 2,5 bases is better than take a risk and maybe lose 10-15 scvs to mutas becouse you didnt have enough turrets/safety.
And I am talking about pro-level here, not just for newbies, I think that those minerals will get your winrate up, becouse they are a part of your gameplan, losing 10scv's isnt.
The amount of defensive resources you need to spend will inevitable decrease when your skill goes up, so maybe this is just a non-issue and only is apparent because sc2 hasn't evolved enough yet.
The best players will know exactly which corners they can cut, and will be as greedy as possible without going overboard.
At the highest levels of play, there's a very fine line between winning the game because you exploited the proper advantages, and losing the game because you played too conservatively (or- on the other hand- you played too greedily and got punished for it).
Lower level players will learn those rules, although they don't matter *as much* because there are generally more flaws and mechanical errors on either side that are more important to refine first.
Yeah I agree you need to try to play safe but for example in the game Morrow vs Killer in the GSL up and down matches, Morrow scouted a 6 gate +2 blink stalker all in and accordingly got roaches and infestors to survive. He got just the right amount of units to be safe against the push but when Killer scouted that Morrow was ready, Killer stop warping in units and Morrow was behind and lost the game. As Zerg you HAVE to not play safe if you want to stay ahead especially against protoss. Of course you should always be ready and somewhat safe against this but being 100% capable of crushing an all-in means you over committed and are behind if they don't push, because you can pressure back.
The hallmark of S-Class players seems to be knowing when to take such risks and not hesitating about it. Can't count how many games Flash has taken an early expansion and just barely held off an opponents pressure with maybe one bunker and a tank. He executes it "perfect" of course, and when the attack fails the opponents is pretty much dead once the economy kicks into gear. I've seen him lose a lot of games by taking that risk too, but with his experience he knows when to gamble, and wins the majority of the time.
EPT
(at least that happened in BW). you'll find yourself becoming less excited and suspensed about certain things because you already know whats gonna happen, but more excited and appreciative about other certain things :D 
