EPTOn February 08 2026 03:48 Kraekkling wrote:
I've written this for the other thread, but the discussion on this derailed the OP, so imma post it here instead.
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re: progamer mechanics during kespa and now
An interesting question is whether practice adds up over the years which leads to improvement, and how much this compares to the decay caused by physical factors.
In the realm of physical sports, it's pretty clear that there's a peak age, due to things like max VO2 in the blood and other physiological markers. For fps shooters, there's reflexes which peak at some young age. (there's probably studies on this somewhere)
I wonder what parallels exist to musicians. As far as I know musical ability is not considered to decay before musicians get quite old? Playing an instrument is a "mechanics-heavy" task. I'm sure everyone who played both BW and an instrument in a serious way would consider it to be far more mechanically demanding, compared to BW. Please correct me if that's not the case.
If someone has played the piano from age 14 to 18 for eight hours every day, they're probably pretty good at piano at age 18. What happens if the person plays for 20 more years, for four hours every day - at age 38, is the person better at the piano or worse, compared to age 18?
What are the physical factors relevant for BW and how are they affected by age?
I've written this for the other thread, but the discussion on this derailed the OP, so imma post it here instead.
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re: progamer mechanics during kespa and now
An interesting question is whether practice adds up over the years which leads to improvement, and how much this compares to the decay caused by physical factors.
In the realm of physical sports, it's pretty clear that there's a peak age, due to things like max VO2 in the blood and other physiological markers. For fps shooters, there's reflexes which peak at some young age. (there's probably studies on this somewhere)
I wonder what parallels exist to musicians. As far as I know musical ability is not considered to decay before musicians get quite old? Playing an instrument is a "mechanics-heavy" task. I'm sure everyone who played both BW and an instrument in a serious way would consider it to be far more mechanically demanding, compared to BW. Please correct me if that's not the case.
If someone has played the piano from age 14 to 18 for eight hours every day, they're probably pretty good at piano at age 18. What happens if the person plays for 20 more years, for four hours every day - at age 38, is the person better at the piano or worse, compared to age 18?
What are the physical factors relevant for BW and how are they affected by age?
Generally virtuoso musicians become better with age until like 50, in same rare cases even nearing 60s. If they take proper care of themselves and keep consistently practicing, even at lower volumes, they keep improving. But their improvement isnt just in the technical aspect. They improve on their musical vocabulary, theory, and application of theory more than on their technical ability. As they get older technical ability improvements become marginal, but that is also a side effect of already being near peak technicality at some point. The decay of physical factors in virtuosos isn't much noticed until around 60 and beyond, unless they suffer playing related injuries that can limit their endurance in playing at a higher technical level.
Same applies to SC if you ask me. In SC specifically the physical capability aspect is WAY OVERSTATED by some fans and even players. There are so many god tier mechanical players who lack the knowledge, the theory, the insight, and the application of theory in all situation to succeed, bar a minority of situations where just mechanical ability with some theory is enough. Just doing a build order slightly wrong is enough to lose. overspending a bit too much on a unit you dont actually need or cant use anymore is enough to lose. Units in wrong location? misread a fight? mastering application of Theory + a minimum of mechanical skill > >> lot of mechanical skill and some application of theory.
This is most noticable when you see the pros stream their POV for Proleague or for ASL. They will freak out over someone using theory to gain positional advantages, make optimization adjustments, punish suboptimal choices by their opponents, and etc. rarely do they freak out over micro or mechanical plays. Soulkey and FlaSh are great examples in this. Neither FlaSh or Soulkey have the best mechanical ability. But their knowledge and understanding of Broodwar theory and how to USE that in all situations is what makes them so strong.
For example month after Flash came back he was in a TvZ vs Soulkey on 5 spawn vs 7 spawn. He recognized the situation allowed Soulkey to do a timed all in, but FlaSh was denied scouting information to confirm it or even see it. But FlaSh built a bunker. The other terrans thought FlaSh had correctlt read the situation and countered the all in with the bunker. But Flash actually said he would always build the bunker in certain situations because the 100 minerals for the bunker in the build order he was already doing would not slow anything else down. So he figured he could always build the bunker and be safe against that specific all in regardless of any situation the game is in. Nobody ever thought of that until FlaSh pointed it out, and it completelt countered an entire zerg all in option Soulkey had been abusing against other terrans. All because they thought the math didnt work, but Flash proved them you could exactly fit the bunker into the build order and still have all the math work out.
Other good examples are Hyuk, Speed, ZeloT and Soo.
Hyuk has insane mechanical ability, maybe the most insane, but he loses more than ANY other pro zerg. In ZvT his mutalisk micro and ability to press macro cycles INBETWEEN attack clicks and retreat clicks is unrivaled. He can supress any terran bio ball and harass perfectly. But he then makes too many mutalisks, and mutalisks lose effectiveness when valks comes out, the bio grows, upgrades finish, vessels get radiate, etc. The zerg can not afford to overspend because they NEED to prepare the counter to what terran is making to deal with the mutalisks. So Hyuk is the one player who more than anyone else loses very shortly after Mutalisks become less effective and he has to transition to lurker and sunken defense to get consume and dark swarm up. He fails with getting lurkers on time too often. He gets consume too late. He doesnt have the sunkens yet. etc. He dies because of incorrect application of theory.
Speed was similar. Speed has been the best mechanical terran since 2020 but was at the time known as 10minute flash. He played godly but focused entirely on early and mid game, and then just could not transition into late properly and he would generally lose. He was well optimized and used theory correctly up until 10-15 minutes. But once he corrected his theory application and switched to build optimizations and a playstyle that does allow him to play post 15 minutes, he has become an absolute monster. But it wasnt his mechanical skill that brought him that success. It was the correct application of theory.
