EPTHow Current Streamers Compare to Past Progamers
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jinjin5000
United States1422 Posts
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Jealous
10141 Posts
Particularly the APM thing is something I've noticed myself - there is no way that 10 years later I have that much more APM than I did when I was younger and playing hours upon hours a day, while also accomplishing less in-game now lol. | ||
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ZeroChrome
Canada1001 Posts
On September 05 2019 13:51 Jealous wrote: Interesting stuff, this was definitely a popular conversation piece both here and on Discord. Nice to hear the perspective of someone who has been in both eras. Particularly the APM thing is something I've noticed myself - there is no way that 10 years later I have that much more APM than I did when I was younger and playing hours upon hours a day, while also accomplishing less in-game now lol. Remastered client includes all actions in the game while every old plugin disregards the first 2 minutes of the game. | ||
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prosatan
Romania8011 Posts
Just look at my boy Jaedong! he was much better back in the days | ||
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iFU.pauline
France1554 Posts
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VioleTAK
4315 Posts
I completely agree with Zero, the shape they were in back then was supreme. They were young, they trained non stop, they were beyond sharp, and they were constantly challenged from below. These days its so rare for new blood to reach their level and bring a challenge from below, back then you never knew which new punk was suddenly going to kick your ass, you had to stay on your guard and keep your shape at 100% always. Players like JD Flash Stork and Bisu are much wiser now, they have so much more experience, and the game has changed a lot. But give their old selves a month to adjust and current streamers wouldn't stand a chance. | ||
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Dante08
Singapore4126 Posts
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13005 Posts
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razorsuKe
Canada2000 Posts
On September 05 2019 19:00 Dante08 wrote: Agree with Zero here, I specifically remember the reaction times were way faster back in the day. JD would scourge a dropship almost immediately after spotting it in the minimap. I seldom see that happen in pro games nowadays. I remember ZvZ was at a level where scourge was an obsolete unit, it got the point where if a pro had 3 mutas, a scourge was never going to land, PERIOD. And I'm talking every zerg pro was at that level (except Great). You see scourge used quite often now, a lot of focus is being spent on spreading them out and having them move while spread, but I'm really sure that would be useless during kespa era. | ||
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Ideas
United States8096 Posts
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LG)Sabbath
Argentina3022 Posts
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Chef
10810 Posts
In a sense, what's important is how competitive the scene is, meaning how many players are actually at a similar level. With Flash out of the picture, that's (in a sad way) almost an improvement for the whole scene. Well, depending on how much non-tournament stuff Flash plays in, and to what level he can play as he tries to take it easier on his injury. Even Sonic StarLeagues were fairly interesting, since a lot of the power players will still in SC2. We miss the KeSPA days because we know what we're lacking now, but judged on its own terms streaming SC is still interesting. It's hard to be secretive about builds and such though, since turning off your stream to practice them means forfeiting money you should be earning. That definitely impacts the entertainment value of matches before the later rounds of a tournament. But on the level of could streamers beat progamers... I don't understand why anybody thinks so. SC was always a game of seconds, reaction time is very important. I guess it depends on how you dream up the scenario, but it doesn't seem to me like progamers would be unaware of the meta if you carried them forward. If that's the stipulation, it's like saying can a progamer playing a map he's never played before beat a streamer who has been playing it for a year? Adds a bit of a wrench into what it means to be a pro, you know? | ||
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Ideas
United States8096 Posts
On September 06 2019 00:23 Chef wrote: In a sense, what's important is how competitive the scene is, meaning how many players are actually at a similar level. With Flash out of the picture, that's (in a sad way) almost an improvement for the whole scene. Well, depending on how much non-tournament stuff Flash plays in, and to what level he can play as he tries to take it easier on his injury. Yeah true, the KSL has always seemed very competitive (IE anyone in the Ro16 at least stood a shot at taking out anyone else, even if it was a small chance) without Flash ever competing in it. Flash is basically the only S-tier player of the era, and then like 8-10 players at an A tier (last, rain soulkey, etc although definitely on a gradient) and then another 10-20 at B teir (forgg, leta, jaehoon, etc). A teir players can take games off of flash but only twice did any of them beat him in a series since flash's first ASL losing to Last before he got fully back into god mode. Flash is the only one that still mechanically looks like a kespa progamer all the time (others definitely have their moments for sure though), and even then he's not as good as he was back then. | ||
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TelecoM
United States10671 Posts
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Alpha-NP-
United States1242 Posts
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Bakuryu
Germany1065 Posts
i disagree with zero, i think current ex-pros would be better for a minimum of 6-12 months based on coaching staff. and even then it would still be 50-50 for another year, until the practice advantage catches up with the current ex-pros i think it boils down on how you define mechanics. macro: people now pretty much know how to mine each mineral patch as perfectly as possible; builds are more precisely "countered" than they were ever before with every itsy-bitsy adjustment being accounted for (Zero mentioned it himself, gas timing, ling count); we have 5+ bases "precise" builds now (Flash's TvZ +1 5 rax into 3 vessel late mech - 4 base vulture - 5 base tank + Larva's counter 4 base ultra/ling into 7 base) micro: in PvZ 1 gate expo, every zealot gets microed as good as possible, always targeting single zergling while moving out of lings or diving into any spot you cant get surrounded (minerals or certain chokes) while zerg has to constantly surround zealot and deny him diving into spots. multitask: this is a combination of a lot of factors, such as general knowledge when you can do what, game sense and how much time you have surplus to do extra things. stuff like keeping your enemy busy with small amount of units to buy more time than before, more poking with units to scout his units or to gain some extra attacks out before his units can position themself. it is hard to put this into perspective compared to 2010 but because of the increased knowledge of builds and limitations within each phase of the game, people should be able to multitask more effectively than before. there is more to muta/ling vs mnm multitask than just building stuff (macro) and moving units around while killing stray marines (micro). how your current situation is based on turrets/sunken, muta count (for example attacking mnm vs attacking terran base to kill fresh marines/scvs) where to place your units at what time to get the most out of them (for example attacking mnm from behind not from the front so he pushes away from your base when trying to fight the mutas, keeping muta/ling inbetween his army and his base stopping him from reinforcing) while using map features for advantages (ridges/chokes/ramps) unfortunately, 1 player notoriously bad at this was jaedong trying to beat terrans +1 5 rax with "low eco" 3 hatch muta/ling trading style. 5 rax quickly outprduces 3 hatch muta/ling. jaedongs goal was to cripple the marine count early on with lings and keep on killing marines with mutas. but the trades he was doing were equal at best, so 5 rax still overpowered him and he quickly lost. he was hardly using map features to his advantage and often attacked the mnm push from the front and not from behind. no amount of mechanics could save him, he needed to play smarter. and thats what people are doing now, they play smarter and overall better. but it has taken the majority of ex-progamers several years (2013-2016) to realize that. On September 05 2019 19:00 Dante08 wrote: Agree with Zero here, I specifically remember the reaction times were way faster back in the day. JD would scourge a dropship almost immediately after spotting it in the minimap. I seldom see that happen in pro games nowadays. back in the day, terran players were generally 3 tank 1 vessel pushing with a single drop ship followup which would generally just drop near cliff into your base (or fly in mineral line then drop). to stop that, you placed 4 scourge near your cliff. the scourges normally have enough time to catch the dropship before marines come out. your other army can deal with the front push. even if he carpet drops with 1 dropship before it gets killed, 1 group of lings easily clean up the remaining marines nowadays, terran 5 rax pushes you with instant 2-4 dropship followup, which would start carpet dropping the second they passed the cliff into your base. even with 8 scourge spread out near cliff, chances are high that you will not be able to kill the dropships before they dropped enough mnm to kill all scourge(terran scans cliff and avoids scourge).with 2-4 dropships, he can also drop a critical amount of marines, where zerglings will just start to melt. instead you need to place the scourge and 1-2 group of lings closer to your buildings in carpet dropping direction. that way you have lings fast enough under his marines while scourge kill the dropships regardless of which way he decides to carpet drop from. this dropship attack is way deadlier than back in the day and needs more defence allocated at your main and 3rd. essentially you have to make him drop you in order to reliably scourge the dropships, otherwise he will just try elsewhere. | ||
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Miragee
8505 Posts
On September 06 2019 02:30 Bakuryu wrote: back in the day, terran players were generally 3 tank 1 vessel pushing with a single drop ship followup which would generally just drop near cliff into your base (or fly in mineral line then drop). to stop that, you placed 4 scourge near your cliff. the scourges normally have enough time to catch the dropship before marines come out. your other army can deal with the front push. even if he carpet drops with 1 dropship before it gets killed, 1 group of lings easily clean up the remaining marines He wasn't talking about a particular push. Jaedong would snipe dropships throughout longer games as well. Remember when he played Baby and Baby tried to drop him like 18 times and not a single dropship survived long enough to get any damage done? That was also the time when Jaedong would immediately react to DTs attacking lings/drones... Yes, Jaedong was a madman in that regard but in general everyone was much sharper back then. All you say in your post is that knowledge, advanced build orders, unit counts etc. have evolved, yes. That's a natural occurrence. All those things have constantly been evolving since Starcraft came out. That doesn't mean the level of play is better now than it was back then. Give the players from back then the knowledge and builds from today and they would shred everything apart. The only thing I agree on is the point about playing smart. I think that was the only downside to the level of play back then. The rigid in house environment forced players into a way of thinking, basically automatism. Not many players came out as being creative or smart with a few exceptions. A lot of progamers played with what seemed like a tunnel-vision. | ||
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onlystar
United States971 Posts
this goes alongside of zeros view of general game theory these days... i just reject the view that if you have slight better mechanics and (e)apm you automatically just win vs the nowadays pros like a 10% (e)apm increase just does not get you there maybe if you deteriorated a lot 20/30% its would be problematic but for most pros its probably not even the case it just goes against the general consensus that competition is really fierce look at people like soma shining these days.. and what flash is preaching over his comeback since sc2 have to keep in mind zero (and any other streamer) is also making videos for the views with screaming titles thumbnails and substance on youtube these days.. however obviously teamhouses and A-B proteams &courage tournaments for progamer license it is fierce competition for top spots, training full-time results into the best of the best to make it..however sponbang is a thing still streamers trying to reach higher in getting better results/money/prices/viewerbase so its not like there are no rewards to improve like in the proleague days how they all line up is difficult to measure.. but to say blatantly old progamers would beat the new versions of them self is really reaching. | ||
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razorsuKe
Canada2000 Posts
On September 06 2019 04:31 Miragee wrote: A lot of progamers played with what seemed like a tunnel-vision. This is very true, practising 8+ hours a day, while very good for mechanics, is really bad for creativity. | ||
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Shinokuki
United States859 Posts
On September 06 2019 06:28 onlystar wrote: im skeptic about what zero is announcing here.. it does not sound that accurate to me(for some parts) , i dont want to go to deep into this because it is a lot of speculation but for instance if you hear flash take on this is its a lot different from his point of view he says if i would have known the /timings/builds/game knowledge i know at this moment i would not have lost a single starleague. this goes alongside of zeros view of general game theory these days... i just reject the view that if you have slight better mechanics and (e)apm you automatically just win vs the nowadays pros like a 10% (e)apm increase just does not get you there maybe if you deteriorated a lot 20/30% its would be problematic but for most pros its probably not even the case it just goes against the general consensus that competition is really fierce look at people like soma shining these days.. and what flash is preaching over his comeback since sc2 have to keep in mind zero (and any other streamer) is also making videos for the views with screaming titles thumbnails and substance on youtube these days.. however obviously teamhouses and A-B proteams &courage tournaments for progamer license it is fierce competition for top spots, training full-time results into the best of the best to make it..however sponbang is a thing still streamers trying to reach higher in getting better results/money/prices/viewerbase so its not like there are no rewards to improve like in the proleague days how they all line up is difficult to measure.. but to say blatantly old progamers would beat the new versions of them self is really reaching. Let me give you an example.. If bisu had the same mechanics as his prime self his 1 gateway zlot harrassment would wreck havoc on most zergs, snowballing into what he does best. Since his mechanics is subpar, he can't really do that. Every high level tactics/knowledge are supported by top tier mechanics. That's what BW is all about. | ||
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onlystar
United States971 Posts
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
the romantic in me doesn't love what zero's saying here, but i'd take his word over my own suspicions. part of this debate may also be player dependent, though. i'm really curious if other pros think the same thing, especially pros that have historically been weaker mechanically. i'm thinking of the more cerebral protosses like movie or snow. someone on the other side of that coin (like light) would be interesting to hear from on this topic too. if only we could somehow find out what the pros were saying about this...  | ||
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JoinTheRain
Bulgaria408 Posts
If I understand the situation correctly from Zero's words, the KESPA players were expected to play 30 or more games per day, to be mechanically stellar. This would leave them with less time to actually think about the strategic part. And this is where the coaches would fill in the gap - to come up with new builds, new timings, map specific tactics. The player's aim would be to have the mechanical conditions, to be able to execute what his coach tells him to do. Of course if you have a JD or a Flash on your team you will stress his mechanical prowess even more, you want him to play the longer games where he can make less mistakes than opponents. With a healthy mix of cheese, yes, but still - you want him to be able to display his ability in the best manner. And nowadays players are supposed to train mechanics by themselves but also - to think about strategy, there are no coaches to do that for them. Thus it is logical that their mechanical skill will drop and seem subpar to their KESPA levels of execution. | ||
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Anc13nt
1557 Posts
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Dante08
Singapore4126 Posts
On September 06 2019 00:52 Ideas wrote: Yeah true, the KSL has always seemed very competitive (IE anyone in the Ro16 at least stood a shot at taking out anyone else, even if it was a small chance) without Flash ever competing in it. Flash is basically the only S-tier player of the era, and then like 8-10 players at an A tier (last, rain soulkey, etc although definitely on a gradient) and then another 10-20 at B teir (forgg, leta, jaehoon, etc). A teir players can take games off of flash but only twice did any of them beat him in a series since flash's first ASL losing to Last before he got fully back into god mode. Flash is the only one that still mechanically looks like a kespa progamer all the time (others definitely have their moments for sure though), and even then he's not as good as he was back then. I would say Effort, Soulkey (before they left for the military) and Zero look very good mechanically as well although definitely not as good as they were previously. Even Flash said in a video previously that his skill level is not as high as before. | ||
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Starlightsun
United States1405 Posts
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Chef
10810 Posts
On September 06 2019 14:40 intrigue wrote: thanks for the translation, as always. the romantic in me doesn't love what zero's saying here, but i'd take his word over my own suspicions. part of this debate may also be player dependent, though. i'm really curious if other pros think the same thing, especially pros that have historically been weaker mechanically. i'm thinking of the more cerebral protosses like movie or snow. someone on the other side of that coin (like light) would be interesting to hear from on this topic too. if only we could somehow find out what the pros were saying about this... I think more time to craft and play strategies is also good. I remember Boxer or someone way back when saying that it was easier to bring a really inventive strategy every game back when they had a month to practice for each match, or something crazy like that. Then when they had so many games each week, it became harder. But the fact that you can't be secretive when your income depends on streaming is a huge wrench to the styles of players like Boxer, Nal_Ra and the descendants who followed their example. I can't really agree with people who've said games were less creative in the KeSPA days. But I also don't know how to measure that or what they mean by that. I remember at least a few bonkers televised games being played every week in those days. We'll get something crazy once in awhile still, but apart from Shine's run not every week anymore. In any case, creative players still thrived in the KeSPA days. The real robots never really made it out of the b-team, it just wasn't enough to only have mechanics when everyone was practicing 8 hours or more. | ||
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onlystar
United States971 Posts
and its gonna sound harsh but some definitely lost skill or at least are less dominant than before ZerO is absolutely one of those underperforming in the post kespa era. | ||
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Cele
Germany4016 Posts
Bw is a very mechanical game. We teach the noobs that they should focus on mechanics first and fancy strategy second.It's common knowledge that a mechanical advantage per usual is more important than a atrategical. Seems obvious the same is true for progamers and kespa pros were most likely stronger mechanically for the reasons explained by zero. | ||
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KobraKay
Portugal4231 Posts
On September 07 2019 04:51 onlystar wrote: somethings to keep in mind.. players like shuttle / snow / flash / mini / last improved a lot (gameplay wise and in results aswell) since the proleague days. and its gonna sound harsh but some definitely lost skill or at least are less dominant than before ZerO is absolutely one of those underperforming in the post kespa era. Wait what? Flash was "God" against a deeper opponent pool, how are is results better now? Snow was a newcomer on CJ A team and was employed as a PvT sniper, a matchup in which he excelled ever since the b-team days. His practice was probably focused on that. You cannot compare his overall performance back then to what it is now due to that fact alone. Im not even going to touch on the others as there is no point. Regardless of your perceived notion of strategy being more important or giving current players an advantage, please watch some 2009/2010 games and LR threads of people celebrating Flash being behind due to a BO or to an amazing rush in the beginning and then watch him win on sheer sense and mechanics alone. Having a cute BO for a new map is like having a sniper back in the days come up with something creative. Those were not guaranteed wins (even by mechanically better players). Flash today would put up a fight based on his strategic depth but he would probably be the only one. And even then, im not sure if some A team randon player would not win based on sheer numbers and macro crushing moves alone. Even with a gigantic bias towards Flash starsense and hability to read and react on the fly I still firmly believe that. Additionally, top pro's were not robots. They had coaches to help with builds but most of them would think about builds and would know how to prepare a build (watch the Old Boy show with Nal_Ra, Stats came up with builds, ForGG is given a quick run down of a potential build to theorize about and decide if applicable even if it was a P build, he is also said to be able to establish and creat timing attacks for everything, etc, thats not a robot). | ||
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onlystar
United States971 Posts
he says he improved even after kespa days and knows more about the game timings/builds/theory etc.mini is now seen as the best pvzer a the moment yes you can compare these and you can say that players improved its a fact. snow developed even in the pvz matchup lately. i did not feel like going over these because it is general knowledge | ||
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Qikz
United Kingdom12022 Posts
On September 07 2019 07:38 onlystar wrote: obviously results did not apply to flash my friend.. he says he improved even after kespa days and knows more about the game timings/builds/theory etc.mini is now seen as the best pvzer a the moment yes you can compare these and you can say that players improved its a fact. snow developed even in the pvz matchup lately. i did not feel like going over these because it is general knowledge That's partially because everyones mechanics have gone down the same amount so Snow doing better in PvZ is not only because his PvZ before was absolutely awful so the only way was up, but the top zergs are not doing as mechanically well in ZvP. | ||
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onlystar
United States971 Posts
so that statement is false by default what zero is stating is a half-truth it certainly does not apply to everyone if zero would speak for himself his mechanics have declined, he is no longer as dominant as before even IF the rest of the playing field also are mechanically less gifted these days. there are so many things to factor in here even the non-rational things like how we experience scr versus kespa days whe we where 10~15years younger with a completely different emotion like seeing the kespa days as the pinnacle of scbw is very common i would not fully disagree with this but its also blurring our vision like one poster here stated that every reaction was faster and more crisp in kespa era. (on TV proleague etc i can completely understand how one would get this sentiment when its being hyped casted by Koreans during a proleague final.) That is heavily up for debate this the different experience when being 10~15 years younger childhood days versus being an adult and the giant spectacle that proleague/osl/msl was this will easily over-romanticize ones point of view about the good old days . | ||
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Highgamer
1407 Posts
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onlystar
United States971 Posts
On September 07 2019 08:39 Highgamer wrote: Yet I bet today's Larva would kick B-teamer-Larva's ass to the moon. exactly | ||
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onlystar
United States971 Posts
On September 07 2019 07:31 KobraKay wrote: Wait what? Flash was "God" against a deeper opponent pool, how are is results better now? Snow was a newcomer on CJ A team and was employed as a PvT sniper, a matchup in which he excelled ever since the b-team days. His practice was probably focused on that. You cannot compare his overall performance back then to what it is now due to that fact alone. Im not even going to touch on the others as there is no point. Regardless of your perceived notion of strategy being more important or giving current players an advantage, please watch some 2009/2010 games and LR threads of people celebrating Flash being behind due to a BO or to an amazing rush in the beginning and then watch him win on sheer sense and mechanics alone. Having a cute BO for a new map is like having a sniper back in the days come up with something creative. Those were not guaranteed wins (even by mechanically better players). Flash today would put up a fight based on his strategic depth but he would probably be the only one. And even then, im not sure if some A team randon player would not win based on sheer numbers and macro crushing moves alone. Even with a gigantic bias towards Flash starsense and hability to read and react on the fly I still firmly believe that. Additionally, top pro's were not robots. They had coaches to help with builds but most of them would think about builds and would know how to prepare a build (watch the Old Boy show with Nal_Ra, Stats came up with builds, ForGG is given a quick run down of a potential build to theorize about and decide if applicable even if it was a P build, he is also said to be able to establish and creat timing attacks for everything, etc, thats not a robot). oh btw the flash claim is 100% false so there are countless of games where flash takes econ damage from rvr or being behind in tvp vs the likes of best who went for 12nexus cross-spots when going vult opening (you can not pressure cross-spots with marine/vult the protoss is ahead at this point) and he has to move heaven an earth to get even and eventually win in the late game.) all playing mechancily better than his opponent not by following up with a cheesey dropship/vult harass. to pull this of versus best macro-god in protoss is impressive. you can find vods on flashs youtube. | ||
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Qikz
United Kingdom12022 Posts
On September 07 2019 08:39 Highgamer wrote: Yet I bet today's Larva would kick B-teamer-Larva's ass to the moon. I mean that isn't very fair to this argument, because Larva when he was a bteamer was good, but he wasn't as good as he was now. I think this argument from Larva only really affects A and S tier players of the past. | ||
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N.geNuity
United States5112 Posts
Lets put it this way-- say you magically transported the 2011 hite/cj entus teamhouse (effort, horang2, hydra, leta, skyhigh, snow, rush, bbyong) and gave them a month to play on the maps with their teamhouse resources and have access to last season of asl/ksl vods. Assume they'd think the asl/ksl had the prestige or aura of OSL or MSL and kept morale for a month. I'd think they would dominate spon matches and any bo3/bo5 except versus flash/bisu The gap would be like the gap between air force ace and the rest of the kespa teams. Air force ace wins here and there but everyone knows they wont keep up or make deep runs in individual league Motivation plays a huge role though too. The korean team houses burned everyone out whereas now streamers make their money streaming but...the houses would win in straight starcraft skill | ||
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iFU.pauline
France1554 Posts
Keep in mind pgm would train same map and mu for days. You don't see any streamers doing that today. What kind of super secret deep knowledge of the game you can have to overcome someone that has a better macro micro multitask, decision making and played the maps twice as more as you did? As zero said, all strategies existed back in the day, so where is the game changer that can't be easily dealt by old time pgm? | ||
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SuGo
United States681 Posts
But here's some food for thought: if the current era pros played the 30+ of back in the day, then would they actually be better? It's hard to compare because you've already got 1 sample size playing admittedly much less, yet, are still clearly very competitive in comparison. So for playing 10+ games less, are the current pros really that behind? Sounds to me like the current pros actually have more raw skill/potential, if that makes sense. In terms of absolute skill, sure, the older era is better because of their clear dedication to practice. For total raw skill, I'll say that today's players are better in terms of potential and if they matched the rigor of the older era. Though, of course, this is a big "if" ... probably why Zero didn't really step into this type of discussion because it's a bit too hypothetical. | ||
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Jealous
10141 Posts
On September 09 2019 21:44 SuGo wrote: I really just think the key difference is the concept of them taking it more seriously back then. They consider 20 games "a ton" in today's era. 10+ games is a massive difference. They just played more back then. But here's some food for thought: if the current era pros played the 30+ of back in the day, then would they actually be better? It's hard to compare because you've already got 1 sample size playing admittedly much less, yet, are still clearly very competitive in comparison. So for playing 10+ games less, are the current pros really that behind? Sounds to me like the current pros actually have more raw skill/potential, if that makes sense. In terms of absolute skill, sure, the older era is better because of their clear dedication to practice. For total raw skill, I'll say that today's players are better in terms of potential and if they matched the rigor of the older era. Though, of course, this is a big "if" ... probably why Zero didn't really step into this type of discussion because it's a bit too hypothetical. Since most of the players are the same players that were around during KeSPA era but almost 10 years older, I don't think one can argue that they have more "potential" than they did 10 years ago. | ||
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SuGo
United States681 Posts
On September 09 2019 23:10 Jealous wrote: Since most of the players are the same players that were around during KeSPA era but almost 10 years older, I don't think one can argue that they have more "potential" than they did 10 years ago. What I'm saying is, even today with a much lesser degree of practice, they're still very competitive. It's not like back then they were Gods and now they're mere mortals. They're still "Gods" today, too. My point is - even with much less dedication, they're still in the same playing field. It's because they retained most of this skill / new meta / whatever else. It's not like Zero today is 10x worse than he was 10 years ago, maybe he's 0.2x worse (marginally worse; using some arbitrary numbers as an example here). More or less, he's maintained himself while playing less but leveraging his raw skills to continue his domination. You couple this with the same dedication of the past, and they very likely could pass their former selves. This is why I say in the current era they have more potential and a higher raw skill threshold. Once again, a lot of this turns into hypothetical and "what-if" scenarios. | ||
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Jealous
10141 Posts
On September 09 2019 23:40 SuGo wrote: What I'm saying is, even today with a much lesser degree of practice, they're still very competitive. It's not like back then they were Gods and now they're mere mortals. They're still "Gods" today, too. My point is - even with much less dedication, they're still in the same playing field. It's because they retained most of this skill / new meta / whatever else. It's not like Zero today is 10x worse than he was 10 years ago, maybe he's 0.2x worse (marginally worse; using some arbitrary numbers as an example here). More or less, he's maintained himself while playing less but leveraging his raw skills to continue his domination. You couple this with the same dedication of the past, and they very likely could pass their former selves. This is why I say in the current era they have more potential and a higher raw skill threshold. Once again, a lot of this turns into hypothetical and "what-if" scenarios. Ah, okay, I thought you meant that they had more potential to be even greater than they did when they were younger and in teamhouses. So, like, if in the team houses they were "x" and had potential to be 1.3x, but now they have potential to be 1.5x. | ||
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SuGo
United States681 Posts
On September 09 2019 23:51 Jealous wrote: Ah, okay, I thought you meant that they had more potential to be even greater than they did when they were younger and in teamhouses. So, like, if in the team houses they were "x" and had potential to be 1.3x, but now they have potential to be 1.5x. Exactly. If they were "2x" back in 2008 and in 2019, they're 1.8x (so marginally worse). But in 2023, if they worked just as hard as they did in 2008, they might be able to become 2.2x instead (so marginally better). The potential is there, but the dedication isn't there to unlock it. So I don't necessarily feel they're worse, it's just a matter of the circumstance and their own life choice. | ||
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Jealous
10141 Posts
On September 10 2019 00:56 SuGo wrote: Exactly. If they were "2x" back in 2008 and in 2019, they're 1.8x (so marginally worse). But in 2023, if they worked just as hard as they did in 2008, they might be able to become 2.2x instead. The potential is there. I really don't think so - first of all, the motivation is not there. Second of all, the support is not there (coaching, teamhouse practice partner structure, ajumma cleaning and cooking for you, etc.). Third of all, as ZerO said, they are simply older - as we get older, reaction times get slower, life priorities shift, etc. Overall, this has become very much a consumer market in the sense that streamers' #1 priority is attracting daily viewers and donations. While winning tournaments does that, for every player that doesn't have a chance at winning one, it makes more sense to go the crowd-pleasing route a la Britney. So, the pyramid that was present in KeSPA era (practice partners, B-teamers, A-teamers, S class players, with each group trying to advance to the next level) is simply not there for most streamers IMO. | ||
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SuGo
United States681 Posts
On September 10 2019 01:00 Jealous wrote: I really don't think so - first of all, the motivation is not there. Second of all, the support is not there (coaching, teamhouse practice partner structure, ajumma cleaning and cooking for you, etc.). Third of all, as ZerO said, they are simply older - as we get older, reaction times get slower, life priorities shift, etc. Overall, this has become very much a consumer market in the sense that streamers' #1 priority is attracting daily viewers and donations. While winning tournaments does that, for every player that doesn't have a chance at winning one, it makes more sense to go the crowd-pleasing route a la Britney. So, the pyramid that was present in KeSPA era (practice partners, B-teamers, A-teamers, S class players, with each group trying to advance to the next level) is simply not there for most streamers IMO. Yes, but still the fact remains, they're not really that much worse off compared to their 2008-selves. You really think that if they had the same motivation and dedication, they couldn't surpass their old selves even slightly? With far less dedication, they're still 'right there' - that is the very premise of my argument/thought here. | ||
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r33k
Italy3402 Posts
On September 10 2019 01:08 SuGo wrote: Yes, but still the fact remains, they're not really that much worse off compared to their 2008-selves. You really think that if they had the same motivation and dedication, they couldn't surpass their old selves even slightly? With far less dedication, they're still 'right there' - that is the very premise of my argument/thought here. The effects of coaching are incredibly important, and most KeSPA era progamers practiced for PL and not SLs, whereas the way people practice now is much more freeform and far less targeted. Living in a practice environment also meant that they were living eating and breathing Starcraft, take any game or sport and you'll find how big the effects of mental coaching and mental practice are. | ||
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Ideas
United States8096 Posts
The team house system created the best players ever, but it was pretty bad for the well-being of most players in it. | ||
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Miragee
8505 Posts
On September 10 2019 05:04 Ideas wrote: One positive thing about the current scene I want to point out though is the seemingly less stressful/healthier conditions for players. Yeah 30+ games a day will give you incredibly strong mechanics, but it destroys your body. Almost every player today seems to still suffer from periodic wrist issues from their time as pros. Not to mention that back in the old days only A-teamers would get paid "reasonably", but most players (B-teamers and practice partners) on the team made little to nothing despite working full-time on the team. The team house system created the best players ever, but it was pretty bad for the well-being of most players in it. This is actually true for almost any sport at the highest level: It destroys your body. | ||
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LaStScan
Korea (South)1289 Posts
NOW = busy watching other streamers, everyone has their time schedule to play starcraft, lonely doing ladder games. Try military comparison of active vs inactive. inactive ones may still decent enough(like workout a lot still), but not at their peak level + used to modern easy, comfort life. Probably even the weapons/rifles are better and easier to use. Which can be compared to like "new 111" vs "old 111 from iloveoov game @sin chupungryeong". | ||
BigFan
TLADT24920 Posts
From another perspective, it feels like the current knowledge, builds, game theory etc... are just on another level and that those should give someone a big advantage. I saw someone talk about moving pros from the past to the present with the current game knowledge and that they would win. That's a given, however I believe the argument would be: if you had present day Flash vs 2009 Flash, who would win? That's a much rougher argument because while you can argue that mechanically, 2009 Flash would be ahead (I honestly don't think Flash's mechanics have gotten that much worse), present day Flash could also potentially beat him just due to the game knowledge. You can't have the best of both worlds after all because the KeSPA era ended back in 2012. It's been over 7 years since the last PL and OSL has been played. Just think about that for a second. The game itself has changed quite a bit so trying to erase the last couple of years (if you ignore 2013-2015) doesn't seem right when you make this comparison. Also, as someone mentioned, motivation and life goals is extremely different right now and the motivation is probably a huge factor. Here's an example: One of the stories I heard was that back during ASL5, Mind's main donator was unhappy with his results or whatever and I guess they threatened to stop donating so Mind started taking ASL5 seriously. In all the years that I've watched Mind play the game in the post-KeSPA, I have never ever seen his game look so good. He may have lost to hero 2-3, but his reaction, macro (he seems to lack this later in the game for some reason lol) etc... were the best I've seen in years. Other part of it is that as mentioned, these guys can choose to play 30 games, but having to consider their life goals and rely on streaming, it'll be smarter to just do team games, play some sponmatches, talk to other pros on stream or tell stories to retain viewers etc... then to go all in on practicing. Another example: During KSL1, Last finally decided that he wanted to win something lol. Great news for Last fans! As folks remember, he shut off his stream for most of that month and lost streaming income, especially when his gf was opening up a macroon shop and he needed the money. He ended up making a fantastic run to win that season. I think he did something similar for ASL7, but could be misremembering there. Either way, I think team houses and more games made for mechanically stronger players, but there's an argument to be had about how well a 2009 player would fare against a current expros. Someone even wrote that a random A-teamer would beat Flash nowadays... Seriously guys lol. | ||
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Jealous
10141 Posts
On September 11 2019 13:32 BigFan wrote: Someone even wrote that a random A-teamer would beat Flash nowadays... Seriously guys lol. To be 100% fair, no player is perfect and no one wins every game. Looking at the last couple dozen of matches that FlaSh played in the KeSPA era, he dropped games to Reality, Shine, Horang2, and Dear. Perhaps not the most "random" of A-teamers but certainly not TBLS level and not aces for their teams IIRC, and he was still losing. So, making the the assertion that a random A-teamer from late KeSPA could beat current Flash is not that farfetched. | ||
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onlystar
United States971 Posts
On September 11 2019 14:50 Jealous wrote: To be 100% fair, no player is perfect and no one wins every game. Looking at the last couple dozen of matches that FlaSh played in the KeSPA era, he dropped games to Reality, Shine, Horang2, and Dear. Perhaps not the most "random" of A-teamers but certainly not TBLS level and not aces for their teams IIRC, and he was still losing. So, making the the assertion that a random A-teamer from late KeSPA could beat current Flash is not that farfetched. L O L this post geezus what happend here jealous ?? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25137 Posts
On September 10 2019 05:04 Ideas wrote: One positive thing about the current scene I want to point out though is the seemingly less stressful/healthier conditions for players. Yeah 30+ games a day will give you incredibly strong mechanics, but it destroys your body. Almost every player today seems to still suffer from periodic wrist issues from their time as pros. Not to mention that back in the old days only A-teamers would get paid "reasonably", but most players (B-teamers and practice partners) on the team made little to nothing despite working full-time on the team. The team house system created the best players ever, but it was pretty bad for the well-being of most players in it. Most snippets I’ve read about team houses, they seemed quite ad hoc and inefficient as environments. Which makes sense I suppose because this pro gaming thing was a new thing being explored. I think the more interesting prospect to consider alongside the team house to current era, is not if playing full time in a house makes you somewhat better at the game, but could the level in the Kespa era have been even higher than it was with more optimal practice? I can’t really think of a comparable activity to Starcraft exactly, but neither can I think of many where world class exponents practice 10 hours a day either. Regular sports that’s usually too fatiguing to be worth it, concert musicians don’t have an opponent and that reactive element to their art, they’re practicing and reproducing something more static. Perhaps there’s a cultural lens to be applied here as well, to my sensibilities and I imagine many others, grinding 10 hours a day in that environment would just kill my love of Starcraft and ultimately I’d end up burning out. Plus I can’t see, from my perspective over here where I’m from people being as tolerant of some of the hierarchy and rigidity. Moving forward and looking at eSports more generally, Brood War does seem to jut out as an exception where you basically need to be in a full time team house just to be competitive in a purely mechanical sense, never mind strategically. That said, it was the only eSport really of the TV era, things were quite closed off both with teams keeping stuff in-house and the infrastructure of the era in terms of internet speed and platforms meant streams weren’t a factor for years. Contrasted with SC2 where I don’t even have to actively play and can still improve just by watching the top players stream and making notes both mental or physically written down, not just on builds but on their hotkeys and base mechanics. I wonder what BW’s level would have been at play wise if we hypothetically mashed together the rigid practice of the Kespa era with more of the openness and access to information we have in the streaming era. They’re different games of course, some SC2 players ended up performing better when playing more independently, many needed the team environment. Perhaps some in BW may have prospered in something more fluid and pushed on from being B teamers? | ||
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
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