EPTAgreed.
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Share Your Thoughts on Determining Skill - Page 2
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KizZBG
u gotta skate8152 Posts
Agreed. | ||
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tomatriedes
New Zealand5356 Posts
True and I don't think boxer's all-that either. | ||
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LastlinG
Poland26 Posts
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niteReloaded
Croatia5282 Posts
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SainT
Chile1067 Posts
![[image loading]](http://www.pgchallenge.com/images/Starcraft/2006-7-3/image_12816.jpg) A normal sAviOr | ||
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ilovezil
United States4143 Posts
TL's got a fair share of intelligent minds, it seems. | ||
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red.venom
United States4651 Posts
And many less experienced spectators tend to be just won over by seeing a player show a dominating performance or do something they haven't seen before. This I would call like "showmanship value" or something. Just the ability to impress a crowd. And I'll use Boxer as an example of how I would judge skill somewhat objectively. To me Boxer is someone who I don't think ever won a TvP or TvT final and the classic Coca-Cola OSL vs Yellow that he won was on what I would go as far as saying are the most imbalanced maps ever used and if they had been used at this point in time half of them would be unplayable for Yellow with the other 2 being in Boxer's favor. His style was always based on creative and smart openings but he never showed the best skill in terms of long games or being able to effectively come up with strategies that could still be playable if they didn't work out for him in the early game. But he has amazing control and a lot of luck early on his career, you could say he really was a step above in terms of coming up with those special strategies or using Terran abilities to abuse maps. But for every top player ive seen Boxer dominate he has lost poorly to some no name P or Z in a qualifier or showmatch somewhere.. And although in the last couple years he changed up his style quite a bit to fit the new maps and managed to show great results I wouldn't feel comfortable saying he is the best player of all time. I'm left with conflicted feelings on him. If his career wasn't so long it would be easy to go "Oh well he is a really good Terran with a nice style in all match ups." He would be like UpMagic or something, a player who comes up with all-in or counter openings and gets on a roll using them. So im left unable to effectively rank Boxer because I don't even feel like BW is particularly suited for that type of analysis. Any of the top players could be near the top on a given day is how I feel about it. | ||
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Knickknack
United States1187 Posts
I tend to think of the most skilled player as the one that plays the closest to the optimal. It is as simple as that. Well...almost, continue reading. Regarding optimal play, the problem is that optimal play overall depends on what your opponent is doing, and you don't always know what your opponent is doing. So its not always clear cut that one player is playing better then another player in a particular case. Instead we must make do with the notion that they are playing the way that is likely to work best based on how the game works, what their think their opponent will do, etc. Some of this information and judgment may be wrong of course. Like I typed above, its not quite that simple. Consider exceptions. As red.venom pointed out some the the craziest creative players, e.g., boxer, nal_ra, also can come out as the most foolish at times. Does this mean they have less skill? I would say it does not quite indicate that, but rather that they are willing to try new things and take risks. It depends on their reasoning why they thing something whether it works for their worth or against it. In ethics there are few largely agreed upon axioms, but one of these is that one is not responsible if they could not have done otherwise. I suggest something similar for bw. If a player makes a good decision based on all available reasoning but it does not work out due to risky play by another (for instance), this should not count against their worth. These are basically situations in which the other player lucks out. Of course, in the end, its pretty much impossible to realize when this criteria of playing optimally is met. We can only give reasons toward this end and come to an approximation. I suspect this question of who is better then who meets the same fate as the question of pvz imbalance. People are seeking generality where only particularity is truly appropriate for adequately explaining reality. In some situation joe nobody may play better then reach, but reach will tend to play better overall. Now, I think, I have finally some to an agreeable general principle for myself about skill which is rooted in reality. The most skillful player is the one that tends to know how to play better then the others, and actually does if they wanted to. This qualifier "tends" allows one to go from the particular to the general without problem. This would also be the player who would perform best overall on all potential situations. Note that I have ignored the question of nerves. Too bad for them, but it reduces how well they play, and thus has an effect on skill. I have also ignored the question of talent or practice. Again, too bad. If you want to get into the even more difficult project of judging skill relatively be my guest. Edit- oh and I've also ignored how to determine a players worth, which was the main question I suppose. Haji covered some things. Having a good understanding of the game or particular situation and watching a lot of games of player(s) are some of the most important. If its not clear from my post however, I don't bother witch such an endeavor. Such a thing is either indicated quickly or comes to mind after much experience...or it doesn't, in which case I don't have adequate reasons to back up such a judgment. | ||
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Born)Slippy
Norway1904 Posts
Consider, if you have ever played CS. You're in a clutch situation with red HP, two opponents, and you gotta storm a bomb site with the bomb just planted. In my heyday I was pretty damn good at the game and on the servers I was playing on I would invade that bomb site with confidence and my chances of survival would increase tenfold (to 50% maybe, where most players would simply die trying). Playing against unknown opponents you believe are better than you, or having people watching for whom I felt I had something to prove, would make everything different - causing that little spasm in your hand that makes you miss the all-important headshot. Psychology. Savior vs Nada. Psychology. Bisu vs Savior. Psychology. All in the same skill neighborhood. One had to win. Boxer vs Yellow in a certain bunker rush series - psychology deluxe. As has been pointed out, it very often boils down to a mind game therefore rendering objective skill judgements useless in most cases. I think we can safely assume that most of the upper echelon of BW progaming are very close in pretty much any BW-related skill - so close that the amateur player would have problems spotting the individual differences. While in some specific cases you would have a relatively wide difference (such as Boxer vs Zergman), in most it's about unquantifiable factors such as psychology, luck or excellent decision making. | ||
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Brutalisk
794 Posts
Of course, if a player is so bad that you can see it literally, e.g. because he builds the wrong stuff all the time, or because he has *horrible* macro or micro, then it's easy to tell. But, on a scale from newbie<intermediate<average<good<gosu, there is a certain threshold, I think somewhere in the "good" region, where you can't really tell anymore how skilled a player is. Then, you have to rely on statistics. The Korean pros sometimes lose in practice games vs. much lesser known/successful players, yet they have the better overall stats and better determination and most often reach their goals, where the others do not. The higher the skill level, the more psychology matters, or form. But this doesn't mean that they are all truly 100% alike skill-wise. You just can't tell it for certain, and I bet even they can't tell it fo sure. So it comes down to personal preference, which style you like the most. But if you try to be objective, you can only rely on statistics to tell who is currently better than the other, although this may change in the future. We've seen many old stars fall (like Boxer or Reach). Did they "lose" their skill? Surely not. They even should have *better* chances because they have much more experience. If you ask me, they just "burned out", they know they have reached much so their will power isn't as strong as the new players' who really want to win something no matter what. It's all determination, and the same might happen to the current stars like Savior. | ||
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Born)Slippy
Norway1904 Posts
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CharlieMurphy
United States22895 Posts
Wtf are you talking about ? all the progamers look like nerdy homos. either that or they just look averagely plain looking. | ||
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Knickknack
United States1187 Posts
Bisu attacked at 7:50 with 12g/1rs/1z. Ra had 9g/1r/2z at this point. Now, attacking at 7:50 with 12g/1rs/1z is pretty good. I know bisu has a damn efficient build that he probably planned out carefully. My b.o. for a good 1gate zcorez robo range build has 10g/1rs/2z at 7:30min on 8patch main map, thats before travel distance. There were a number of micro/control mistakes Ra made. One goon was roaming around in his base when he was attacked. His zeals were behind his goons and did not do much good. Killed shuttle which did no good. Etc. But, what I'm more concerned with is his build. So, I ran a practice example of a zcorez 6:00 expo build myself on 8patch normal lt (Ra expoed at around 5:50). At 7:50 I had 11g/1r/5z, with the latest two goons popping out 5sec before. The difference in unit numbers is due to build efficiency. Ra went for range and robo off of one gate, while I went for them them after two (which would have worked perfectly fine this game). Also, he went for a battery, which I typically would not suggest. Probably did some other things as well, but thats the best I can point out without the replay. The point is that this shows me Ra is farther from the optimal than bisu is in micro as well as build. DJ typed, "Bisu happened to pick better builds" as If he did not have solid reasons behind the build. He also types, "You can argue that those choices are a form of skill, but that's a pretty hollow argument when neither player was able to conclusively scout the other." I don't quite agree with that. Using his terms, bisu picked a better build. If this is based on good reasons, then it did not just happen, then I would consider it as a skillful choice. Which I'm rather sure it was, being familiar with bisu's play having watched over 50 of his games. And thus, lastly, "Bisu just had a good day." I would disagree with the fact that Bisu just had a good day, as if he did not earn it. So, Nony is correct in that in that Ra did not play well enough to give his build orders the credit they deserve because of those micro mistakes. I'll go one further saying that he also did not give the kind of build he went for the credit it deserves either, due to build efficiency reasons I have pointed out in this post. Not so difficult, and I think dj would agree at this point. | ||
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miniStar
Finland143 Posts
On March 08 2007 19:55 Knickknack wrote: I tend to think of the most skilled player as the one that plays the closest the the optimal. Its as simple as that. I have a similar theory about optimal play in SC. Offcouse we cant define that kind of play to a complex rts game, so I borrowed ideas from 2-player board games regarding optimal strategies and winners. I was thinking about PvZ matchup/imbalance (if there is one) and came up with the idea that tosses lose too much because they play less optimal.  | ||
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