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The Ladder Smurf Myth - Page 2

Forum Index > BW General
Post a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 Next All
greenelve
Profile Joined April 2011
Germany1392 Posts
October 11 2015 18:45 GMT
#21
On October 12 2015 03:17 JieXian wrote:
Show nested quote +
Also, basic rules of computergames:

If you win, its pure skill
If you lose, its pure luck, lag, cheat, whatever else excuse


Applies to a lot of things like sports, poker etc it's for people who have ego problems and need to protect their feelings or something.



Your right, i forgot, it does applies to sport too. When i play real life football (aka soccer) in real, sometimes people complain that i cheat...after i "walked" through 3 or 4 defender with the ball to score. :/
z0r.de for your daily madness /// Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? The Shadow knows!
Endymion
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United States3701 Posts
October 11 2015 18:59 GMT
#22
most bm country

not including peru and CL
pls
Have you considered the MMO-Champion forum? You are just as irrational and delusional with the right portion of nostalgic populism. By the way: The old Brood War was absolutely unplayable
Lifo2
Profile Joined September 2015
3 Posts
October 11 2015 19:44 GMT
#23
> Loshok3 19-0 c-
Loshok4 22-8 c-
Loshok5 20-2 c-
> there is no ladder smurfs
> pick one
radley
Profile Joined August 2008
Poland582 Posts
October 11 2015 19:51 GMT
#24
I guess Poland ows the 3rd place in bm ranking thanks to Julia himself? :D
TL+ Member
ninazerg
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States7291 Posts
October 11 2015 21:13 GMT
#25
On October 12 2015 04:44 Lifo2 wrote:
> Loshok3 19-0 c-
Loshok4 22-8 c-
Loshok5 20-2 c-
> there is no ladder smurfs
> pick one


Learn to read.



To be perfectly fair, I have seen some good players, for whatever reason, play up to like C- and then just stop with an 18-0 record. I'm also sure there are some very insecure people who go "Time to slam some noobs' faces into the concrete".

what I'm really saying is that while there are probably a few smurfs here and there, the problem probably is not as prevalent as you may have surmised it to be.

"If two pregnant women get into a fist fight, it's like a mecha-battle between two unborn babies." - Fyodor Dostoevsky
L_Master
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States8017 Posts
October 11 2015 21:48 GMT
#26
I think this assessment is pretty spot on. If you're not careful looking at the replays it easy to think the guy was just way better than you, when in fact it was just small advantages snowballing.

I've laddered it's reasonably rare to encounter a former B- or better, far rarer than 1 in 10 games. For me it was usually once or twice in a season, which would generally include 20-40 games.

EffOrt and Soulkey Hwaiting!
GeckoXp
Profile Blog Joined June 2013
Germany2016 Posts
October 11 2015 22:12 GMT
#27
On October 11 2015 11:47 ninazerg wrote:

To be perfectly fair, I have seen some good players, for whatever reason, play up to like C- and then just stop with an 18-0 record. I'm also sure there are some very insecure people who go "Time to slam some noobs' faces into the concrete". 99% of the time, these people are from the US and Canada.


These are mostly two seperate issues, that somewhen merge if you change from ambitious player to casual mode only.

I guess the X-0 80%++ type of player usually practise on different accounts or in different ways. When BWCL and WGTCL with the clan scene was still a thing, I'd not practise on ladder at all, it seemed pointless to me. It was a hustle to just go up to a decent ranking (C and higher) and you encountered standard all-ins way too much to get a pay off. Instead training within your network was tons more productive, since you usually got feedback right away.
However, if there were new strategy trends (Build Orders), you wanted to test them. Hence go to the D ranks, they were the best opportunity to learn your things blindly. Not nearly as bad as the CPU, but still "bad" (wrong word here) enough to forgive you some minor mistakes. Real time training to hammer down the timings.

This merged at the point with the SCII Beta. You still want to play, but your network wasn't there anymore, or harder to reach. Hence more ladder games. The less serious you took BW improvement, the less you wanted to try. So tons of 40 games / season entries, because the simple ground stuff you do not unlearn that quickly. There's only so much you get the feeling ladder is fun, until the next best Peruvian goes with lag for a 5 pool.

Also I found Koreans to be the biggest maniacs, or at least Smurfs with Korean flag. "you mother dog". 8[
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10675 Posts
October 11 2015 22:49 GMT
#28
Nina has pure wisdom its true, and I think all of what she said and says is true.
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
fabiano
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Brazil4644 Posts
October 11 2015 23:19 GMT
#29
wow TL changed a lot, even login wise oô

Either way, I was and will forever be the average "average D player".

Back when I played, I remember when I felt awfully unable to do shit, I would just lie to myself "Nah it's ok, this guy destroying me is probably C or better just laddering up. Still, fuck him and his gay vultures".

My tip is: just lie to yourself :v
"When the geyser died, a probe came out" - SirJolt
BigFan
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
TLADT24920 Posts
October 12 2015 00:17 GMT
#30
On October 11 2015 16:22 ninazerg wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 11 2015 13:55 BigFan wrote:
On October 11 2015 11:47 ninazerg wrote:
99% of the time, these people are from the US and Canada. I don't know why. We're a very bad-mannered continent. Really. The most bad-mannered countries, in order, seem to be 1. Canada, 2. United States, 3. Poland, 4. Republic of Korea, 5. Mother Russia. And Russia isn't even that bm.

WHAT? ;;


I ain't saying everyone from Canada is an asshole. I'm saying people in NA tend to be worse than other countries.

yet you decided to put Canada as first on the list? Wonder how many Canadians you actually played against on ICCup lol.

On October 12 2015 03:06 JieXian wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 11 2015 22:06 endy wrote:
On October 11 2015 16:23 ninazerg wrote:
On October 11 2015 13:56 NrG.Bamboo wrote:
JAJAJAJA YOUR BM COUNTRIES DON'T EVEN LISTING PERU
xDXDXDXDXDXDXDD


What's everyone's problem with Peru? Most of the time they don't lag, and they don't talk at all.


they do lag, but don't speak english well enough to bm properly.

Actually the only BM I've ever got from Iccup was from BigFan, a canadian. True story.

Please, I call them as I see them!
Former BW EiC"Watch Bakemonogatari or I will kill you." -Toad, April 18th, 2017
ninazerg
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States7291 Posts
October 12 2015 01:39 GMT
#31
On October 12 2015 07:12 GeckoXp wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 11 2015 11:47 ninazerg wrote:

To be perfectly fair, I have seen some good players, for whatever reason, play up to like C- and then just stop with an 18-0 record. I'm also sure there are some very insecure people who go "Time to slam some noobs' faces into the concrete". 99% of the time, these people are from the US and Canada.


These are mostly two seperate issues, that somewhen merge if you change from ambitious player to casual mode only.

I guess the X-0 80%++ type of player usually practise on different accounts or in different ways. When BWCL and WGTCL with the clan scene was still a thing, I'd not practise on ladder at all, it seemed pointless to me. It was a hustle to just go up to a decent ranking (C and higher) and you encountered standard all-ins way too much to get a pay off. Instead training within your network was tons more productive, since you usually got feedback right away.
However, if there were new strategy trends (Build Orders), you wanted to test them. Hence go to the D ranks, they were the best opportunity to learn your things blindly. Not nearly as bad as the CPU, but still "bad" (wrong word here) enough to forgive you some minor mistakes. Real time training to hammer down the timings.

This merged at the point with the SCII Beta. You still want to play, but your network wasn't there anymore, or harder to reach. Hence more ladder games. The less serious you took BW improvement, the less you wanted to try. So tons of 40 games / season entries, because the simple ground stuff you do not unlearn that quickly. There's only so much you get the feeling ladder is fun, until the next best Peruvian goes with lag for a 5 pool.

Also I found Koreans to be the biggest maniacs, or at least Smurfs with Korean flag. "you mother dog". 8[


That's an interesting point you brought up, and perfectly valid. I personally don't think of the ladder as a good 'practice' tool, simply because most of the play is decided in bo1 (although there are people who will rematch) so most ladder pre-game strategy will differ from someone planning on playing a series.

On October 12 2015 08:19 fabiano wrote:
My tip is: just lie to yourself :v


This is good advice.


"If two pregnant women get into a fist fight, it's like a mecha-battle between two unborn babies." - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
October 12 2015 07:14 GMT
#32
I think we've all seen this kind of stuff on ICCup or the other third party ladders. Sometimes it's good players making new accounts for some reason, sometimes it's a guy who your level who just outplayed you. What I try to keep in mind when I play competitive games though is that I'm never currently playing against "the best". That means it's not worth it to dwell too long on a particular loss, because there were holes in your opponent's play that you can remember for next time. There's always something to be learned from a game that can help you improve for the next game.

I was watching the Hearthstone Championships today and Brian Kibler (famous tournament Magic player and Solforge designer) made a very interesting comment that basically echoes what greenelve was saying. "A lot of players, when they're losing, will make decisions based on how to survive the next round, rather than how to win the game." That's very true even in Starcraft. Many players will turtle if they're behind and try not to lose rather than look for opportunities to win.
Moderator
Caihead
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
Canada8550 Posts
October 12 2015 07:30 GMT
#33
The real smurfs are the Canadians with B ranks in BMing you are apparently running into.
"If you're not living in the US or are a US Citizen, please do not tell us how to vote or how you want our country to be governed." - Serpest, American Hero
JieXian
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
Malaysia4677 Posts
October 12 2015 08:18 GMT
#34
On October 12 2015 03:59 Endymion wrote:
most bm country

not including peru and CL
pls


to be fair also, they are really bm toward each other, if you read the room chat, but I've never got any directed at me yet
Please send me a PM of any song you like that I most probably never heard of! I am looking for people to chat about writing and producing music | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noD-bsOcxuU |
NrG.Bamboo
Profile Blog Joined December 2006
United States2756 Posts
October 14 2015 11:37 GMT
#35
Being a dick within your community doesn't make your anything other than a dick outside of said community to anyone who ever gets to observe one in his/her natural habitat..
I need to protect all your life you can enjoy the vibrant life of your battery
Chef
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
10810 Posts
October 14 2015 13:06 GMT
#36
I think you don't need to be that much better than someone in SC to pretty much crush them.

But I also understand that for players at D (basically the unknown skill rank), matchmaking is poor and even players with a high D+ are going to crush you, so at least half the server, and probably more for D players facing up against D+ players. But it's a ladder, and that's what makes you a D player. You lose a lot more than you win. Because every win gets you more points than you would lose with a loss, especially on MOTW.

I think it's kind of a shame that in the StarCraft community only ladders ever got popular. Attempts at ELO or other more accurate systems for finding similarly skilled players never really picked up steam.

And to be honest, it's pretty boring when you are a decent player to have to play like 20-30 games before every game starts being tough. At 10-30 minutes per game, that's too much investment and is legit part of the reason BW becomes a difficult hobby to maintain when your life is at full pace. I would rather just find people at a similar rating to me, and if my rating drops because I haven't played in awhile that's totally fine, but I don't want to start at scrub 0 and feel like all my achievement has been wiped from the record every time I come back to the game. So I just play with friends because ladder is terrible.

Man, BW not having a proper rating system is like my one regret in life. Foreign BW could be doing so much better if we had one. We're all late 20s / 30s, we can't be climbing ladders like kids anymore.
LEGEND!! LEGEND!!
GeckoXp
Profile Blog Joined June 2013
Germany2016 Posts
October 14 2015 13:30 GMT
#37
On October 14 2015 22:06 Chef wrote:


I think it's kind of a shame that in the StarCraft community only ladders ever got popular. Attempts at ELO or other more accurate systems for finding similarly skilled players never really picked up steam.

And to be honest, it's pretty boring when you are a decent player to have to play like 20-30 games and more


I tried writing a long ass blog about it and posted about the systems tons of times, nobody ever cares. It's not the problem that ladders use different ranking schemes for BW and most other online games, really it's not.

Casuals and low ranked players tend to overestimate their skill and drop out with a high likelihood if they start to lose a ton [hence lower ranked players / total beginners will always face a lot of variation in opponents]. The mindset is wrong and not compatible with a ladder, see my longer post. I get it, but that's not the ladder's fault, it's mine and mine alone.

Also not sure how to phrase it, but sentences like "lose more than they win" are getting annoying. A player will always lose more than he wins if he actually trains something he's not good at yet. It doesn't matter if you're A+ or D+, that's the entire point. There's always room to improve, and if someone is better, than he will crush you - which you said and later contradicted argument wise. Training mostly pays off if you play people slightly better than yourself.

The entire thing about ladders which made me want to puke was the fascination about ranks in the first place. Don't look at it, look at your game and think if it's already good enough for you or not. If it isn't, stfu and train more. If it is, so fine. Any ranking design can be abused, and judging from experience, will be abused. It's not about collecting super gosu win/lose stats, it's about learning from mistakes and get to a higher level. Ladders are by definition nothing to do casually - that's what public should be for. And no ladder ever said "we want to satisfy casuals". None.

Do you go to an apple store and complain that your latest mac doesn't come with linux?
ninazerg
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States7291 Posts
October 14 2015 13:48 GMT
#38
On October 14 2015 22:30 GeckoXp wrote:
Do you go to an apple store and complain that your latest mac doesn't come with linux?


I have. They asked me to leave.
"If two pregnant women get into a fist fight, it's like a mecha-battle between two unborn babies." - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Sero
Profile Joined October 2010
United States692 Posts
October 14 2015 18:13 GMT
#39
On October 14 2015 22:30 GeckoXp wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 14 2015 22:06 Chef wrote:


I think it's kind of a shame that in the StarCraft community only ladders ever got popular. Attempts at ELO or other more accurate systems for finding similarly skilled players never really picked up steam.

And to be honest, it's pretty boring when you are a decent player to have to play like 20-30 games and more

Also not sure how to phrase it, but sentences like "lose more than they win" are getting annoying. A player will always lose more than he wins if he actually trains something he's not good at yet. It doesn't matter if you're A+ or D+, that's the entire point. There's always room to improve, and if someone is better, than he will crush you - which you said and later contradicted argument wise. Training mostly pays off if you play people slightly better than yourself.

The entire thing about ladders which made me want to puke was the fascination about ranks in the first place. Don't look at it, look at your game and think if it's already good enough for you or not. If it isn't, stfu and train more. If it is, so fine. Any ranking design can be abused, and judging from experience, will be abused. It's not about collecting super gosu win/lose stats, it's about learning from mistakes and get to a higher level. Ladders are by definition nothing to do casually - that's what public should be for. And no ladder ever said "we want to satisfy casuals". None.

Do you go to an apple store and complain that your latest mac doesn't come with linux?

I'm pretty sure you misunderstood most of Chef's post.
<3 FlaSh HiyA Stats HoeJJa
QuanticHawk
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
United States32073 Posts
October 14 2015 19:22 GMT
#40
On October 11 2015 16:23 ninazerg wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 11 2015 13:56 NrG.Bamboo wrote:
JAJAJAJA YOUR BM COUNTRIES DON'T EVEN LISTING PERU
xDXDXDXDXDXDXDD


What's everyone's problem with Peru? Most of the time they don't lag, and they don't talk at all.

fuckin new money sc2 nerd
PROFESSIONAL GAMER - SEND ME OFFERS TO JOIN YOUR TEAM - USA USA USA
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