|
1.] There is a metaphorical bronze, silver, gold, plat, diamond, masters, gm league in all aspects of life. People may work hard all their lives but only be smart enough to be in the lower 40% of the population and it's just the way their abilities go. Same goes for jobs and compatibility with being around socially healthy environments. I put in thousands of games and I won't be much higher than low masters even after years of playing and studying replays. There will always be a Jaedong(BW) or an SOS compared to me in my line of work and I'll never be as good as him. The least I can do is simply enjoy the process and despite being retarded in comparison.
2.] Timing is everything. This is especially relevant with women. To "win" over or attract, you have to advertise your best qualities and have a positive atmosphere. This means a constructive personality, the right things to say, and even the atmosphere of the interaction. Play up your strengths, plan out a nice date, and it's the difference between a lay or a slap in the face.
3.] There will always be toxic little shits in the way of your competition. You can wish your opponents "GL HF" but they'll bitch about your race, your build, or for whatever reason to externalize their failure to beat you. If they win, they gloat, they harass you and tell you they "raped" you. Shit happens, sometimes assholes win in life. You've got to move on and play the next game or give up on it. But fuck that right?
4.] Sometimes cheesing works. Real. Sometimes taking the risk is worth it. It's retarded to 6 pool on a 2 player map (BW) but it's legit on 4 player maps. Whether it works out or not, don't beat yourself up for it. It was a 6 pool.
5.] Scout. No seriously. Fucking scout. Don't assume when you have the ability to look ahead and prepare for the future. Protect that observer, dodge those turrets, and look ahead to your adversity. Patience pays for itself and the cost and risk is worth it.
I'm done for now, and these aren't that great. But what are yours?
 
|
You should choose what you are naturally inclined towards.
Do you like being aggressive? Try 2 hatch muta ZvT.
Do you like winning without attacking? Try expanding aggressively as Protoss to force Terran to attack you, or methodically crawl across the map as Terran and turtle hard, aiming to take half of the map. Even if a style isn't ideal, as long as it's pretty good, you should choose it if it appeals to your nature - you will do better with a good style that works with your mind, than with the "ideal" style which doesn't work for your mind.
It is the same when you choose what to do in life. When it comes to StarCraft, it even applies on a meta level: If the game doesn't allow for a style that's good for you, then switch game. I've had to do that in fighting games if the characters that I like are too under powered. Luckily, in StarCraft, there is good variety in viable play styles.
|
|
|
On January 01 2016 10:06 vOdToasT wrote:
You should choose what you are naturally inclined towards.
Do you like being aggressive? Try 2 hatch muta ZvT.
Do you like winning without attacking? Try expanding aggressively as Protoss to force Terran to attack you, or methodically crawl across the map as Terran and turtle hard, aiming to take half of the map. Even if a style isn't ideal, as long as it's pretty good, you should choose it if it appeals to your nature - you will do better with a good style that works with your mind, than with the "ideal" style which doesn't work for your mind.
It is the same when you choose what to do in life. When it comes to StarCraft, it even applies on a meta level: If the game doesn't allow for a style that's good for you, then switch game. I've had to do that in fighting games if the characters that I like are too under powered. Luckily, in StarCraft, there is good variety in viable play styles.
I like this mindset. you work with the flow and play to the style of your strengths. There's a subtle invigoration about it, and you can climb very far. Although at the very highest level, one has to be able to mimic or play against virtually every style and I think that's where the true prodigies lie. But enough dedication can still push you to greater lengths.
|
I think your point on 1. is wrong in both life and in StarCraft.
I think learning strategies that work in StarCraft tend to work pretty well outside StarCraft, and for anyone who got good at StarCraft, chances are they have a pretty nice tool set for acquiring new real life skills as well. Learning in groups, communicating with other experts, prioritizing tasks, breaking complicated processes into simple ones... SC is a really amazing little sandbox for experimenting with how to acquire a new skill, without the pressure of that skill actually being important to master. In the end when you reflect on how much you had to learn just to be competent at SC, it's a pretty nice bode of confidence for when you will be under pressure. All video games kinda do that, but BW is one that really throws you in the deep end and doesn't do much to teach itself to you.
Makes for a kind of philosophical debate of whether typical modern game design really helps players learn how to learn anymore, or if it's too far removed from what learning things in real life is like.
|
On January 02 2016 09:05 Chef wrote:
I think your point on 1. is wrong in both life and in StarCraft.
I think learning strategies that work in StarCraft tend to work pretty well outside StarCraft, and for anyone who got good at StarCraft, chances are they have a pretty nice tool set for acquiring new real life skills as well. Learning in groups, communicating with other experts, prioritizing tasks, breaking complicated processes into simple ones... SC is a really amazing little sandbox for experimenting with how to acquire a new skill, without the pressure of that skill actually being important to master. In the end when you reflect on how much you had to learn just to be competent at SC, it's a pretty nice bode of confidence for when you will be under pressure. All video games kinda do that, but BW is one that really throws you in the deep end and doesn't do much to teach itself to you.
Makes for a kind of philosophical debate of whether typical modern game design really helps players learn how to learn anymore, or if it's too far removed from what learning things in real life is like.
The problem with this is that some people play for years and never get any better, plateau, or marginally, because they do not look at their deficiencies honestly enough and go with a stubborn mentality. It's nice when these players elevate themselves, sometimes really quickly to play the game at a somewhat competitive level, but everyone hits that ceiling of frustration, and how people dea with that varies greatly. I know of players who mindlessly memorize build orders and play it to a standard and that helps them climb quite high. But when they fail to ascend their previous rank, they are unwilling to change or believe they are doing anything wrong, blame the game design, luck or their opponent for cheap tactics. This can be applied in professional settings as well, as some veterans of their craft are unwilling to go about better and more efficient methods in favor of what they know best and be stagnant for their group. Of course this does not apply to every player, but you seldom see players with a mindful approach to the game. Those who do, tend to grow and become better, but it still does not guarantee it.
And I think a hierarchical capacity still holds. A good example could be qxc or Nony who have played for a really long time and failed to produce championship results, while you see people like Life rise to stardom in nearly half the time they played the game. Life will always, always be better than Qxc or Nony at starcraft 2 due to his innate talents and proper learning conditions and no amount of practice will put them in fighting chance of it. However both these players are still considerably better than the vast majority of all players and probably enjoyed the opportunity to even be at the grace at the highest level. Undoubtedly they are still talented and hard working individuals, but players of this caliber will never hold a wcs trophy in any region and probably lose a vast majority of games to 1st-tier players. I suppose academically it can be similar to attaining a Phd. and being at the lowest of citation or relevancy in your field, but goddamn it's still a Phd.
|
I guarantee you it's not the case that someone who practices a skill for years never improves at it.
Comparing Nony and Qxc to Life is totally invalid. Life speaks the language of the top players, has a more rigid practice environment, and has made stronger decisions to devote himself to his craft.
We're converging on agreement when you talk about a PhD though. Because outside of sports, it doesn't matter very much that the very top expert is 10 seconds faster than you at an activity. But in this situation, it's more like Nony comes from a backwoods home-educated environment, and Life went to the best university in the country. In many occupations, people know the disadvantage of not being able to speak the language of the top experts (frequently English) and will thus learn that language. But of course there isn't much drive to learn Korean for an American who wasn't exactly planning to live in Korea for fifteen years beforehand.
I think even among the top BW pros, you'll find the sacrifices Jaedong and Flash, Boxer and Yellow, Nada and iloveoov made were greater than their compatriots, which is what makes them inspirational stories. Whether that ability to sacrifice is a talent itself is too meta for a point about people not reaching masters, where the people below masters are largely much more casual and less invested.
In summary: the part about point 1 I disagree with is that there are bronze, silver, gold, plat etc level human beings. All human beings attain mastery in their interest, short of severe brain damage or deprivation of the necessary tools (due to finance, language barrier, location etc). And also that you compare your efforts to the efforts of pros, which just thinking about would probably discourage you, because it might turn out you don't like games nearly as much as they do (ignore your parents, ignore school, spend 10 hrs a day on trying to join a very unstable occupation, ignore criticism from people who ask you to think about your future, don't worry that you are living off your parents' money for a fantasy; that's pretty much what every pro did for years, and from a pretty young age, where nony is pretty old by progamer standards, SC2 coming out a little too late for him, Life being born literally 1997, a decade younger than Nony and in a country where he doesn't necessarily have to travel to play SC).
|
On January 03 2016 01:02 Chef wrote:
I guarantee you it's not the case that someone who practices a skill for years never improves at it.
I've seen this happen before but you only get to see this among players who are near the very lowest levels of play. I don't think they have to be stuck there or that it's impossible for them to get out of it, it's just impossible for them based on the way they go about it.
|
On January 03 2016 01:02 Chef wrote:
I guarantee you it's not the case that someone who practices a skill for years never improves at it.
Comparing Nony and Qxc to Life is totally invalid. Life speaks the language of the top players, has a more rigid practice environment, and has made stronger decisions to devote himself to his craft.
We're converging on agreement when you talk about a PhD though. Because outside of sports, it doesn't matter very much that the very top expert is 10 seconds faster than you at an activity. But in this situation, it's more like Nony comes from a backwoods home-educated environment, and Life went to the best university in the country. In many occupations, people know the disadvantage of not being able to speak the language of the top experts (frequently English) and will thus learn that language. But of course there isn't much drive to learn Korean for an American who wasn't exactly planning to live in Korea for fifteen years beforehand.
I think even among the top BW pros, you'll find the sacrifices Jaedong and Flash, Boxer and Yellow, Nada and iloveoov made were greater than their compatriots, which is what makes them inspirational stories. Whether that ability to sacrifice is a talent itself is too meta for a point about people not reaching masters, where the people below masters are largely much more casual and less invested.
In summary: the part about point 1 I disagree with is that there are bronze, silver, gold, plat etc level human beings. All human beings attain mastery in their interest, short of severe brain damage or deprivation of the necessary tools (due to finance, language barrier, location etc). And also that you compare your efforts to the efforts of pros, which just thinking about would probably discourage you, because it might turn out you don't like games nearly as much as they do (ignore your parents, ignore school, spend 10 hrs a day on trying to join a very unstable occupation, ignore criticism from people who ask you to think about your future, don't worry that you are living off your parents' money for a fantasy; that's pretty much what every pro did for years, and from a pretty young age, where nony is pretty old by progamer standards, SC2 coming out a little too late for him, Life being born literally 1997, a decade younger than Nony and in a country where he doesn't necessarily have to travel to play SC).
Thorzain, Naniwa, Scarlett have all taken games from top Korean pros, won championships, and they did this without that privileged start. Their talent was able to overcome that barrier and perhaps if they did start earlier in that environment they would be even better, but it's hard to say. I believe all three were in starcraft 2 scene comparable to that of Nony with Naniwa and Thorzain's time with WC3 comparable to his career in BW. All I am certain of is that despite being "backwoods home-educated" they toppled their "ivy league" counterparts in their primes. Also wasn't there some random spanish terran that took a series off Life? He had some considerable talent too, something I can never see Qxc caliber doing.
The point of the Phd analogy was that people of this educational caliber have worked hard and have some level of mastery to dignify them far apart from the vast majority of their peers in their respective fields, but within their own sample size, there is always an average, and someone is going to be below 50% of that pool despite being .1% overall. It's just the nature of competition and it changes. The same way of everyone in gold league suddenly had 200+ apm and could macro as well as a masters player now, that becomes the average and the bell curve will follow under it.
Also think about all the Korean pros that sacrificed everything to just be a pro. To say that those players sacrificed the most ergo they reaped what they sowed is not true. I guarantee you there's probably tragic and heartbreaking failures in all those talented kids who gave up an educational future in a highly competitive society for the small chance of breaking big for a passion. You will never hear about them because no one wants to talk about them. You will see plenty of kids now in Korea start early and get really good, but they never end up championship material..just solid or really good players. TY is a classic archetype, although he definitely has the talent/chance to be a champion.
|
8748 Posts
A good example could be qxc or Nony who have played for a really long time and failed to produce championship results
I think I've played a lot less than you're assuming. I'm not sure that I've ever played more than 40 hours of SC2 a week for two weeks in a row. Once in a while I've done more than 40 in a week, but never strung that kind of effort together for any amount of time in SC2. Probably 90% of the time I've spent playing SC2 has been trying to get in shape -- hardly any time actually practicing to be competitive. IDK how this applies to what you're saying. I'm sure if I'm not an example then someone else is.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
