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On January 16 2013 05:21 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 05:14 xes wrote:On January 16 2013 04:50 onlywonderboy wrote:
Edit: Yango just said the exact opposite of what I did haha, I still think that criticizing a team for a bad result is still valid regardless of intent. The goal of the game is to win and if you do something that hurts that chance there is nothing wrong with someone commenting on that. Except most commentators (and most people watching the game too) have no idea how to properly analyze a decision that results in a bad outcome. You cannot judge a decision solely based on its outcome; it's like judging a risk by the result rather than the risk itself. There are plenty of cases where the correct decision leads to an unfavorable outcome. This is something I've brought up many times before when this discussion occurs. Commentators are overwhelmingly results oriented. Fanboys are guaranteedly results oriented. It takes someone who can think for a sec to analyze only the decision itself apart from the result.
Except as a caster you need to be able to analyze both, and you don't have forever to do it, either.
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United States15536 Posts
On January 16 2013 03:36 wei2coolman wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 03:22 AsmodeusXI wrote:On January 16 2013 03:14 WaveofShadow wrote:
Yeh I watched him and Categorist duo a bit yesterday; essentially his Draven has gotten pretty good, but he can play absolutely nothing else even close to that level currently.
On the subject of casters, while I do agree the ex-pros are the ones who will be giving the best analysis, that does not mean that those who study and learn just as much about the game despite not being able to play on that level can't do so.
(See MB/Neo/LoL subforum staff analysis)
None of these guys are pro players yet their post-game analysis and summaries are among the best around currently, and unrivaled.
I dunno bly, you and I definitely disagree on this point and probably will continue to do so. You make some valid points but I just don't agree that no one can commentate on high level play unless they themselves play at a high level.
(Note: I do not speak for my own casting and analysis ability, which is known to be shit.) I would hope that the prevailing sentiment should be instead "Don't commentate on high play unless you've done some serious thought about what's going on, and NEVER be an asshole about players regardless. Mistakes may LOOK really bad, but they're still way better than you." That makes the most sense to me. That sentiment is so far beyond off.... mistakes are mistakes, no matter who commentates on it.
For clarification, what I was saying was that those who should be commenting are those who are dedicating their time trying to understand what's going on seriously, spending lots of time thinking about it and attempting to figure out what goes on in the player's head. It shouldn't be off the cuff, only based off of one source (like one caster), or done without associated knowledge. Essentially, I was trying to outline the difference between someone like Jatt or Deman or even Soniv and Wave who can see something like a build they may not understand the idea of every time, but accept that the person playing it isn't a moron and try and figure out what the point was. That being said, they can still point out that it had an adverse effect on their game given the results. It's the difference between saying "Eve built a Catalyst, there must be some <benefit to the health/mana within the team comp, current gameplay, referencing other situations/champs/teams in similar scenarios>, but the lack of damage still hurt <here>." (to REALLY dilute a potential scenario) and "lolol Eve built Cata, wat a noob, lost game 4 team."
I really liked what Yango said in that there's a level of commentary that can apply to every level and the bestones don't have to be for the highest level of play, just for the audience. I also still think there's a way to understand decisions and styles without having necessarily played them all and/or at a pro level.
I also don't know whether or not this convo is simply played out yet. >_<
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On January 16 2013 05:15 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 05:07 sylverfyre wrote:On January 16 2013 05:02 zulu_nation8 wrote:On January 16 2013 04:56 sylverfyre wrote:On January 16 2013 04:45 zulu_nation8 wrote:On January 16 2013 04:36 sylverfyre wrote:On January 16 2013 04:31 zulu_nation8 wrote:
there's no such a thing as having a pro's understanding of the game without being pro. Understanding comes from experience. Jatt doesn't play anymore and Kobe was last seen trolling 1800s or something at season 2's end. Any respectable high elo player with significant 5s experience should know more than those two. You can't understand what the team/player is thinking without having been in a similar situation. But you can still look at a pro player's decision making and have a good idea of why they made those decisions, even if you don't have the understanding to know to make that decision beforehand. You do have to be able to pick up on the decisions and extrapolate the reasons quickly and with an acceptable degree of accuracy. During at least lane phase, the only role where decision making actually matters a bit is jungler. The ONLY people who understand a good jungler's thought process are the people on his team. From there on the understanding degrades by how well you know the specific player and how good you are. But you can look at the things the jungler is doing, compare them to other things you've seen pro junglers do in previous games, and figure out what they're planning, because you can see what they're doing. Yes, you can't read their mind, but you can understand that if blue-reliant is starting red instead of blue and getting a smiteless leash, his intention is likely to be smiteless red-> smite blue -> level 3 gank top, because we've seen it before. It's not "how good you are" but rather how much homework you've done watching top level play (or participating in it). I contest that good casters who aren't great players can put forth the effort and become just as good at it. except most decisions aren't as simple as which buff to start. By how good, I essentially mean how much experience someone has of playing in high level games, because the more experience, the more stuff someone has seen, and thus be able to interpret. Decision making is way too complicated to learn by watching. But to cast and analyze you don't need to be able to make the decisions, you just need to be able to interpret the decisions the players are making. You don't even necessarily be able to explain why but you do need to explain what the decision affects in the game. and i'm saying you won't know, unless it's obvious like, oh bot got 4 man ganked and died so they'll lose tower and probably dragon. There are a lot of little stuff that have a significant impact on the game that the commentators now don't realize, such as wards, jungle paths, considerations of counterganking, etc. If a jungler refuses to gank a certain lane because he's scared of getting counterganked, that decision will be the most important decision of the game for as long as that lane is affecting the game. Far more important than gold/items/build. But that piece of information is also hidden to most viewers and commentators, but easily understandable once pointed out. If the jungler gets counterganked, they will lose 2v2 because they are weaker 2v2, the winning team can they rush drag afterward and further snowball the game, etc.
And I'm saying you don't need to be Azubu to understand that taking top and bottom outer turrets before 10 minutes will end the game's laning phase early and make it very difficult for anyone to farm up safely. You don't need to be a pro player to say that it could be dangerous to gank a Rumble who is pushing lane but has his ulti up because of the potential of a countergank. But then the enemy jungler shows up at a ward at their bot lane, and you make that gank that, 30 seconds ago, you deemed to be too dangerous.
You don't need to be a pro player. You do need to practice on-the-fly analysis, in some way or another. Practicing by experiencing it is only one way of doing it.
My case is clear and I don't think we're going to come to any kind of agreement.
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United States37500 Posts
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United States23745 Posts
On January 16 2013 05:30 MoonBear wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 05:03 Kiett wrote:
rip jiji T__T you'll always be my favorite ;;;;;;; <3 I know right? The news broke my heart orz... Re Commentators: Valid points on both sides. I think though that one issue is the need for speed. Commentators don't have the luxury of time on their side because they need to keep up with everything that's going on now while worrying about what just happened. Even if you have someone perfect, there are going to be things they miss simply due to gameflow. Also, at major events commentating needs to not only be factual but also entertaining. After all, the entertainment factor is a important. If your commentary is too dense for the target audience, too much of it won't sink in and it will become boring to them, which can be a problem. I think the arrangement The International had in DotA was really great where you had the casters during the games and then the analytics/host desk in between game. It helps balance both sides and fill in where things were missing (entertainment/analysis). The LoL Weather Booth thing helps, but I think there's a lot more that can be done.
Yeah, I really enjoy the post game analysis. Not even just the board where they do the play-by-play, but also when they do get pros in like Scarra to talk about team comps ect.
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Go out, get yourself drunk, that way you'll shake your head for a whole other reason.  Or you won't shake it at all. Depends on the amount of alcohol I guess.
Who's LLL? That's the first time I see the name.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On January 16 2013 05:35 onlywonderboy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 05:30 MoonBear wrote:On January 16 2013 05:03 Kiett wrote:
rip jiji T__T you'll always be my favorite ;;;;;;; <3 I know right? The news broke my heart orz... Re Commentators: Valid points on both sides. I think though that one issue is the need for speed. Commentators don't have the luxury of time on their side because they need to keep up with everything that's going on now while worrying about what just happened. Even if you have someone perfect, there are going to be things they miss simply due to gameflow. Also, at major events commentating needs to not only be factual but also entertaining. After all, the entertainment factor is a important. If your commentary is too dense for the target audience, too much of it won't sink in and it will become boring to them, which can be a problem. I think the arrangement The International had in DotA was really great where you had the casters during the games and then the analytics/host desk in between game. It helps balance both sides and fill in where things were missing (entertainment/analysis). The LoL Weather Booth thing helps, but I think there's a lot more that can be done. Yeah, I really enjoy the post game analysis. Not even just the board where they do the play-by-play, but also when they do get pros in like Scarra to talk about team comps ect.
The split is also useful because you can immerse yourself is just enjoying the game while it happens (like suspension of disbelief when reading a good book, and being willing to overlook a few plot holes) and then after the game you have a good thought-provoking discussion looking back on it.
On January 16 2013 05:36 Alaric wrote:Go out, get yourself drunk, that way you'll shake your head for a whole other reason. Or you won't shake it at all. Depends on the amount of alcohol I guess. Who's LLL? That's the first time I see the name.
LowLand Lions. Teams from.. the Netherlands I think? They beat CLG before in S1 during a NA-EU cross-regional tournament and placed in some Go4LoLs but not much else.
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Sorry for being polemical but I miss the days of BW when theorycrafters were actually looked down upon.
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Discussion is good as long as its done in a good friendly manner. What you discussing isn't always as important as building a culture of open friendly discussion 
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On January 16 2013 05:38 Numy wrote:Discussion is good as long as its done in a good friendly manner. What you discussing isn't always as important as building a culture of open friendly discussion
Being called a noob by Neo broke my heart. é.è
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United States15536 Posts
On January 16 2013 05:40 Alaric wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 05:38 Numy wrote:Discussion is good as long as its done in a good friendly manner. What you discussing isn't always as important as building a culture of open friendly discussion Being called a noob by Neo broke my heart. é.è
Are we his nightmare... or is he ours?
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On January 16 2013 05:38 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Sorry for being polemical but I miss the days of BW when theorycrafters were actually looked down upon.
That's mostly because 80% of the good things that theorycrafters came up with in BW required 800 APM to pull off. And both games have bad theorycrafters in droves, that hasn't changed at all
(PD hecarim never forget)
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
On January 16 2013 05:28 onlywonderboy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 05:23 Scip wrote:On January 16 2013 05:16 onlywonderboy wrote:On January 16 2013 05:11 Scip wrote:On January 16 2013 05:07 sylverfyre wrote:On January 16 2013 05:02 zulu_nation8 wrote:On January 16 2013 04:56 sylverfyre wrote:On January 16 2013 04:45 zulu_nation8 wrote:On January 16 2013 04:36 sylverfyre wrote:On January 16 2013 04:31 zulu_nation8 wrote:
there's no such a thing as having a pro's understanding of the game without being pro. Understanding comes from experience. Jatt doesn't play anymore and Kobe was last seen trolling 1800s or something at season 2's end. Any respectable high elo player with significant 5s experience should know more than those two. You can't understand what the team/player is thinking without having been in a similar situation. But you can still look at a pro player's decision making and have a good idea of why they made those decisions, even if you don't have the understanding to know to make that decision beforehand. You do have to be able to pick up on the decisions and extrapolate the reasons quickly and with an acceptable degree of accuracy. During at least lane phase, the only role where decision making actually matters a bit is jungler. The ONLY people who understand a good jungler's thought process are the people on his team. From there on the understanding degrades by how well you know the specific player and how good you are. But you can look at the things the jungler is doing, compare them to other things you've seen pro junglers do in previous games, and figure out what they're planning, because you can see what they're doing. Yes, you can't read their mind, but you can understand that if blue-reliant is starting red instead of blue and getting a smiteless leash, his intention is likely to be smiteless red-> smite blue -> level 3 gank top, because we've seen it before. It's not "how good you are" but rather how much homework you've done watching top level play (or participating in it). I contest that good casters who aren't great players can put forth the effort and become just as good at it. except most decisions aren't as simple as which buff to start. By how good, I essentially mean how much experience someone has of playing in high level games, because the more experience, the more stuff someone has seen, and thus be able to interpret. Decision making is way too complicated to learn by watching. But to cast and analyze you don't need to be able to make the decisions, you just need to be able to interpret the decisions the players are making. You don't even necessarily be able to explain why but you do need to explain what the decision affects in the game. No, I would say you do need to be able to explain the "why" of decisions, why did the player gank here, why did he push, why didn't they do dragon etc. Without understanding the why you can never fully explain the opportunity cost nor can you make accurate predictions, because your ability to connect things together would be paralyzed by the lack of knowledge. I would say the ability to explain "whys" is one of the most core principles of analysis in commentating. Fair enough, I kind of see this side of the argument. I still think they can have more knowledge of the game than your Elo indicates though. I don't have the time to practice the mechanics (and I'm not naturally good at it) but I have a decent knowledge of the game from watching pro games and reading this forum. I don't play ranked, but I have a feeling I would be low Elo compared to the amount of game knowledge I have. You definitely can have more knowledge than your elo indicates, I mean we have examples of that in EUW LP right now (Equilash, previously Broken Watch etc.) But it is painfully difficult to extract that knowledge from different sources than your own experience. About the latter part of your statement, I don't mean to sound patronizing here, but I doubt that what you are saying is actually true. Mostly because of my own experience. Back when I played sc2, read forums 24/7 and watched 5+ hours of streams daily, I thought the exact same thing, because it seemed like the intuitive thing to think. And boy, was I wrong. I only realized that though once I went to play the ladder and got my ass handed to me by players who knew 10 times as much as I did, despite spending less time on the actual game (if you count reading+watching streams). The main reason why I adopted that illusion is because watching streams and reading posts leaves you wholly ignorant of the issues that you don't know about (d'oh) and there is no mechanism that would make you aware. See I don't count reading and watching streams as spending time with the game, which is why I was actually agree I would probably get my ass handed to me, that's part of the reason I don't play ranked. All I meant is I think I would have more game knowledge than the people around me in my probable shitty Elo, that's all. I don't think stream time + reading translates directly into in game skill.
The thing is though, game knowledge directly translates to game skill, given sufficient focus on the game. If reading and/or watching doesn't directly translate to game skill, it can not help with game knowledge either. For the record, I don't think that is true, but I think it provides a painfully incomplete knowledge.
That is because reading+watching doesn't provide any good practical ways to forsee consequences of different decisions in different environments, which is a quintessential part of game knowledge, alongside ability to explain decisions taken inside the game.
That's kind of straying from the caster discussion and more towards the realm of Dunning-Kruger which I think this is related to, but Neo seems to have killed the caster discussion anyway.
^^^^^ anyway MoonBear, dunno if you read it in one of the other threads, but if you ever need and/or could use help with an analysis, feel free to PM me, I am almost always ready for action. :3
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It's ok you can come crash at my place if you want,than you can shake your head in the evenings for a change.
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as related to the Zhonyas discussion I think it would be a nice buff to AP mid and more fluid if they made Zhonyas more like QSS. We'd have a cheaper item which gave a little AP and the zhonyas active, and then a second tier which would be full zhonyas. Right now its like we've just got the Mercurial Scimitar.
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On January 16 2013 05:38 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Sorry for being polemical but I miss the days of BW when theorycrafters were actually looked down upon.
And baseball was better before sabermetrics were introduced.
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Roffles
Pitcairn19291 Posts
On January 16 2013 05:38 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Sorry for being polemical but I miss the days of BW when theorycrafters were actually looked down upon.
What you're proposing is essentially theorycrafting too. I hate to say it, but until you show me that your high level ranked 5s players can legitimately cast and analyze games at a high level live, then I'm not gonna buy your argument. Not all great players are informative and can do the job that these casters are doing. TSM would be awful casters. They're all great players, but would you have any of them in a casting booth commentating the game?
There's more than just flat out pro level analysis. BW casters are all the fat old men who are washed up from early 2000s. I don't see you complaining about them. Where are the professional SC2 casters? Day9 probably blows at the game by now, yet he's one of the best and most informative casters in SC2. I don't see why you need pro players to cast. Fuck, I wouldn't want those 16-17 year old immature solo queue kids casting a game anyways.
We all can critically analyze and lambast poor commentary through Skype chats and whatnot, but the fact is that when you're not doing your own commentary live, then your opinion means shit too.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
^^^^^^^^^^ While I definitely qualify as one of those kids, I can and will cast a lot of games in like 2-3 weeks just to try prove you wrong Roffles, because I kinda agree with bly08 on some of his points.
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United States23745 Posts
On January 16 2013 05:45 Scip wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 05:28 onlywonderboy wrote:On January 16 2013 05:23 Scip wrote:On January 16 2013 05:16 onlywonderboy wrote:On January 16 2013 05:11 Scip wrote:On January 16 2013 05:07 sylverfyre wrote:On January 16 2013 05:02 zulu_nation8 wrote:On January 16 2013 04:56 sylverfyre wrote:On January 16 2013 04:45 zulu_nation8 wrote:On January 16 2013 04:36 sylverfyre wrote:
[quote]
But you can still look at a pro player's decision making and have a good idea of why they made those decisions, even if you don't have the understanding to know to make that decision beforehand. You do have to be able to pick up on the decisions and extrapolate the reasons quickly and with an acceptable degree of accuracy. During at least lane phase, the only role where decision making actually matters a bit is jungler. The ONLY people who understand a good jungler's thought process are the people on his team. From there on the understanding degrades by how well you know the specific player and how good you are. But you can look at the things the jungler is doing, compare them to other things you've seen pro junglers do in previous games, and figure out what they're planning, because you can see what they're doing. Yes, you can't read their mind, but you can understand that if blue-reliant is starting red instead of blue and getting a smiteless leash, his intention is likely to be smiteless red-> smite blue -> level 3 gank top, because we've seen it before. It's not "how good you are" but rather how much homework you've done watching top level play (or participating in it). I contest that good casters who aren't great players can put forth the effort and become just as good at it. except most decisions aren't as simple as which buff to start. By how good, I essentially mean how much experience someone has of playing in high level games, because the more experience, the more stuff someone has seen, and thus be able to interpret. Decision making is way too complicated to learn by watching. But to cast and analyze you don't need to be able to make the decisions, you just need to be able to interpret the decisions the players are making. You don't even necessarily be able to explain why but you do need to explain what the decision affects in the game. No, I would say you do need to be able to explain the "why" of decisions, why did the player gank here, why did he push, why didn't they do dragon etc. Without understanding the why you can never fully explain the opportunity cost nor can you make accurate predictions, because your ability to connect things together would be paralyzed by the lack of knowledge. I would say the ability to explain "whys" is one of the most core principles of analysis in commentating. Fair enough, I kind of see this side of the argument. I still think they can have more knowledge of the game than your Elo indicates though. I don't have the time to practice the mechanics (and I'm not naturally good at it) but I have a decent knowledge of the game from watching pro games and reading this forum. I don't play ranked, but I have a feeling I would be low Elo compared to the amount of game knowledge I have. You definitely can have more knowledge than your elo indicates, I mean we have examples of that in EUW LP right now (Equilash, previously Broken Watch etc.) But it is painfully difficult to extract that knowledge from different sources than your own experience. About the latter part of your statement, I don't mean to sound patronizing here, but I doubt that what you are saying is actually true. Mostly because of my own experience. Back when I played sc2, read forums 24/7 and watched 5+ hours of streams daily, I thought the exact same thing, because it seemed like the intuitive thing to think. And boy, was I wrong. I only realized that though once I went to play the ladder and got my ass handed to me by players who knew 10 times as much as I did, despite spending less time on the actual game (if you count reading+watching streams). The main reason why I adopted that illusion is because watching streams and reading posts leaves you wholly ignorant of the issues that you don't know about (d'oh) and there is no mechanism that would make you aware. See I don't count reading and watching streams as spending time with the game, which is why I was actually agree I would probably get my ass handed to me, that's part of the reason I don't play ranked. All I meant is I think I would have more game knowledge than the people around me in my probable shitty Elo, that's all. I don't think stream time + reading translates directly into in game skill. The thing is though, game knowledge directly translates to game skill, given sufficient focus on the game. If reading and/or watching doesn't directly translate to game skill, it can not help with game knowledge either. For the record, I don't think that is true, but I think it provides a painfully incomplete knowledge. That is because reading+watching doesn't provide any good practical ways to forsee consequences of different decisions in different environments, which is a quintessential part of game knowledge, alongside ability to explain decisions taken inside the game. That's kind of straying from the caster discussion and more towards the realm of Dunning-Kruger which I think this is related to, but Neo seems to have killed the caster discussion anyway. ^^^^^ anyway MoonBear, dunno if you read it in one of the other threads, but if you ever need and/or could use help with an analysis, feel free to PM me, I am almost always ready for action. :3
Fair enough, I guess there's a lot to be said for decision making being a crucial part of game knowledge. I meant more about what champs are good in a comp, who counters who, when should I build what item (without blindly following a guide). Reading and watching steams help, but only if you also put time into the game. But I guess this conversation has reached it's natural conclusion anyway.
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Also liftlift/aphro yoloque>M5 wombo combo game
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EPT
