|
What if Brood War pro’s switch to LoL instead of SC2?
Note - I'd recommend watching Storm vs CLG. That game inspired this post. The VOD is available free at ognlol.com.
Foreword
I’d like to start this post by making it 100% clear that this is pure speculation based on my interpretation of the current state of esports in Korea. This is not meant to start a flame war, I just want to get some views from TL’s posters who play both LoL and SC2 and also find this topic interesting.
According to recent data, LoL has become the most played game in PC Bangs in Korea, even overtaking the immensely popular and also FTP Aion; in comparison, SC2 is barely played, not even ranking in the top 10 played games. SC2 earnings pale in comparison to that of BW pro’s, and its widely accepted that even exceptionally talented Code S/A/B SC2 players struggle to earn a decent wage. With the announcement that Proleague is going to introduce SC2 in the next season, and rumours that many A team BW pros are considering switching to SC2 (FXOBoss has spoken about this on several occasions), I think it’s safe to assume (for the purpose of the discussion at least) that at some point in the next year, BW pros are going to either switch to SC2 or do something else entirely. Yellow and Fruitdealer have already switched; although they aren’t playing the game, they are coaching Xenics Storm and the Startale LoL team respectively.
What if they switch to BW?
After watching Xenics Storm (Yellows team) vs CLG, I started wondering what would happen to LoL’s competitive scene if BW pros (and even SC2 pros) decided that switching to LoL would be more profitable in the long run. It’s fairly clear that LoL is becoming a huge game in Korea (and elsewhere) for a variety of reasons, so if BW pros can’t see a sustainable future in SC2, or simply don’t want to play the game, do you think we could realistically see an influx of BW B teamers (and possibly A teamers) into the LoL scene? Considering these players have played probably the most mechanically demanding e-sport at a professional level, I believe that with good coaching they could become an insane force in the LoL scene. Obviously there are a number of things this depends on; I think OGNLoL is an important test of the appetite for pro LoL amongst Korean consumers, and overall LoL prize money is still quite a lot smaller than SC2; but if OGN’s LoL tournament is successful, we could theoretically see a massive increase in the number of televised, high prize money tournaments for League of Legends. Couple this with the fact that IPL and IEM are pushing the LoL brand extremely hard (We all saw the IEM LoL stream break 120K compared to SC2’s 40-50k), and you can really see the appeal for Starcraft players to consider switching.
Why wouldn’t it happen?
The most obvious point is that LoL is a completely different game to BW and SC2; LoL’s mechanical skill ceiling is comparatively low, with decision making and team work playing a 95% role in the outcome of most games (pure speculation here, I pulled that number out of thin air to illustrate a point but I’m sure you understand what I’m getting at). Where as BW pro’s can switch to SC2, import over their mechanical skill and become high level player in a short period of time (forgg for example), learning LoL at a professional level would take quite a large amount of time before they could become competitive. We’ve already seen what happens when an SC2 ‘pro’ tries to play LoL in Destiny, who actually has a lower ELO than most of the LoL players on Teamliquid, including myself; maybe the skill set just doesn’t translate well at all.
Would it be good for the scene?
In my opinion, yes. Time and time again, Korean pro gamers have proven that if you want a games strategy’s to be pushed forward, and the overall skill level to be raised, they are the ones to do it. Higher level play (in my opinion) can only be a good thing, and it would really encourage me to watch more tournaments.
Teamliquid’s opinions
So guys, what do you think? Do you think it’s possible? As I said at the start of this post, this is PURE speculation. I had a think and decided I’d make a post because I’m genuinely interested in what the TL community think of this. Thanks for reading.
Disclaimer
I have posted this in the LoL sub-form for a reason. I do not want to start a flame war. I do not care if you think LoL is easy, or a bad e-sport, and no one else here does either. This is a discussion about whether BW pro’s may consider a switch if the climate is right, and what effects this would have the competitive scene.
|
It would mean that Locodoco would be out of a job. And as TL, we are locodoco fanbois. Therefore, we don't want to BW pros to switch to LoL. And we don't want locodoco to end up on the streets because he didn't go to college. STAY IN SCHOOL KIDS!!!! BW PROS always ruin your chances of going pro. Look at SCII and BW. Oh wait, I don't need to tell TL this.
|
Stork said in an OGN Interview Special that he'd rather switch to LoL than SC2 so there's that. At the end of the day, progamers need to eat and pay rent. So they'll logically move to what gives them a more secure future. What that might be, who knows. It might be LoL, it may be a regular job, it may be something else all together.
I'll write more after a night of sleep. So tired~
EDIT: Wow Numbers, so emo lol
|
LoL isn't the same as SC2... work ethic works in both places but the BW skill barely translates into LoL skill... its a lot different in gameplay (compared to say WC3 to SC2 even).
If they join LoL, great. If they don't, that makes a lot of sense.
|
On March 30 2012 12:34 Chiharu Harukaze wrote:
Stork said in an OGN Interview Special that he'd rather switch to LoL than SC2 so there's that. At the end of the day, progamers need to eat and pay rent. So they'll logically move to what gives them a more secure future. What that might be, who knows. It might be LoL, it may be a regular job, it may be something else all together.
I'll write more after a night of sleep. So tired~
EDIT: Wow Numbers, so emo lol
Thanks for the response, this is the kind of thing I was looking for. Do you have a link to the interview? When you've slept of course! I'd be really interested to see it.
Cerise - Yes, I did note that. I think it would be fairly hard to gauge whether a Starcraft pro could have an impact on the LoL scene before one of them actually did it. That being said, BW obviously still requires a huge amount of high level decision making, so they might not be as different as they seem.
|
On March 30 2012 12:35 Trowa127 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2012 12:34 Chiharu Harukaze wrote:
Stork said in an OGN Interview Special that he'd rather switch to LoL than SC2 so there's that. At the end of the day, progamers need to eat and pay rent. So they'll logically move to what gives them a more secure future. What that might be, who knows. It might be LoL, it may be a regular job, it may be something else all together.
I'll write more after a night of sleep. So tired~
EDIT: Wow Numbers, so emo lol Thanks for the response, this is the kind of thing I was looking for. Do you have a link to the interview? When you've slept of course! I'd be really interested to see it.
Even better, several people on TL subbed the OGN episode! Can't remember the exact time when he said it though. But it's worth watching the whole thing anyway if you like Stork, hehe.
|
The real question is, why would they switch to LoL, when they could switch to Dota II. Obv the more popular and better MOBA. Dota II takes more skill and has a huger fanbase throughout the world. Korean ip is banned from the Dota II beta because they want to give the rest of the world a fair head start before the koreans dominate the scene.
+ Show Spoiler +trolololol in case people didn't get it.
|
Even if the skills needed are completly different and don't translate from one game to the other, i think bw pros would dominate the scene anyways. The work ethic they bring, the ability to non stop practice diligently will make them stomp curent top level teams with "questionable" work methods (ie: all of them lol).
|
On March 30 2012 12:40 SagaZ wrote:
Even if the skills needed are completly different and don't translate from one game to the other, i think bw pros would dominate the scene anyways. The work ethic they bring, the ability to non stop practice diligently will make them stomp curent top level teams with "questionable" work methods (ie: all of them lol).
good point, 100% agree.
but i dont think it will happen, bw/sc2 pros are playing solo, dont wanna play in a team^^
|
Don't know why people are bringing up that interview so frequently. As a Korean, the statement was very likely a joke.
|
On March 30 2012 12:45 Trowa127 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2012 12:42 Acer1791 wrote:On March 30 2012 12:40 SagaZ wrote:
Even if the skills needed are completly different and don't translate from one game to the other, i think bw pros would dominate the scene anyways. The work ethic they bring, the ability to non stop practice diligently will make them stomp curent top level teams with "questionable" work methods (ie: all of them lol). good point, 100% agree. but i dont think it will happen, bw/sc2 pros are playing solo, dont wanna play in a team^^ I'd also noticed this. I see a lot of LoL pro's streaming and just playing around in solo Q, trolling etc. Watching Storm beat CLG quite handily seemed to reinforce this point as well.
It's really hard to get 5 people who have lives and go to school in the U.S. to practice together. The funds needed for a teamhouse are really high, and not everyone can commit to a full time LoL scrimming life. Even those who do live in a team house have a hard time finding the motivation to play. The system for E-sports in the U.S. is not as established as in Korea. People in the U.S. don't even have coaches who will whip their lazy asses to play seriously.
|
On March 30 2012 12:40 SagaZ wrote:
Even if the skills needed are completly different and don't translate from one game to the other, i think bw pros would dominate the scene anyways. The work ethic they bring, the ability to non stop practice diligently will make them stomp curent top level teams with "questionable" work methods (ie: all of them lol).
I work pretty hard. 
In line with discussion, I think a good gamer will probably excel at a variety of games. I think that just the culture in Korea is really good to making some really good players with skills beyond just BW ones. They'd probably do pretty well.
|
On March 30 2012 12:42 Acer1791 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2012 12:40 SagaZ wrote:
Even if the skills needed are completly different and don't translate from one game to the other, i think bw pros would dominate the scene anyways. The work ethic they bring, the ability to non stop practice diligently will make them stomp curent top level teams with "questionable" work methods (ie: all of them lol). good point, 100% agree. but i dont think it will happen, bw/sc2 pros are playing solo, dont wanna play in a team^^
I'd also noticed this. I see a lot of LoL pro's streaming and just playing around in solo Q, trolling etc. Watching Storm beat CLG quite handily seemed to reinforce this point as well.
|
Why does my team always suck? AFK
-Jaedong
|
lol players will shit on sc2 players for atleast half an year and than it'll all depend on whos praticing the most efficiently and which team has the most talent and teamwork
|
Vancouver14381 Posts
On March 30 2012 17:11 cascades wrote:
Why does my team always suck? AFK
-Jaedong
![[image loading]](http://i39.tinypic.com/dey6id.jpg)
You mean this?
On March 30 2012 17:17 locodoco wrote:
lol players will shit on sc2 players for atleast half an year and than it'll all depend on whos praticing the most efficiently and which team has the most talent and teamwork
I agree with this. A BW --> LoL transition is nothing like The Elephant in the Room because there isn't a direct translation of skill learned from BW into skills for playing LoL (unlike SC2). They will lag behind at first until they practice enough that they're on par with the "veteran" players.
|
Flash would never be able to practice cause he'd be 3k elo with 12 hour q times.
But do remember that 2v2 actually was in the pro scene of BW for quite some time until they finally deemed 2v2 as imbalanced and got rid of it. 
I don't think all bw/sc2 pros would do well in LoL but some could transition well i'm sure. They have a good work ethic, know how to properly practice, and actually listen. I remember watching a few documentaries of korean BW gaming houses where the entire house were working together to improve one another as a team. So i actually see a team game like LoL working well for them.
|
Learing LoL would take them longer than learning SC2, because the skills needed are different.
No doubt some of them would be on the top again, though.
Especially if whole teams switch. If Stars started to play LoL, the current infrastructure with team-house, coach etc. would help greatly.
But that's not because of how skilled they are at BW or anything like that, it's just simple work ethics.
It's just kind of a long shot to guess who is gonna do well, after all, actual ingame teamwork is needed. Personally, I'd mesh a team from the old 2v2-ers and see what happens.
Flash might actually be a comlete Hotshot and just farm and never help team. Stork could crush mid in lane but fall apart in teamfights. The games are to different to be sure that BW top players -> LoL top players. If I was a BW pro, I'd stick to SC2, where I know I can crush those nerds.
|
I have 10000% faith if 5 S class BW players switched to LoL they would be the greatest team of all time, forever, until they switched.
Like honestly, imagine Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, Fantasy, Stork vs CLG white boys and fasians (fake asians, new slang just created it)
LOL.
|
I don't think that the skillsets are perfectly comparable...
They might have 300-400 APM but they couldn't utilize most of it. They could get every single lasthit but people get close to that anyway. Only a handful of the top BW players are actually strategic masterminds, many of the midtier and even semi-top tier pros are mostly mechanical and the strategy is very basic and nothing special.
This basically means that, in my opinion, if they were to switch and dominate it would mainly be because of their work ethic and knowledge on how to improve. (Not talking about Flash/JD and co. who are geniuses)
|
I'd be really interested to hear how these solo super stars would change when suddenly put into a team environment where the outcome of the match wouldn't depends solely on their 18 hour practiced solo mechanics.
How many would turn rager you see on every stream? :D
|
If i were a BW pro i would make the switch to LoL, because the game is more popular thus you can make more money from streaming( easy guarenteed money), also the game has more developer support, and i feel in the future they could switch to DOTA 3 or w/e is the new version more easily then counting on a SC3 not being bad when its the only game in its genre.
Skillwise I think they would all hit plat easy but if they could work effectivly in a teeam enviroment, and deal with it being a new game every other tuesday thats less clear.
|
I think what BW has to offer to the LoL scene are not players but the hard practice ethics and the general infrastructure for training. So if BW teams switch over, that will make a huge difference, because they will train better players.
The skill sets themselves at a high level are very different in my opinion. The intense micro skills will help, but without knowing all the abilities, their interactions and what damage to expect from whom, it's hard to make a good plan, no matter how well you can execute it.
|
so they switch from a game that needs 300-400 apm, extreme multitasking, ect. to a casual comic dota clone?
makes perfect sense.
€: all my friends are playing lol .. and i dont hate it at all .. but this wont get into my head
|
On March 30 2012 18:16 Shikyo wrote:
I don't think that the skillsets are perfectly comparable...
They might have 300-400 APM but they couldn't utilize most of it. They could get every single lasthit but people get close to that anyway. Only a handful of the top BW players are actually strategic masterminds, many of the midtier and even semi-top tier pros are mostly mechanical and the strategy is very basic and nothing special.
This basically means that, in my opinion, if they were to switch and dominate it would mainly be because of their work ethic and knowledge on how to improve. (Not talking about Flash/JD and co. who are geniuses)
You know absolutely nothing about pro brood war if you think the guys with 300-400 APM aren't fucking geniuses at starcraft and the basics in macro in micro. (I'm talking decision making, zerg worker production, t/p factory timing and expansion timing etc)
Saying "I was only D in BW because my apm was low" is like saying "I'm 1200 in LoL because my team is bad". It's just a denial of your actual skill. I think my mechanics in BW were actually quite good when I played a lot in iccup, at least relative to my skill, but I started playing late and mostly just copied build orders without true understanding of the what's behind them. My "strategy" was the broad strokes like unit comps and things more than real strategy which is a lot more subtle and based on timing and lots of small decisions piled together (a lot like LoL).
The bottom tier pros of BW switched to sc2 and dominated with less time to play. The reason is because they understand elements of the game fundementally and learn them very quickly. SC2 doesn't need that much "APM" but they did really well for a reason.
The reason their "strategy" is basic is because they haven't reached the level where they are making all these tiny decisions correctly with basic strategies, and much much harder with complicating and eccentric build orders.
There is a certain learning curve to LoL because of the amount of champions and basic concepts but coming from the average joe 1200 to 2200 is not going to be overly difficult for any progamer. You won't find progamers stuck in "elo hell"
|
On March 30 2012 18:20 daemir wrote:
I'd be really interested to hear how these solo super stars would change when suddenly put into a team environment where the outcome of the match wouldn't depends solely on their 18 hour practiced solo mechanics.
How many would turn rager you see on every stream? :D
Probably not one since when you rage, you can't improve.
|
Solo queue is a team environment, it's just you aren't expected to follow any decisions you feel bad in solo queue, so arguments don't erupt as often and people stick to what they think is best, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing.
|
On March 30 2012 18:30 IAMFAPMAN wrote:
so they switch from a game that needs 300-400 apm, extreme multitasking, ect. to a casual comic dota clone?
makes perfect sense.
€: all my friends are playing lol .. and i dont hate it at all .. but this wont get into my head
That has nothing to do with it. If they like playing the game and there is money involved why would they not switch over?
Like I don't really care, just as long as LoL continues to grow. And that BW stays alive as long as possible and if not, then I hope atleast the old BW pros who I loved to watch, get some where.
|
On March 30 2012 18:33 Slayer91 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2012 18:16 Shikyo wrote:
I don't think that the skillsets are perfectly comparable...
They might have 300-400 APM but they couldn't utilize most of it. They could get every single lasthit but people get close to that anyway. Only a handful of the top BW players are actually strategic masterminds, many of the midtier and even semi-top tier pros are mostly mechanical and the strategy is very basic and nothing special.
This basically means that, in my opinion, if they were to switch and dominate it would mainly be because of their work ethic and knowledge on how to improve. (Not talking about Flash/JD and co. who are geniuses) You know absolutely nothing about pro brood war if you think the guys with 300-400 APM aren't fucking geniuses at starcraft and the basics in macro in micro. (I'm talking decision making, zerg worker production, t/p factory timing and expansion timing etc) Saying "I was only D in BW because my apm was low" is like saying "I'm 1200 in LoL because my team is bad". It's just a denial of your actual skill. I think my mechanics in BW were actually quite good when I played a lot in iccup, at least relative to my skill, but I started playing late and mostly just copied build orders without true understanding of the what's behind them. My "strategy" was the broad strokes like unit comps and things more than real strategy which is a lot more subtle and based on timing and lots of small decisions piled together (a lot like LoL). The bottom tier pros of BW switched to sc2 and dominated with less time to play. The reason is because they understand elements of the game fundementally and learn them very quickly. SC2 doesn't need that much "APM" but they did really well for a reason. The reason their "strategy" is basic is because they haven't reached the level where they are making all these tiny decisions correctly with basic strategies, and much much harder with complicating and eccentric build orders. There is a certain learning curve to LoL because of the amount of champions and basic concepts but coming from the average joe 1200 to 2200 is not going to be overly difficult for any progamer. You won't find progamers stuck in "elo hell"
Well I was like C+ with 250+ APM but yeah, I think that the skill up to a certain point is mostly mechanical. I've followed pro brood war for years just for the record.
Even A-class players who appear in the proleague often and are considered very good still make poor strategic decisions all the time(Bad engagements, wrong unit compositions despite scouting the opponent, etc.). It's even been said that the korean way to practice brood war is very heavily mechanics-based, where they indeed grind their builds vs the opponent's builds and learn that way. That also is in my opinion clearly the most effective way to learn Brood War.
The ex-SCBW pros who are doing well in SC2 actually are mostly doing it mechanically. Obviously the game "requires" as much APM as you can possibly utilize. There's no cap in that game either, although I'd say that in Brood War it's more essential. APM doesn't equal mechanical skill, though, and they still couldn't utilize most of it in LoL.
For example IM_MVP is mostly a mechanical players. He has some timing attacks at times but those are pretty common builds that your average players could practice and are used just fine. He wins mostly with mechanics and with multitasking. His decisionmaking is decent but it's not spectacular, his selling point is mostly the mechanics. There's numerous players like that in SC2, however less so than in SCBW.
I don't ever recall saying that SCBW pros wouldn't do well in LoL so I really don't get your hostility?
|
Thing is "mechanics" is often thought of as something like playing a piano, where you execute things quickly and in order and suddenly you're a pro. Doesn't work like that, otherwise it would be easier to get pro. Fact is mechanics is also largely knowledge and decision making based.
I followed pro brood war for years also, did I know shit about pro brood war? Fuck no. Jaedong gets lots of units, oov gets lots of units, some people get less units? Why? Fuck knows. This guy is a "macro player" so he gets more units.
If you were C+ with 250 or whatever apm it actually points more to the fact that you don't have a very full understanding of the game. Of course there was this guy ("exalted" I think?) who had liek 400 apm and I beat him with infested terrans and my ZvT wasn't even that good at the time. So he was just spamming but didnt necessarily have "good macro" even if he kept his barracks pumping.
I'm not saying I had a good understanding the game either, all I remember is my brain actually worked out things when I was playing sc2 for the first time and I realized a bunch of shit about how economy works and it would have helped enourmously back in my BW days.
|
![[image loading]](http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/008/469/flash7template.jpg)
What do you mean, you only control one of those?
|
On March 30 2012 18:30 IAMFAPMAN wrote:
so they switch from a game that needs 300-400 apm, extreme multitasking, ect. to a casual comic dota clone?
makes perfect sense.
€: all my friends are playing lol .. and i dont hate it at all .. but this wont get into my head
Why would they not switch if the money was good and they enjoy it? Regardless of what people say about how easy LoL is, its still damn fun to play. If you can have a ton of fun, and earn money, why wouldn't they?
I agree with most of whats been said so far about the skill set from BW not really translating over to LoL, but as I mentioned we'd never be able to know for sure unless someone did it. I know I'm not a Korean BW pro, but if I was, considering the growth of LoL and the relatively lacklustre reception for SC2 in Korea, I think LoL would look like a pretty attractive option right now.
Thanks for humouring me guys. I just think its a potentially interesting concept.
|
On March 30 2012 19:33 Blurio wrote:What do you mean, you only control one of those?
I found one in that thread:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WSlDn.jpg)
He will singlehandedly beat an entire team!
|
Haha - I think the Flash meme could have a huge number of LoL variations...
|
Totally unreasonable, i guess many BW players already clench their teeth while playing sc2, now imagine what they would do playing LoL its the feeling when you spend 10 years on doing something and you transition into something that has close to 0 correlation, no. They can aswell switch into their Korean CS-clone, would make the same sense in the long run.
Switching to unrelated games doesnt necessirily mean transitioning skills, fatality playing CS was pretty mediocre, and he was helluva talented... Flash would suck at LoL for a long time and become good player after some time compared to Flash would be good SC2 player and become one of the best/best SC2 player in short time. Compare.
Hiya was pretty upset about his performance in SC2 without training, and he dropped the idea of switching after forgg beat him offracing zerg. Considering forgg was weaker at the point of the switch in BW and he beat Hiya WHILE offracing.
ill correct myself here, even if Flash was a perfect, ideal LoL player, his value would be to huge compared to buying 2 or 3 good players. The crux of team play is, no matter how good you are unless other players are top notch aswell.
|
LoL is nothing like BW at all. The skill-sets just don't equate. The only thing top BW pros have that is needed is a high work ethic.
BW is mechanical skill and muscle memory 100% - the decision making comes much later.
In LoL the decision making comes during the ban/pick page.
M5 didn't win IEM because they were quicker/faster/more practiced than the other teams; they won because their strategy was dam good. And unlike BW there's not enough mechanical skill in the game to allow a team to come back from a losing strategy.
If you face Jaedong in a game and you fluke the most ridiculous build order win ever... you'll still lose the game. He'll kill you with drone micro. In LoL games can be over before they start.
I would pit a old school team led bySlayers Boxer against ANY combination of recent OSL/MSL top4 players.
I reckon the Boxer team would win because he's a great leader and he has great strategic depth. That is more important in LoL than ridiculous multi-tasking.
|
I really doubt it'd make much difference. Greatly overemphasizing how much the ability of one game translates to another. Work ethic can get you reasonably good, but it doesn't make you competitive tier. It's like trying to go from one sport to another.
|
Honestly, LoL is more about strategy than mechanics. The mechanical ceiling is relatively low, but the strategic ceiling (encompassing pick orders, laning strategies, when to gank, when to teamfight, where to ward, etc) is pretty much unlimited.
BW guys tended to create a strategy and practice it till it was second nature. You can do that with playing certain champions, but every game is going to require you to iterate more than the average BW game, not to mention the fact that you're working with other people, who can be unpredictable despite how many times you've played with them.
|
Certainly, being able to perform under pressure and experience with the professional gaming scene helps a lot, though only a small fraction of mechanical skills needed for BW is transferable to LoL. However, I feel like the main issue is that if you already spent so much of your energy becoming professional level at BW, you'd at least be somewhat burnt out, so I wouldn't necessarily say they'd have an advantage.
|
a lot of silly responses here.
Yes, people like flash, jaedong, and bisu are great players. But a game like LoL is a lot different than RTS. Also RTS is a single player game, where there is no teamwork, and randomly throwing 5 amazing players on a team doesn't make it the best team.
|
its different game...
the only advantage bw progamer have is they can train systematically 12hours a day
|
The biggest difference between BW and LoL isn't mechanics or even strategy, it's teamwork. Operating as a team is a skill unto itself, requiring a lot of practice and (more importantly) the humility to put the team first. It's not something that StarCraft (either BW or SC2) requires. Even though StarCraft has teams each match is still 1v1, meaning there's no group coordination necessary.
Thus, the greatest hurdle for BW players transitioning to LoL would not be their mechanics or strategy, but their ability to function as part of a team rather than as an individual combatant. Really, that's the greatest hurdle period. Most players will never be truly good at LoL not because they can't hit platinum or have trouble understanding the late game, but because the necessity of relying upon and meshing with your team is anathema to most players.
|
They've been playing a video game professionally for years.
They live together with coaches and staffs.
They have a professional community behind them (teams,kespa, ogn etc...)
They would obviously be top tier after a couple month and probably dominate foreigners after that.
|
BW pros would destroy LoL, it would be good for the game and raise the standards a lot.
Dota was modded off an rts game, to those saying the skills don't transfer, i don't understand what you are talking about. LoL is like microing 1 unit in an rts. Some units in RTS games have activated abilities as well. Timing, positioning, learning what is efficient and applying it, stratting and counterstratting, these are all things BW pros are completely used to and are very good at.
LoL would be a cakewalk as far as executing decisions is concerned for a BW pro. As some have mentioned the difference would come in it being a teambased game, but I think BW pros care enough about winning that they would have no problems in a team environment all with the common goal of winning. There wouldn't be too many clashes and blatant refusal to execute calls mid game or anything like that.
One thing about esports is that a lot of people can watch top bw pros play, and realize they are doing something skillful, but they can't fully grasp just how skillful it is. It is hard to understand it unless you can perform at a pretty high level doing the same things yourself, so that you can truly relate to it.
I can tell you now, last hitting, being efficient with ability usage, generally efficient decision making, executing good timing in team fights, capitalizing on enemy weaknesses immediately, these are all things that BW players have been doing for years and years at a professional level, on a level that the top LoL teams right now can't even begin to touch yet.
The mechanical skills of bw transfer directly to mobas, mobas just require a lot less overall action.
As for the teamwork, a lot of team-based fps skills transfer over to the 5v5 mobas in that regard. Learning rotation routes, listening to calls, executing coordinated strats as a team, all of this is stuff you have to do in competitive team fps.
It sorta baffles me in LoL when you watch a "top" team and some of the team make a call, and the others are so slow to react on it, because they would rather kill 1 more wave of creeps or something. Then their team loses an objective cause of it.
This is why I am curious to watch this xenics storm team, because if yellow is really their coach, in any real way aside from just marketing and PR... he is going to beat fundamentals into them.
|
These threads are so full of WIN! the vampid BW fanbois are so amusing to read.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/X8OqU.png)
Someone please photoshop BW pro's heads on here.
If there is one crew i would send into space to save the world, it would be BW pros.
|
On March 31 2012 03:26 tpmraven wrote:These threads are so full of WIN! the vampid BW fanbois are so amusing to read. Someone please photoshop BW pro's heads on here.
Some of us are more fanbois of high skill-ceiling esports games... I find it disrespectful when people downplay what exactly BW pros are capable of.
|
LoL allows for older BW pros to remain competitive because it's mechanically less demanding game. BW pros start to fail at age 25+ (and many well before that) simply due to their hands aging to the thousands of hours spent gaming at 300+ apm. APM is not an issue at all in LoL, so as long as the BW pros carry over their ridiculous work ethics they will be a serious threat.
Yes it will take them some time to adapt, but they will dominate in a few months at most. Think about the trademarks of successful BW pros: 1) practice habits, 2) decision making, 3) strategy & execution, and 4) mechanics. Successful BW pros are defined by much than than mechanics alone. If translated to LoL, decision making is simply solid play and understanding of the game, and strategy/execution comes from coaching and preparation.
|
I would rather have them continue to play BW. The transition from BW to LoL wouldn't be good for them in the beggining as the skills wouldn't carry over very well
|
United States37500 Posts
Let's not go down a flame bait path. Keep it civil, folks.
|
One more thing - even the best LoL teams are extremely *bad* relative to the game's skill cap. It can be compared to BW ~2002-03. You see pros making tons of mistakes - lack of preparation and strategy in picks/bans, misplaying matchups in lane, not responding to calls (or making clearly bad calls), questionable item builds, etc etc.
Any top10 LoL team 6mo-1yr from now will completely destroy the competition today, simply because they will have routinely drilled fundamentals and decision making in order to stay competitive in a field with ever rising skill level.
A BW pro entering LoL today will be like a new BW B-teamer - practice mechanics 24/7 but have little to no understanding of actual strategy. But LoL is such a young game that entering today doesn't put you at a huge disadvantage; maybe 2-3mo at most with progamer practice hours and habits.
|
BW pros would destroy any game if they put their minds to it
|
On March 31 2012 04:05 Sandster wrote:
One more thing - even the best LoL teams are extremely *bad* relative to the game's skill cap. It can be compared to BW ~2002-03. You see pros making tons of mistakes - lack of preparation and strategy in picks/bans, misplaying matchups in lane, not responding to calls (or making clearly bad calls), questionable item builds, etc etc.
Any top10 LoL team 6mo-1yr from now will completely destroy the competition today, simply because they will have routinely drilled fundamentals and decision making in order to stay competitive in a field with ever rising skill level.
A BW pro entering LoL today will be like a new BW B-teamer - practice mechanics 24/7 but have little to no understanding of actual strategy. But LoL is such a young game that entering today doesn't put you at a huge disadvantage; maybe 2-3mo at most with progamer practice hours and habits.
Sometimes entering a game further along in its evolution is better than entering it early on, you can think outside of the box easier, sometimes the original competitors in a game get too stuck in their ways and can't keep up with the constant change. (Can't teach an old dog new tricks and such)
I remember a year ago, when everyone was all over CLG, I was talking about how poor their mechanics were, and how flawed some of their players were in how they played, and a lot of fanbois would argue "but they win tourneys, you can't push a game further to its limits than the team that is winning tourneys", then I went and played solo queue, and saw tons of players with better mechanics, more creativity and innovation, but they didn't care about playing a game for money. I think the way koreans approach games is with a very perfectionist mindset... They pay attention to who wins and loses, but beyond that they are constantly evaluating what they see from an objective view. They don't assume the winner did everything right, and they don't assume the loser did everything wrong. Following the BW scene for so long it was so easy to tell a year or two ago, just how far the pro teams still needed to come.
Then you had a team like m5 come along, with the proper work ethic, the proper individual skill, and the proper teamwork, and then you had teams start to up their game after playing m5, and now everyone is improving and getting much cleaner, and teams with weak individual players are getting exploited and defeated because of those players.
|
Yeah, but my point is that the shit CLG/TSM have been pulling since the game's inception will absolutely not be tolerated in Korea. You're a part of a team, with a proper coach. None of that melodramatic-solo-queue-24/7 crap. BW pros became pros because they understand this point, and are willing to work their butts off to train and get properly coached.
The problem right now is not many players in Korea have the experience to properly coach, but in a few months that will change.
|
Flash has enough APM to play all 5 positions at the same time, and he'd crush m5. 'nuff said.
|
On March 30 2012 18:16 Shikyo wrote:
I don't think that the skillsets are perfectly comparable...
They might have 300-400 APM but they couldn't utilize most of it. They could get every single lasthit but people get close to that anyway. Only a handful of the top BW players are actually strategic masterminds, many of the midtier and even semi-top tier pros are mostly mechanical and the strategy is very basic and nothing special.
This basically means that, in my opinion, if they were to switch and dominate it would mainly be because of their work ethic and knowledge on how to improve. (Not talking about Flash/JD and co. who are geniuses)
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here. At the professional level, BW pros all have good mechanics. If the game were based solely off mechanics, then you wouldn't see fairly low APM players rise to the top of the heap. BW pros only get to be well known if they bring something new to the table. Take savior for instance. His style of zvt was unprecedented and his APM was the lowest of any progamer there was.
BW players have to be strategic in order to be good because at that level, everyone has decent mechanics. It's the strategy that makes the difference in the game.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
