Why Master Players Say They're Bad - Page 3

On March 05 2012 01:45 Jitsu wrote:
Fun fact for everyone - i'm actually the blue Zerg in the second picture.

Blazinghand probe rushed and left me, his only source of defense, to die.



Edit:

Not sure if you have done martial arts, MrBitter, but coming from someone who has, this statement is 100% correct, and is a very good comparison to the article by BH.

On March 04 2012 23:46 Chef wrote:
Meh, it is just people trying to be GM/people who know how much better pros are.

It's a phenomenon known as 'modesty.'

On March 04 2012 23:15 Blazinghand wrote:
*: "But Blazinghand, ladder isn't representative because blah blah blah blah MMR is broken, allins, noobs, cheese, 7 pool, blah blah blah" -- look dude just stop talking. If you don't think ladder is representative of skill then this blog isn't for you, okay? Just... just get out.

On March 05 2012 00:28 MrBitter wrote:
I think you can sum it up like this:

The better you become at Starcraft, the more obvious your lack of understanding becomes. I've always liked comparing it to martial arts. A black belt in a martial art isn't a symbol of your mastery. It's something that other martial artists can look at and say "okay, now he finally has the tools to really start learning."

On March 05 2012 04:38 sc2superfan101 wrote:
i think it has to be qualified.

if they are saying: "i am bad compared to a pro, like you (gold) am bad compared to me (master)."

then maybe that's true. but if they are saying:

i (low tier pro) am bad compared to DRG, like you (bronze) are bad compared to masters."

then i don't think that's true at all. the skill difference between a top-tier pro and a low-tier pro is often one of small things that are more mechanical in nature. most of the time, the low-tier pro has almost as good, if not as good, at understanding of the basic game and all the basic units and builds etc, as a top-tier pro. most bronze players do not have an understanding of even the most basic things about the games.

i think back to when i was a bronze noob. i was utterly convinced that expanding before you mined out your main was stupid. isn't the point of the game to build units? i see some noob with three bases at ten minutes and no units and i crush him with my massive 50 supply army and 22 SCVs. dude is spending money on buildings when i spend money on troops. what an idiot.

then, one fateful day, i decided to see how grandmasters play. this was around the time that Select was number 1 or number 2 on the NA ladder. so i type in "Select SC2" into youtube.

my worldview was shattered. looking back, he probably wasn't even playing that well. he was up against some toss player and he was going basically 100% marauder/medvac. he schooled the toss. i couldn't believe my eyes. he had three bases and a 200 army before i thought it was possible. and what is this crap he's doing that looks like his bio-ball is stutter-stepping? how is that possible? i had just discovered the a-move, i would still usually click my entire army on one troop and then let them duke it out, or just move the army in the general direction of the stuff i wanted to kill and let the comp AI take care of it.

it's an extreme example, but the fact is, there is, in my opinion, a far greater skill/understanding difference between a master's player and a bronze player than there is between a master's player and a grandmaster. probably even between a master and a pro. most bronze players use hotkeys rarely, rarely expand, rarely build beyond 30 SCVs, and rarely micro at all. a lot of them have no clue what "micro and macro" even mean. some of them scout by moving their 200 supply army of thors and BCs out to look for the guys base at 45 minutes. when they find it, it's a-attack and then they get lost trying to drag the screen back to their base so they can click the thor and BC icon because the idea of a locational hotkey never even occurred to them.

if you compare everyone to Michael Jordan, almost everyone is terrible at basketball, even other pros. but that's ridiculous. they aren't terrible at basketball at all. they are extraordinarily good at basketball. if i compare every master to DRG, ok fine they are bad. but that's ridiculous. they are very, very good at the game. they can say, "oh man, i have so much i need to improve" that;s legitimate. but saying they are bad is just straight up untrue, unless they qualify it. the truth is that there is a massive difference between a bronze player and silver player, and a huge difference between a silver player and a gold player. an even bigger difference separates gold from plat. beyond that i don't know because i struggle to get into plat and feel comfortable in gold.

rest easy in the fact that if you are a Master, you are very good at the game. you have probably figured out almost everything there is to figure out. the only thing separating you is probably mechanics and practice. i think the skill difference gets much smaller as you go up, not bigger.

On March 05 2012 04:59 sc2superfan101 wrote:
can i have some examples of what they don't know? it seems to me that they don't have mechanical skills and are not nearly as refined as pros, but that is a much smaller difference than not knowing even the most basic things about the game.

basically, saying that a decent college basketball player is further away from being MJ than someone who doesn't even know the rules of basketball is from being a decent college BBall player is, in my opinion, flat out untrue.