EPT
Competitive Gaming Article by Day[9] - Page 7
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adrenaLinG
Canada676 Posts
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Endymion
United States3701 Posts
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josephk
France1 Post
Anyway thanks for the nice read and looking forward as usual to your excellent casting  | ||
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MrTortoise
1388 Posts
Nash equilibra is about stability, marginal advantage is about constantly pushing a dynamic situation ... eg by getting through lights on amber by not being a sunday driver .... gets a marginal advantage that many say is insignificant yet get me into work on time ;p there is also the problem of omniscience in the nash equilibrium. they both meet, but there is a lot of unknown data in sc2 ... maybe you can argue differently for bw as its been around for a long time. really what this is is a description of game that consists of many different games but moves that can take effct in many of those games. you get marginal advantage by prioritising some games over others. so by playing a move you effect some of the games but not others, the assumption is that you are always making good moves and thereby are always keeping the idea of equilibrium as Nash stated it, however you can focus on some games over others and so bias yourself one way or another ... these small adjustments in where to put the effort are what marginal advantage is. It almost made it to the top of hacker news the other day which was kinda cool to see. | ||
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mothergoose729
United States666 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Chargelot
2275 Posts
On August 16 2011 09:52 Losacio wrote: "There is no best race, no best strategy, and certainly no best way to win." BRB 1/1/1 vs 99.9% of protoss just sayin. I would argue that this is indeed a "best strategy" in almost any given situation against virtually all builds protoss has at their disposal at this point. btw I was a bronze protoss for a while but I just got promoted to silver 2 weeks ago and have experience with the game. 1/1/1 isn't the best. Protoss just aren't sure how to handle it. Not trolling. For any given strategy, there is an effective way to beat it. There is no strategy which is so much better than all possible strategies, known and unknown, proven and unproven, likely and unlikely, that it can not be beat. | ||
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Soleron
United Kingdom1324 Posts
For any given strategy, there is an effective way to beat it. There is no strategy which is so much better than all possible strategies, known and unknown, proven and unproven, likely and unlikely, that it can not be beat. In a game that is closed to balanced, yes. But imagine that marines cost 1 mineral and no supply. The best strategy would be to only make marines, no exceptions. I'm not saying 1/1/1 is imbalanced either, just that there can exist universally optimal strategies in badly designed games and 1/1/1 has the potential to be one if we see no metagame movement in a year+. | ||
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
One of the major factors is that a weaker player will almost never be able to beat a stronger one. This happens quite often in SC2, and almost never in BW. Using my own experience playing in the CSL in BW, as a B- level player, I won almost 100% of my CSL games (average skill level in the CSL was probably C- / C). Looking at the top foreigners in tournaments, the same X people (Ret, IdrA, Draco, IefNaij, Mondragon, White-Ra) at the end of the game would be Top 3 in some order almost EVERY single time. In SC2 you have much more variability. Could be because the game is young and hasn't developed fully yet, or it could be a real flaw in the game.... I happen to think it's the latter. | ||
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Lebic
Switzerland4 Posts
Extremely well written. I like how your theory fits for all kind of games. | ||
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TigerKarl
1757 Posts
On October 06 2011 03:35 Xeris wrote: The funny thing is that if you take this article as an authority (which I agree with it fully), it shows that SC2 is not as strong a competitive game as BW, for example. One of the major factors is that a weaker player will almost never be able to beat a stronger one. This happens quite often in SC2, and almost never in BW. Using my own experience playing in the CSL in BW, as a B- level player, I won almost 100% of my CSL games (average skill level in the CSL was probably C- / C). Looking at the top foreigners in tournaments, the same X people (Ret, IdrA, Draco, IefNaij, Mondragon, White-Ra) at the end of the game would be Top 3 in some order almost EVERY single time. In SC2 you have much more variability. Could be because the game is young and hasn't developed fully yet, or it could be a real flaw in the game.... I happen to think it's the latter. I think you're right and SC2 has flaws in game design. But i don't think we should be pessimistic. With such excellent articles and the voice of top players the community has the ability to influence Blizzard into making a much better game with upcoming patches, but more so by removing and adding units with the expansions. | ||
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DuncanIdaho
United States465 Posts
PS-TY to Hacker Monthly for the necro, else I'd never have noticed this. | ||
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HorussTv
Mexico34 Posts
Good read Mr Sean Plott | ||
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cristo1122
Australia505 Posts
On October 06 2011 03:35 Xeris wrote: The funny thing is that if you take this article as an authority (which I agree with it fully), it shows that SC2 is not as strong a competitive game as BW, for example. One of the major factors is that a weaker player will almost never be able to beat a stronger one. This happens quite often in SC2, and almost never in BW. Using my own experience playing in the CSL in BW, as a B- level player, I won almost 100% of my CSL games (average skill level in the CSL was probably C- / C). Looking at the top foreigners in tournaments, the same X people (Ret, IdrA, Draco, IefNaij, Mondragon, White-Ra) at the end of the game would be Top 3 in some order almost EVERY single time. In SC2 you have much more variability. Could be because the game is young and hasn't developed fully yet, or it could be a real flaw in the game.... I happen to think it's the latter. i think that these sort of comparisions are actually useless a better comparison would be to look at the tournament results or multiplayer results for the time that starcraft vanilla was out as the game in itself had a number of issues both in design as well as in balance WOL is the same there are design flaws and imbalances when it was released and a good number of balance changes have been made since release as well as a massivee change in the map pool. In any case once legacy of the void is released and there can be no more design changes then we can have accurate and valid discussion about the game and how a player gets and maintains an advantage. This is not to say that having discussions about how to preserve or seek an advantage shouldnt be done but they must be taken with a big bucket of salt when comparing them against or games, tests, scenarios that are either complete or are only meant to test games that are finished. | ||
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Geniuss
Sweden2 Posts
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DeviousAlpha
United Kingdom8 Posts
I will say one thing though, in a game as complex as Starcraft playing the minimal advantage strategy is very, VERY hard. Allow me to elaborate. The minimal advantage strategy is only the best strategy if a few truths hold. 1. The game must be balanced. (I don't claim SC, or SC2 are balanced, or unbalanced. I'm not good enough to say.) 2. The players must have very, very good intuition and foresight of how a move will play out. 2. The players must have flawless execution. Explaining: 1. This is obvious, if the game isn't balanced/fair you cannot opt to use a minimal advantage strategy. 2. If you can't see near perfectly how a move will play out then you cannot predict who will take the advantage. Pretty straightforward. 3. The players must have flawless execution. - Here is where it gets messy. Firstly, the theory is absolutely sound, winning no matter how close it was, is winning. But, a minimal advantage strategy makes for a longer game, naturally. It naturally leans toward a defensive follow up posture to gaining any lead. The longer a game is, the more chance you get of firstly making your own mistakes and throwing away the lead/game. And secondly, being presented with something you were either unprepared for, or have not seen before. As such you need to be flawless, because a minimal advantage is the easiest advantage to lose by mistakes in execution. Not micro-ing those 3 stalkers, overextending your marines/tanks, forgetting to inject. Any small mistake, or accumulation of very small mistakes will forfeit your minimal advantage. As such, in some cases (no one is perfect and no one can maintain perfection throughout a series) it is actually the better choice to go for the win big strategy. Especially if you think your opponent can't counter it quick enough. | ||
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Proflo
United States148 Posts
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Alakaslam
United States17336 Posts
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iiNK[3]
Australia2 Posts
I am a huge fan day[9] and your incites are just wonderful to listen to and read about, keep it up | ||
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Your_Pidgin
United States5 Posts
Again excelent article and love the daily. It taught me a lot and helped me back in season 2! | ||
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