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I think most of the strategy and innovation has been pretty well established, and so I agree that fundamental mechanics are the most important aspect of the game. I actually just recognized this recently.
My TvZ is my strongest matchup, and my TvP is by far my weakest, and I always just thought there was something innate about the MU's that was the reason. Then I started thinking about why my tvz was so much better, and I realized its because I break the game into discrete segments (which makes it a whole lot easier to digest and execute to).
For example, vs 3 hatch muta I play pretty much like artosis' example in the op - 1 rax into expo, acad, ebay, 3 rax, and then Phase 1 if you will is complete. Then I step back and say "What is the zerg doing now...is he expanding / massing mutas / transitioning to lurk / quick hive?" and I try to make the appropriate response (push & try to take out his expo / vessel up and wait for irra / pump tanks and move out / vessel out of 2x port). This would be Phase 2, and so on until the game is over.
On the other hand, when I played TvP i would always be uncomfortable because I was worrying about all of the nasty things the toss could do to me and trying to prepare for them all, rather than analyzing a smaller subset of decisions and acting accordingly like I would in tvz. Once I had that epiphany, I feel like I'd finally gotten over the wall that held me back and I feel like I'm improving again.
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I think broodwar is insanely similar to chess, although my peak chess rating (in blitz) was much higher then any ladder rank.
My concept and analogy deserves a F E amount of structure and editing to articulate it clearly which I hope to one day but.....
Chess as a sport (some still don't like that term for it, same with E sport) has evolved from a game of very plodding and hodge podge play (basicly any time before about 1500 except) but still very inteligent in most respects to the game philidor, one of the first players considered a chess 'genius' he understood a few of the underlying positional concepts of chess and combined them with his natural powers of memory/rote utilzation and spatial reasoning and a new age was started.
Now the game after the 1550's-1600's was taking a different turn, players were understanding the goals of different openings and their drawbacks and true styles were being formed.
This heighted level of positional understanding (still below even a uscf masters understanding) by the premiere players in the world allowed them to make better use of static and dynamic positional atributes.... which ushered in the romantic age 1700-1890 , which was the most rip raw all out balls out age that chess has known. Many brilliant players emerged during this time, openings like the KGA(kings gambit excepted), danish gambit and the scandianvian along with the greco piano and the bishops opening(evans gambit)..... out of this age the greatest genius was of course Paul morphy (or Boxer.)
Paul like boxer wasn't the first great player or even one of them, he was just the most unique in his creative and calculated aggression and imagination, some of his mate in 5's will puzzle a decent player even to this day. Similarly boxer played on the back of already formulated basics added imagination to the strategy and precision beyond comprehension to his micro (for the time) and created magic, or genius.
As all ages do the romantic age ended, and the age of positional understanding began with willhem stienz (SP) penning the first book on positional chess and going as far as to define the definate characteristics of positional chess and how to make use of them. And chess changed.
Chess continued to undergo many different movements until you have what you have today.
Chess and starcraft are identical except that there historys are much different and the intelect to play the games is.... dramatically different, but the evolution is the same.
Modern chess grandmasters know thousands of opening moves and positions and endgame techniques ect ect that the previous masters never had, the same is true with our S class pro gamers. The techniques to study chess are fully advanced and mastered, as with starcraft.
Now the game of starcraft requires a huge knowledge base and talent along with intensive practice to even maintain a top 15-20 spot for the worlds elite.
The top 10 or 15 chess players in the world are no different. Without constant practice and studying and insane amounts of talent none of them would keep there spot once reaching it.
I could compare them on many deeper levels in a much greater chronological order but the point in looking back and comparing them is this, it is a question to ask yourself.
Does it ruin the game that the Great Masters(whom none of us will ever be in chess or bw) know more or less every bit of availiable knowledge about every aspect of the game(s) and that they are working on openings 15-30 moves deep (in both games) before the game even starts.....
Mastery of Bw is the reason I came back after so many years.
Master of Chess is the reason I come back every few years.
I will never be in that top group that I admire, I just enjoy playing on my level and trying to get to the next one and then observing and being able to aptly appreciate what the Great Masters are doing.
I don't miss the strategy of the 1850's, I loved the brilliance of kasparov\karpov more then any other....
I don't miss the strategy from 2001-2003, I love the games of jaedong/flash.
I still love watching chess games from 1850 even thou even I can see alot of mistakes.
I still enjoy watching vods/replays of older epic games.
Mechanics made starcraft amazing.
Opening Preperation made chess both a science and an art.
I love you guys.
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Great posts, AttackZerg, ilikestarcraft, Hot_Bid, Artosis (and others). This is turning out to be a great thread.
I recently picked up the book "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin, who was first a world-class chess player then a world-class martial artist. I haven't read it yet but I bet it'll be relevant. T_T
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I recall hearing sentiments by a few chess grandmasters that it's all becoming a giant game of memory. The entire course of a top level game is mapped out until turn 25 or so, when the new "innovation" comes in. Up until that point anything other than the strongest few moves will be punished straight away, because it's all been analyzed to death.
Perhaps another analogy with chess is that it's always been said that games between international masters are more exciting than grandmaster games, because many more positional sacrifices and such are made. Grandmasters see everything coming in advance so they never leave room for such tactics for the other player, and nothing "tricky" ever happens.
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Wonders, great post!
Yes many of the main lines go such way, but there are many 'hyper modern' openings that still give way to fresh play and unless a grandmaster draw is saught innovations lead to alot of wild complications.
International masters are like B team players or the very top forigners. If you watched the qaulifers or the msl and osl I think you'd agree those games were more interesting them almost any league games we've seen in maybe 2-3 sessons!
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this reminds me of a documentary that was done on xellos on national geographic. they ran some test and proved that what artosis is saying is correct. Progamers don't play with their minds, they know they memorized with their minds AND their muscles. They have such high apm because they don't need to think of what to do that will slow them down. They just do it. Foreigners do play with their minds and are doing thinking up the right "tactics" and strategies, but this thinking slows them down. Their apm might just be as high, but not for the same reasons. actions are actions good or bad. Progamers just use their apm so efficiently. So in the sense of mass gaming of the same game and knowing the standard play extremely well, that kind of mechanics is very important at the progaming level.
the mechanics you see in foreigners are not the same
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i played A LOT of koreans (iccup) and i always thought i was owned on mechanics even when i did smarter strategy /builds. Koreans are really "school book" players and really rarely creative. Thats why i don t have a lot of fun when i play against them.
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A RTS should obviously be about both mechanics and strategy. If one part of it becomes obsolete with increasing skill level, then the game needs to be "re-balanced". This thread shows that SC1 lost strategy. Even if you like mechanics more, you should be able to see that this is a bad thing.
Smart players are constantly getting owned by the fast ones, the "Pimpest Plays" series got increasingly boring over time, and stuff like that should show that mechanics should not be everything, but just part of the whole.
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Calgary25979 Posts
On September 15 2008 20:15 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
A RTS should obviously be about both mechanics and strategy. If one part of it becomes obsolete with increasing skill level, then the game needs to be "re-balanced". This thread shows that SC1 lost strategy. Even if you like mechanics more, you should be able to see that this is a bad thing.
Smart players are constantly getting owned by the fast ones, the "Pimpest Plays" series got increasingly boring over time, and stuff like that should show that mechanics should not be everything, but just part of the whole.
No. As a game moves towards being solved, mechanics become more important. There's going to be ideal builds, if you try to avoid it you end up with War3 where there are ideal builds and mechanics don't matter as much because you've tried to shift the game away from the inevitable.
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The posts that only state an irrelavant and or redundent "this is whats wrong with bw" can just quote eri from page one.
Actually this whole way of practicing is required to become and maintain the highest levels because of the incredible strategic depth. Without clear and concise thinking/planning generals would lose wars in the most pathetic fashions.
The artistry is in the tactics/micro.
The top few players in the world conduct battle so much better then the rest its rediculous.
And micro has always been a huge part of bw strategy, much as it still is today.
Boxer,Jaedong, july,flash,luxury,bisu garmito, don't just think of good strategys, they develop their strategys too their strengths
Is jaedongs muta micro intensive games any different then boxers mnm micro games?.....
Both are an example of stellar mechanics.
Is boxers legendary dropship micro different or cooler then bisus insane sair/dt - sair/reaver micro?
Oh and about 'pimpest plays' there are at least 2-3 replays on this site alone that are better then some of the pimpest plays that have been put forward..... pimpest plays was very micro based in the begining also .......
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The reason BW is amazing to observe is because we know what it takes to pull of the stuff they do. We know how hard it is to produce from a massive amount of barrackses, factories, gateways, while being in a battle, we know how hard it is to perfectly clone irradiates in a short time, we know how hard it is to micro those mutalisks good while spending cash, and we know how difficult it is to perfectly mudang storm 4-5 storms at once. We know the hours of practice required to do this and that's why we admire them.
Those reasons is why it's E-Sport - because it does take fast hands to pull of the stuff you see, and it does require much practice to get fast hands. If anyone could get the same skill with equal amount of practice it wouldnt be a "sport" or a "competition one would devote job-like time to".
Remember if E-Sport is going to grow - the practice-element has to be there or else noone would bother being progamers because they could easily compete with less practice which wouldnt exactly make the progaming scene grow.
Also, people are underestimating the role mechanics played back in the day. The reason Slayer and Boxer were amazing back then wasnt solely because they "outsmarted" their opponents. Obviously they also had excellent handspeed which gave them an adventage. They werent going high econ builds, but that changed later thanks to more economybased maps and refined BOs(read:iloveoov(pioneered FE TvZ/TvP), rA(pioneered FE PvZ) savior(introduced 3 hatch muta macro style ZvT)
And to the poster who said pimpest plays being increasingly boring; Do you think any random chump could have executed what Boxer did in 2001/2 when he lockdowned all those BCs, or blinded all those observers ? Or the insane multitask Nada showed when he was dropping(and controlling) with 4 different dropships at 4 different bases at once against a zerg ? Or H.O.T cloninig 90 scourges on different 10 different BCs ? Reachs maelstroms vs Chojja ? Or Bisus inyourface gateways vs Pokju@Peaks ? Were these such a amazing strategies ? Or were they simply possible because the players who did them had the ability to execute what they were trying to do flawlessly ? Micro like this is were the handspeed is the most required. Anyone can learn to cycle through their production facilities and reinforce their troops without much precision. Godly micro and multitask = Handspeed I tell you, and it's stuff like the previous mentioned moves that are impressing, because its visible and can easily be grasped for the casual viewer.
The amount of games decided by mechanics as opposed to strategy has continously risen since 1998, and thats probably why the game has lasted this long. I think that when SC2 comes mechanics will become more evident in this age of time as the players are now more aware of the physical dexterity needed to compete. In addition to that every experienced competitive gamers handspeed having increased through playing competitive online games, for example SC1, throughout the years - meaning young players dont automatically get an adventage through superior handspeed and reflexes.
To put it simple: For the game to be interesting to watch over a longer period of time, the matches has to be decided by a greater portion of mechanics than strategy.
A growing E-Sport with strong focus on mechanics or just another strategy game for the casual player, I guess thats the question then.
Ive read many of these posts, and agree mostly with Hot_Bid eventhough he always pulls the basketball analogy in discussions like this 
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If you play something long enough Strategy becomes Mechanic. From then on it's just having the better Mechanics.
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On September 15 2008 16:20 TeNken.1 wrote:
I think most of the strategy and innovation has been pretty well established, and so I agree that fundamental mechanics are the most important aspect of the game. I actually just recognized this recently.
My TvZ is my strongest matchup, and my TvP is by far my weakest, and I always just thought there was something innate about the MU's that was the reason. Then I started thinking about why my tvz was so much better, and I realized its because I break the game into discrete segments (which makes it a whole lot easier to digest and execute to).
For example, vs 3 hatch muta I play pretty much like artosis' example in the op - 1 rax into expo, acad, ebay, 3 rax, and then Phase 1 if you will is complete. Then I step back and say "What is the zerg doing now...is he expanding / massing mutas / transitioning to lurk / quick hive?" and I try to make the appropriate response (push & try to take out his expo / vessel up and wait for irra / pump tanks and move out / vessel out of 2x port). This would be Phase 2, and so on until the game is over.
On the other hand, when I played TvP i would always be uncomfortable because I was worrying about all of the nasty things the toss could do to me and trying to prepare for them all, rather than analyzing a smaller subset of decisions and acting accordingly like I would in tvz. Once I had that epiphany, I feel like I'd finally gotten over the wall that held me back and I feel like I'm improving again.
I think this is why my tvp isnt on the level as my tvz
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On September 15 2008 13:16 surfed wrote:
@onepost:
just a friendly debate man, it really wasn't "blown out of proportions" ~ nothing was insulting in my post..
Now if you would reply to my "argument" it would great. : ) I just wanted to know what was going through your head
I'll PM you, as to not further derail the thread.
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On September 15 2008 21:28 Guybrush wrote:
And to the poster who said pimpest plays being increasingly boring; Do you think any random chump could have executed what Boxer did in 2001/2 when he lockdowned all those BCs, or blinded all those observers ? Or the insane multitask Nada showed when he was dropping(and controlling) with 4 different dropships at 4 different bases at once against a zerg ? Or H.O.T cloninig 90 scourges on different 10 different BCs ? Reachs maelstroms vs Chojja ? Or Bisus inyourface gateways vs Pokju@Peaks ? Were these such a amazing strategies ?
Actually, more than half of these you mentioned were amazing strategies. It shows that strategy and innovation matter as much as mechanics. Thank you for arguing my point. 
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@Guybrush:
What you're forgetting though is that SC became hugely popular in a time where mechanics weren't yet as important (1998-2001). In Korea, it exploded and became so mainstream that it became a real e-sports. In the rest of the world though, it did not really. WC3 is also still more successful world-wide (doesn't really matter if most people play DotA or whatever; most people play UMS, BGH or FMP in SC too).
There was also news about SC declining in Korea (or at least not growing anymore).
This could very well be related to the fact that it's 95% mechanics that matter these days. Not style anymore, not experience, not cleverness. Just speed/multitasking while following standard build orders.
Of course this can't go on forever like this. It's boring when almost every game is the same basically.
In order to again become the once great StarCraft that it was, the strategy aspect must be increased, the game must be redesigned with the current huge mechanical skill level many players have in mind. Players should be rewarded for being very fast of course, but they should just as well be rewarded when adapting well to their opponent or playing well strategically and tactically -- and this can ONLY be accomplished when there is no such thing as one build order which is superior to every other build order -- because this completely eliminates strategy (what good is trying to pull something off when you KNOW beforehand that it's inferior to standard play?) and forces every player to compete in mechanics alone.
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Calgary25979 Posts
What are you talking about? New "standard" build orders get invented like every 3 months.
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On September 16 2008 00:13 Chill wrote:
What are you talking about? New "standard" build orders get invented like every 3 months.
Then you should read the first post again... :p
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This is why I love players like  Chalrenge. He has shown numerous times that it's ENTIRELY POSSIBLE to throw S class progamers off their game with early game builds which forces his opponent to think consciously. He inspire me to always keep on trying different types of builds to make the game more interesting. And yes, his mechanics sucks balls in comparison with a lot of the people he beat.
For example: Chalrenge vs Free on Blue Storm. Chalrenge executes a cannon/gate rush with both buildings to block the entrance so nothing can get out. Free doesn't know how to respond at all and tries to tech to 2 gate goons which could be the most stupid approach ever against this type of build.
Chalrenge vs Bisu on Katrina SE. Also a good example. Everyone makes an early nex after 2gate in PvP on this map. Bisu must have played against it a thousand times. But even though he knew something was up, he couldn't counter the allin because his confidence and experience against this type of build was lacking.
This doesn't prove Artosis post entirely wrong (or actually, I agree with most of the post, but I don't agree with the people saying that BW is becoming a dull game with only mechanical play), because in a lot of cases better 'mechanics' wins the game, yet I'd say there's still a very long way before progamers become fully bulletproof against different kind of openings and strategies. Truth is, even though you say that you can practise a build and learn to defend against different types of openings and allins - you don't improve against cannonrush if your opponent goes 14 nex. Obviously.
Do you understand where I'm going with this?
Straight-up macro builds will become more and more common but there is a point where people forget (or rather - are rusty at) how to counter strange builds again. And this goes for progamers too.
I think it has already begun to happen to a certain degree. For instance, 1 base PvZ openings has become popular again, even at progamer level. 6 pool / 4 pool is used a lot, maybe even more than before. I don't think that the game will ever evolve to the point where standard mechanics win every single game even in progaming.
I believe that the game is still very interesting and challenging to play, even if I do not aim to 'perfect' my basics as much as many koreans do.
The interesting thing is that when I tried the Chalrenge-Blue Storm build a lot on ICCup - when it was new and unused - I surprisingly came to the conclusion that overall better players (mainly top foreigners and B koreans) were often worse at countering it than your random C level newbie.
You could argue that korean's way of practising is better, but the thing is, that method doesn't work if you only have a couple of hours a week to practise. Let me elaborate: Imagine you're learning glossary. The korean method is to read them, write them, read them, write them until you know them perfectly. This is very intensive and time consuming and requires you to do it the same day, if you tried to just read them once a day you wouldn't learn much at all. The foreigner method is to give the words connections to be able to memorize them, so that if we look at the paper we start to think about the connection to the word to be able to write it down. This isn't time consuming at all, it only requires you to think actively.
Obviously there are memory factors and different learning methods for different people which separates the skill level but this is generally speaking.
Artosis, you are suggesting us to either read the glossary once a day, or to have as much time on our hands as the progamers.
There's a reason why foreigner method works for foreigners and korean method works for korean.
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Flash 4 port happened a few days ago BEER...
its completely amazing to do that against zerg...
starcraft is still awesome to watch, no one complains about that, if it werent it should be already dead when oov revolutioned
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EPT
