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This post is likely to result in a fair bit of disagreement, considering the location. TL has long worshiped pro-gaming and its surrounding culture, so I don't expect to make many friends in this discussion.
Let me start by saying that I've watched a lot of replays during the SC2 beta, the majority of them very high level replays with commentary (day[9] and the like). Hundreds of them. And I have to say, they've been useless. I think that for the vast majority of players that this is a pointless exercise. Now before we get into a lengthy and derailing "You're doing it wrong" thread, I'll say that I'm more interested in the theory behind this than any specific personal applications... Next, I'll add the disclaimer that I fully believe replays to be valuable (but your own replays).
It seems like the majority of players wholeheartedly believe that watching pro replays will magically transfer to them the powers of the players they are watching. I find this approach a little similar to tying books to your head and hoping to absorb information by diffusion. There's a few reasons why this doesn't work:
1a. You're only able to see what they do, as opposed to seeing their underlying thought processes. What a pro does on the screen is miles away to what options he has considered, the subtle plans he is making. You only see what he does, you never necessarily see what he intended to do, what he decided against, what he was going to do, but changed his mind, what he could have done instead, or why he made those decisions. For example, a player might be going mass sentry to plan to perma-FF the ramp to his opponents natural, but gets attacked early by marauders. To the viewer, it might appear as if he was planning to fight marauders with sentries all along. This disconnect results in wrong conclusions.
1b. Why he did it is just as important as what he does. You look at the screen and see a void ray response to a marauder push, but for all you know, the VR was a response to his fast nat. For all you know, if is opponents specific composition was 2 marauders heavier, 15 seconds later, and if the positions were 9 and 3, he might have went a completely different tech tree. The decisions made in game are far too blackboxed to absorb from just observing external behaviour. You cannot learn to make those critical decisions by watching him make one response to one situation, because there are innumerable situations and innumerable responses, and exhaustively trying to discover his algorithm's behaviour by observing it case by case is insane.
2a. It's not representative of the games you and I play. I often watch replays where I laugh at how badly the pros seem to play. If I tried that build (even if I performed it perfectly), I would get annihilated. Some pro zerg player with no info on his terran opponent's main not getting anti-air by 10min? I think, well, I guess he's lucky his opponent didn't get banshees... Some protoss player who sees a 3 gate build and only makes 1 zealot 1 sentry in the first 5 minutes? 14 hatch 16 pool? No detection all game? WTF! Who gets away with this crap? I've had many more units at an earlier point in the game and died horribly.
2b. The reason for this situation is that much like poker, you need to tailor your play to your opponent. Playing the same way you would against a professional when you're against a noob is a certain defeat. Certain tactics have proven themselves too risky to engage in against a very strong player, and so pros rarely employ them. Hence, they also have to rarely defend against them; it's almost like they've forgotten about them... So ironically their builds are quite vulnerable to less than optimal strategy. If you and I try to get away with that stuff, we will farmed, pure and simple. And some of the strategies that are very effective against a complicated opponent will do poorly against a simple opponent. They're not useful for us, AND they open us up to attacks we don't know how to defend. Certainly they COULD defeat these sorts of things (were they aware it was a threat), but the point is that they don't need to, so we rarely see relevant clashes.
3. We lack the control to pull it off. Much of the builds you see revolve around surviving with the bare minimum until you can get either tech or an expo. Most of us don't have the micro to manage this sort of thing. And it's usually not the thing you can fudge. The build very well may depend on this minimum. I noticed this when I was experimenting with phoenix builds. I couldn't seem to get phoenixes out fast enough because I was always forced to produce more gateway units than say Nony, just to prevent myself from dying. This in turn slowed down my stargate, and the phoenixes arrived too late to be effective, essentially defeating the entire build. I think that people assume that how well a build performs is linearly proportional to how well you execute, but I think in a lot of ways a very small change can make or breka it. 1 minute late, 3 seconds slower on a cast, and the whole build changes from godly to garbage.
4. You don't necessarily notice these subtle details. Maybe there were 2 of a particular unit in a particular position that to you appeared completely tangential to his primary focus, and yet they are utterly critical. The difference between a stalker by the nexus for a reaper rush or a zealot at the ramp. If the reaper rush never comes, it's often hard to see the point of this. The pro is accounting for a variety of situations that never happen. But since they don't happen, you never quite can understand why he chose to make those little decisions, and they escape you entirely. So when those situations arise in your games, you lack the necessary preparation. If you're like me, you'll watch a replay and see something and go "wow, look how nicely everything lines up. Player A does something, player B has exactly what he needs at the right position at the right time." Over and over. This isn't coincidence. You wonder why a pro never dies to the first push, he's always ready for the drop, he has a collossus just as the marine push comes... It's so orderly. My games are utter chaos. Holy crap, where did he get that from? How did he get a pylon in my base? ...The devil is in the details.
5. It's hard to see where you are making mistakes, how your build differs. I often watch replays where I look at his build and say .. "whoa... that's my build". And watch him steamroll over some composition. Then I go back to the game, execute the same thing, fight the same composition, and I lose horribly. I find this especially prevalent in protoss mirror matches. I have this terrible condition where if I go robotics, and he goes gateways, I lose. And if I go gateways and he goes robotics, I lose too. My woes aside, it's that sort of double standard that I see in pro games all the time. Avoiding the counter issue altogether, it feels like their skill almost has nothing to do with unit choice. It's as if you could pick a build at random from a hat and they could make it work. What are you doing different? Who knows.
Some might suggest that new players watch gold or silver level replays, and there might be more value in those, but I still think that several of my criticisms still apply to those too. Anyway, I don't mean to suggest that there is NOTHING that can be gained from pro replays, but I hope that was a reasonably comprehendable rant about why I think the focus on what so and so did in game 3 of the HDH finals is rather irrelevant.
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Hm, I feel that your argument relies on people not thinking when watching pro reps. Afaik, most people who advocate watching pro reps also say that it's important to understand why they are doing what they do.
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Adult education occurs from two sources, teachers and fellow students. Which is different than the child education model, where the teacher knows all and imparts the knowledge on students.
So, to learn to play requires watching pros, watching people of different skill levels and practice of course. IF you're not doing all these, you're not maximizing your learning.
Also, see out the trappings of learning from pros and experts via collin powell by googling it.
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Certainly at this point in time watching the pro´s is not as useful as it may seem as they don´t have great strategical play themselves yet. But watching them can be helpful in getting buildorders, unit counters and the like. Playing and improving your mechanics is offcourse much more important to improve. Many people don´t purely watch replays for improving themselves though but for fun as well.
Watching a replay is also much more relaxed, whereas playing yourself requires a stable connection and basically no interruptions while playing which is why i watch more replays then I should probably.
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To begin you might be happier with some more explanatory casters such as husky. www.youtube.com/users/mahkstarcraft is alot less popular but is excellent at explaining behind the scenes what is going on.
I think that you make alot of good points. There are many things you cannot learn from replays and your point that there are some things you DONT want to learn from pro replays if your not skilled enough is well made. However there is quite a bit you CAN learn from replays including build orders, how to defend against specific tactics, when to expand, good micro tactics etc. These things should not be overlooked, but I would definitely agree there is only so much to learn from replays before experience becomes necessary.
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I sort of agree, the best way to learn Starcraft is to actually sit down and analyze games with Progamers, but few people would have that opportunity.
Therefore, the next best thing is to watch the replays and try to figure it out yourself.
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I feel its one of those 1:10 ratios. Watch 1 pro replay for your 10 of your own(completely arbitrary number but you get the idea...alot to a little). But I whole-heartedly agree to this viewpoint thought, kudos for posting.
Pro replays are great for some sort of direction but yeah, you wont be any better analyzing subtleties that are way out of your league
Personally, I feel like this is the case if you want to get better and compete. I watch pro replays for entertainment.
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You just need a well-rounded approach is all. I played SC since vanilla and replays didn't exist until 1.08. That meant that for the first 2+ years of the game, almost all the players in the world had no way to watch or learn from the very best. The first time I watched a vod in the 1.07 era (game-q =] ) was a game-changing experience for me. Before that, literally every single BO I did, every single strat I tried, I had to make up myself from trial and error. And I was doing a lot of silly stuff. For example my standard open against terran was 2 zealots + 1 goon rush, hit the wall-in try to kill an scv or 2, follow up with DT rush, try to kill the depot and maybe a few scvs, while expanding to another main, then do 2 base carriers lol. And what's funny is that it worked 90% of the time because most terrans had no idea how to use vultures properly. The first time I watched IntoTheRain play PvT I was like 'Holy shit I'm doing it ALL WRONG!' There was a key point before 1.08 where I could watch VODs but most people on bnet had no idea what VODs were, and during that time of me learning from the pro's I went from a nobody to a pretty high level player within like a month. It was a HUGE advantage until 1.08 came out, and then everybody started making and watching replays, and then the entire community got good at SC within a few months. It was an incredible difference because it was the first time that standard build orders and counters became known to the masses.
Watching pros play SC is like watching pros play golf. No you're not going to join the PGA just by sitting on the couch watching. But if you can see what it looks like when a pro swings his club you're going to have a huge advantage over somebody else who never has, and has just been given a bag of clubs and told 'hit this little white ball into that hole over there 400 yards away' and then left to figure out how all by himself.
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well i think most players strive to become good not win, at least i hope. its quite ez if you want a good win percentage just to do strategies like (5rax/5warpgtae/mass speedling/roach) and all in. probably a donkey could make it to diamond league playing like this. I hope mos players play to become better and actually learn something strategy wise
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Very well written article. I have to say that there is a lot that can be gained from watching replays, professional or your own; but those gains are vastly different.
There have been plenty of times where I am experimenting with some new build or unit composition (and it doesn't appear to be working for me) then I see a replay of MorroW doing the exact same thing and I don't say to myself "hey he did the exact same thing and it worked, must be because he's gosu" I say "good, at least I understand the game well enough to design a solid composition" and then immediately begin refining my build further.
I watch pro replays to learn about the game, I watch my replays to improve my game. I can see TLO play and notice "oh wow, I can defend some early aggression with a bunker and two marines just as well as with 4 marines and no bunker...neat" and make a similar change to my early game (effectively saving 100 minerals and 2 food) in a particular situation. Then I can watch my own replays and say "wow, I have about 300 minerals after defending that push, and my opponent is licking their wounds/macroing up, maybe I can get away with salvaging that bunker and expand"
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Personally I watch pro replays for the entertainment value. When I first started playing I would try tricky builds and get absolutley crushed. I eventually found a safe build that worked for me that protected against cheeses and allowed me to work on my macro. Just playing safe increased my win rate quite a bit (thanks Trump).
I have picked up some awesome things from pro play that I can add on to my normal build such as late reaper scouting so I don't think pro replays are totally useless. The game is still new so maybe we haven't seen "Standard Play" yet.
As the game evolves and my skill level increases I think watching pro play will become even more important
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I don't know about you, but I was too Young to Really get Into the BW competitive scene when it was in its heyday, but I got Really attached to SC2, and wanted to learn the build orders that would make me a competitive player. I read about 14 base 15 hatch and the like, and tried them out in BW on ICCUP and got wtfpwnt. I didn't understand basic terminology like what a natural was, or what APM meant.
Until I watched some pro-game commentaries by HDstarcraft and Husky.
That made me figure out what the terms meant, what aspects of the game I should be focusing on, and how I should go about building my army (to counter my opponents one). When SC2 Beta released, I tried out these new patterns in my building process, and met with success. I went from Silver league to platinum (before diamond was released) in a week, and I felt confident in my abilities to learn from my mistakes because I knew what to look for when watching my own replays after I lost a game.
I also watched 1st person POV's with pro-gamers (both BW and SC2), and realized that I had to be constantly aware of everything that was going on around my base and the map, and not to keep my view in one place too long, creating tunnel vision.
I mean, there are tons of things that watching a pro-gamer compete can tell you. I would be completely lost and probably resorting to money-money maps if I hadn't watched these games.
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The most important thing in my opinion is that pros play differently from the newbs. They are more predictable whereas the newbs are very unpredictable and theres different techniques to handling that.
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On July 15 2010 02:20 ToxNub wrote:
2b. The reason for this situation is that much like poker, you need to tailor your play to your opponent.
I think this is the best part of your article, I very much agree with it. It's true that pro-gamer replays can be over-rated, exactly the same way that many poker amateurs will watch WSOP (World Series of Poker) on TV and try to apply their techniques in a live game... such as, going all in on the bubble thinking that everyone will fold... LOL
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Pro replays had me winning games my first days of beta. Sure no noob is going to be able to match the micro or macro of a pro just by looking at a replay that's something one must learn for them-self.
However pro replays did offer me great strategies. This is where I learned about a 4 gate, baneling bust, 1/1/1 terran, ghost mech, how to properly use infestors, thor ships etc....Still you must learn to execute these builds/strategies on your own terms but do replays help? Heck yes they do and a great deal too.
You can't learn calculus just by watching the teacher do it you have to do it too. Starcraft is no different than this.
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United States421 Posts
Seems to me that you have a problem with learning from one replay. Obviously if you watch many replays on the same map for the same match up these little subtleties that were invisible to you in the first replay will start to become clear.
In part, being good at starcraft = being consistent. Thus, you can reasonably assume that the variations in a game are from a specific thing the player saw.
You also said that SC is like poker: you need to accommodate for your opponent. I think that is a secondary consideration. First and foremost, you are up against a race. The player's potential is limited by the race. Thus, if you play to beat the race, you will beat the player.
(The race's potential is limited by the player as well, but players are fickle and race is constant.)
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the only problem I see with people watching PRO replays is the fact some players can't differentiate sublety in play that doesn't apply to their level.
to be more clear, something along the lines of building canceling. if you see a pro start a robo let it get scouted cancel and add another gateway or whatever, people will think WOW that's a good trick, I will do that!
But in reality that will just hurt most players play as building cancelling and the likes just aren't worth doing at the gold type levels (hell even diamond for the most part.) People fail to realize these PROS are playing other PROS and not everything will translate to their personal ladder games and help them improve their own game.
I know I had this problem when starting war3 a long time ago, I kept watching pro replays but they didn't help me as much because they didn't accurately depict the type of scenarios I would experience on ladder. So if you watch replays at face value of pros it's really not worth it, but if you watch to get a standard build, or general idea and understand the 'why' I see no harm in watching PROs.
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
Seems rather shortsighted to me. Of course replays will be less valuable than being in the player's head but there are lots of things I can learn from watching relays of high level players. Your arguments only hold if the viewer is mindlessly watching the units move and is not applying his own experiences to the replay.
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You watched hundreds of replays, but how many games did you actually play? You're not going to become a god by watching someone else play, but watching pros is a great way to improve (not create, improve) your game.
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I'd have to disagree with most of what the OP said. Although there is merit in the argument that you don't learn anything from pro games, its the same with all activities. People might not be able to learn to be pro just by watching pros, but thats not how the pros became pros. They became that way through hard work, and understanding. The key thing to get out of pro replays is to either to try and emulate their style, or get good build orders from them. All the little things they do are worth while, and then you have to try them in your own game, and see how it affects your game play.
Maybe some builds work for pros but not for you, and you have to be self-critical and figure out why. Maybe its because the 'noobs' you're playing against just don't exhibit the same pattern as pros, but that doesn't mean you can't adapt your game to their play. You need to be able to react to different situations! It is a strategy game. I find watch pro replays helps my game out tremendously. They do things that I would never be willing to try because I think it would fail horribly, but they can pull it off and I'm inspired to try it out.
And to address the point about the game being like poker, its true, except that the pros haven't forgotten about the other strats out there. It just that, like in poker they can force their opponents hand. They don't have to prepare for other strats because they just won't happen, and if they do they will just automatically win. Day9 talked about this issue alot, where lower level players don't realize that they don't need to prepare for everything, because the BO/strat they use forces their opponent to react accordingly otherwise they'll just lose right away.
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