|
There is something wrong with this forum. You can smell in the air - a deadening stink every time you browse a new topic. What is wrong you ask? Post quality, I answer.
The Analogy
Imagine you are a judge, presiding over a court, and you're about to sentence or free a possible murderer. This is no normal court though, this is the Team Liquid Strategy court, and the rules of procedure are somewhat... lacking, at least in their enforcement.
Everyone who has gathered before the court are standing in one rowdy ball of people. The lawyers, the witnesses and the media are all there. But there's more still. This is one popular case and it is open to the public, today you have unusually many spectators in the crowd.
The prosecutor has proclaimed his charges, and you're about to give the word to the lawyer. One problem though, you don't know who he is. So you ask out loud, can anyone provide any evidence for me?
One of the spectators is hot on his heels and shouts out loud: "That man is innocent, I swear!". Baffled you ask: "Good sir, are you perhaps the lawyer?". Embarrassed he remains quiet.
Next the main witness starts shouting: "That main is guilty. He stabbed his wife 7 times with a knife!". You respond: How do you know?". Angry the witness thinks: 'I'm the main witness for fuck sakes. Don't you know? Like hell I'm going to respond to someone as rude as you', and so he too remains quiet.
Slightly infuriated you ask if there is anyone out there who can back up their statement.
Now it is the lawyer's turn to speak. He begins without presenting himself and simply says: "That last guy who spoke is a liar, and I can prove it". However, this is one lazy lawyer so when you ask him to actually prove it he goes for a coffee break, and does not return.
Then a journalist speaks out: "I say the accused is innocent, and I will let you know that I have successfully predicted the outcome of over 90% of all trials over the last decade."
Finally the police chief steps into the room and speaks loudly: "I am the chief of the police. This man was dining with be at the time of the murder and I've got the tapes from my security cameras with me. Watch them and realise that he cannot be the killer".
The Problem
There are a lot of awesome advice given out daily in these forums, many interesting insights are being shared and there are some generally fucking awesome posts being made here.
However, all that is lost in a whole swarm of imbecilic comments, poor arguments and plain terrible advice.
Not only does this make for a somewhat infuriating reading experience, but it also makes it harder to find the important posts due to increased thread length and perhaps most important of all: Not everyone can tell good advice from bad advice.
The Solution
It would be nice if everyone simply stopped making bad posts, but it won't happen. The world is infested with an illusion of self importance. Children are taught to stand up for their rights, to fight for their beliefs, to never admit defeat, to always seek the last word and to take up their god-granted space.
Social biases a plenty will keep our forums drenched by the opinions of bad players and poor reasoners. Instead those who know what they're talking about and those who understands this game well enough should try to stick out from the crowd.
How you ask? By actually arguing your points and backing them up with evidence.
The Argument of Authority
No one knows everything about this game, but in general, the better you are at playing, the more you know. If you say that "Hatch first is good in ZvT", then that is an argument based on your own authority. However, few of us have any authority on our own.
If you say "Ret says Hatch first is good in ZvT", it is slightly better. But how do we know that he actually said it? When using the argument of authority, provide direct quotes from this forum or link to external sources.
But how do you go about easily finding your sources? I'm lazy and this might take more effort than I'm willing to put into a post. But please, at least try to use a search engine at least once before giving up. TLs search function allows you to search for posts both based on key words and on poster. If I for example wanted to find the post where Ret said that Hatch first was the best response to 2 Rax I might search for "15 Hatch" and by "'Ret". Here are the results of this particular search.
Your authority might still be wrong, but the point is that he'd at least be more likely to be right than you alone.
Reasoning
Now quick Stalker pressure might be a good idea against Pool->Hatchery builds where Metabolic Boost is delayed. But how do I know? If you tell me that it is a good idea because Stalkers can kite slow Zerglings and thus force a lot of Larva to be wasted on something other than Drones, then I will at least be able to follow your reasoning. Perhaps I find your argument solid, or perhaps I see a flaw in it.
By providing your reasoning you accomplish four things:
1) You make your argument less opaque and give your readers the possibility to judge for themselves.
2) It allows other people to make shorter counter arguments as they only need to point out where you failed instead of providing the counter argument to all possible arguments backing your statement.
3) You not only provide advice which helps knowledge, but advice which also help understanding.
4) If you argument is found solid you prove that you have some understanding of the game, which gives you a small authoritative argument.
Demonstrating
Don't we all love to discover a pro-gamer replay demonstrating the exact problem we've been struggling with, and how to solve it? Replays provide incredible detailed information about a situation. This can work as an argument of authority, but all those details also allow others to criticize your argument. They might for example make counter-arguments of the "But if you do that he can just do that, you're actually playing it blindly and gambling!"-kind.
If your argument is found solid, a replay will also provide awesome instructions for how to actually do something.
Be wary of your own replays though. There are so many ways to win in this game even with flawed strategies. For example, even though your build was bad, your opponent's might have been horrid. Or perhaps he didn't know how to play against your particular build, but it is so simple that he'll easily figure it out when watching the replay afterwards. Or maybe you just got lucky.
The Appeal
Consider the following sentence, for it might be true: "I could be wrong, I might be making a bad post". A lot of bad posts are made, and they have to come from somewhere. Could you be among the guilty?
My appeal to the community is to devalue your own opinion, take a step away and look at outside evidence. If you cannot provide evidence for your statements, then how do you know you are right? Please consider not posting at all. And if you actually have evidence, then please share it, else we might not be able to tell you from the bronze leaguer two posts down.
Providing evidence takes some effort, but if you actually care about making a good post it is effort well spent.
Edit:
On January 17 2011 05:49 ZerG~LegenD wrote:
This was an appeal to the community, not the management. Yet so many turn their eyes towards the sky, seeking divine solutions to mortal problems. If you want improvement, look no further than yourself.
|
The analogy was great. Since there will always be new people joining (including myself) and people who want their post count to go up, there will always be bad posts. Mod Team does a good job at handling it and it's not too hard to find a good topic. I don't doubt the community but I do agree that this is common. It is for two reasons. There are people who think that they will be taken seriously when they post one-liner threads with no replays but instead just says, "I can't face zerg. I lose all the time." and then you have a group of people who are here to QQ about balance which I must say, gets handled very swiftly. I don't mean to direct this at any group or any specific person, but instead the people who continuously make browsing through SC2 Strategy 10x harder.
|
I want to propose a solution. Divide the forum into levels like 2+2 does it. Have an awesome bronze-gold section aswell as platin-diamond and masterleague sections.
???
profit
|
That courtroom analogy is probably the most accurate comparison I've seen. Really illustrates the point. Unfortunately, this topic has been brought up quite a few times, and from the looks of it, each thread's consensus seems to be that the only remedy for this issue is time. Once all the bad / ignorant / overly assertive / what-have-you people get bored of TL and leave, and once people in general get better at the game, the crappy, unsupported advice will dissipate and the quality advice will become more prevalent.
It sucks now, yes, but for now, one should heed the old military phrase, "Hurry up and wait". Patience, dude. =)
|
Every single person out there is thinking that my way of doing things is the right way. If you your way is thinking that your own advice is bad, then it's good, but most people don't do that.
Thinking your own advice is bad is a good thing. It makes you provide evidence and explain it in more detail, as OP suggested.
Thank you for posting this, ZerG~LegenD.
|
It's mostly down to personal ego.
If people cannot stand admitting they're not the best by a long shot, then they won't have any reasoning for backing down from what might just be terrible arguments. It's seen over and over everywhere and is hardly something you can change. I appreciate the petition though, it's nice to see there are people willing to at least put in an effort, regardless of the odds.
|
On January 17 2011 02:10 Greentellon wrote:
Every single person out there is thinking that my way of doing things is the right way. If you your way is thinking that your own advice is bad, then it's good, but most people don't do that.
Thinking your own advice is bad is a good thing. It makes you provide evidence and explain it in more detail, as OP suggested.
Thank you for posting this, ZerG~LegenD.
I think everyone kind of agrees with the OP from the heart, everyone wants quality on this site, but some people whose opinions aren't exactly profound still feel the urge to express them because they feel they are right, having lost to certain strategies or experiencing circumstances that seem to speak for an imbalance in the game. In general, that's how humans function, they are not used to greatly question their experiences. It just happens to those with longer experience in the game as well as those who confront their own experiences critically to see the way the game works, the strategies that seem appropriate etc.
Since not everyone can't be as profound as those whose longtime experiences eventually lead to the right conclusions, we can only hope (unfortunately not force - although the admins on this site are doing a great job) those who post more or less blindly to rethink their posts.
|
I'm not sure if more regulation of the 'market (of posts in this case)' is the answer. You might just be replacing random crap with well formatted crap. In which case it will be even harder to tell the difference between good posts and bad ones.
|
I was going to make a similar post as well, but was too lazy. The OP is asking for people to provide proof as to their actions rather than give anecdotal evidence. As for the OP's example, saying, "Ret believes that hatch first is stronger than 2-rax" is a lot better than "I'm a XXXX pt Zerg and I'm right and you're wrong".
Now, to talk about the hatch first argument, I believe the pro's are now not totally convinced that hatch first is a better solution. Consider, for example, the number of games where the zergs are now going pool first against terran (for example, Idra vs Jinro).
|
it might be more helpful to make some sort of guide to help people assess post quality, wouldn't that be a simpler way of dealing with the problem? (if you are concerned with people who can't tell the difference between good and bad posts) eg:
- only give credit to people who provide replays
- actually look at the replays
- give higher creditability to pro players' posts [eg Nony etc]
- ask for people's ranks often
etc etc
|
Strategy forums were decimated by the massive skill disparity that came as a result of newer players entering the starcraft scene.
At least when BW was around it was:
a) clear who was good and who wasn't, because ratings were meaningful
b) less of a casual scene, so the quality of players was higher
It's not that noobs are a bad thing, but as anyone who played on iccup knows, even a solid D player is orders of magnitude more competent than anyone below diamond.
The fact is, we need a separate high level strat forum. Master's league is a good opportunity for TL. A master's league forum might not cut out all the bad posts, but it'd reduce that skill disparity to something closer to the BW strat forums and iccup rankings.
I know that TL doesn't want to seem noob-unfriendly, but noobs benefit the most from a separate forum as they can go and see actual high level discussion and good solid advice.
|
can this please be stickied... that strategy forum needs this so badly!
sometimes wading through this section is a real chore, maybe if people had a good solid read through this it would help?
i dunno my 2 cents.
|
I agree, I'm tired of reading Strategy threads only to find that either the OP didn't put much thought into the strategy or that the community attacks it for no reason.
|
An important problem with dividing the strategy forum into two parts is that top players are unlikely to give in-depth strategy advise that might reflect on their game as their competition might find it useful information. Debating the current state of balance and strategic trends is something where participating by high level players might be a good way to raise the quality of the discussion a lot though. as to become a pro player you have to 1. understand the game 2. have reputation to lose if you make statements that aren't thought through, and this will naturally lead to better discussion.
I can only think of a few pro players that often talk in the strategy forums though. A lot of them have said that the overwhelming stupidity of the posts there is a deterrent to participating however. And it's also true that everytime, say, Idra makes a post there's 10 posts that are saying "Hey Idra, now that you're here, can you answer me something?" ... or in general their presence derails the topic.
Not all high level players are pro's of course, and not all high level players are necessarily good at the game (since you get to fairly high ladder ratings by just doing one strategy very well, or having good mechanics, not by good understanding per se). So simply dividing is problematic if that's the only solution. Sure, ladder ranking might be decently correlated to strategic insight, but it doesn't necessarily follow.
With good enough moderation you can make everything work of course, but the state of the forums as they currently are allow everyone to give their opinion as long as it's civil. It doesn't require you to make actually logical posts and all manners of nonsensical advise are tolerated and allowed to confuse the topic at hand. I honestly think that using simply forums for strategy discussion is unwise, it just has a topic where everyone can talk as equals. For an interested but uninformed reader it's very hard to get a good idea of who is making sense and who isn't, especially as it can take a lot of work to test a lot of the claims for yourself in-game.
Maybe teamliquid should switch to a contribution + comment-section for this, similar to what they have on a lot of blog-type websites? I don't really know how something like that should look, but I think the core idea of encouraging people who know what they're talking about to write a comprehensive case for their point in a high-profile spot and then having some kind of measured conversation by response-articles as well as discussion in the comment-section can be nice.
|
On January 17 2011 02:36 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
Strategy forums were decimated by the massive skill disparity that came as a result of newer players entering the starcraft scene.
At least when BW was around it was:
a) clear who was good and who wasn't, because ratings were meaningful
b) less of a casual scene, so the quality of players was higher
It's not that noobs are a bad thing, but as anyone who played on iccup knows, even a solid D player is orders of magnitude more competent than anyone below diamond.
The fact is, we need a separate high level strat forum. Master's league is a good opportunity for TL. A master's league forum might not cut out all the bad posts, but it'd reduce that skill disparity to something closer to the BW strat forums and iccup rankings.
I know that TL doesn't want to seem noob-unfriendly, but noobs benefit the most from a separate forum as they can go and see actual high level discussion and good solid advice.
Except then you lose the high quality contributions that a select few lower skilled players have made (generally these players are mid diamond). Magic box technique. Sockfolding (mineral mining technique that was patched out by blizzard). Kcdc's 1 gate FE. Iechoic's hellion drop build. The 2 Thor push build posted by evoli. Antisocialmunky's marine raven build (popularizing marine trading for larva even before Marine King showcased his impresive splitting micro). Griffith's 4OC build (which still has a lot of untapped potential at the highest level). etc. etc.
Yes there's a lot of crap to sift through but you can still find those rare gems. Sometimes it takes someone below the pro level to break out of dogmatic thinking and offer stuff that can really change the metagame.
I do agree with OP that posts should be backed at the very least by sound reasoning. High level replays should always be provided when possible, but sometimes there are new concepts that haven't made their way to the pro scene yet.
+ Show Spoiler +most recent example: terran going mech vs protoss. I even personally argued against it, and tested it in practice games with the proponents to show that a speedray transition completely dominates mech. But with flux vanes removed, Jinro showed that it's at least conceivably viable on some maps by going 2-0 vs MC... Time will tell if it's actually solid or whether it's just a brief phase that can win on the surprise factor, but at the very least it shows that people need to be less dogmatic in their approach to strategies.
|
On January 17 2011 02:36 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:The fact is, we need a separate high level strat forum. Master's league is a good opportunity for TL. A master's league forum might not cut out all the bad posts, but it'd reduce that skill disparity to something closer to the BW strat forums and iccup rankings.
Skill in playing the game does not imply skill in analyzing, discussing, or teaching the game. What is really needed is some sort of encouragement for good posters to make good posts, and more importantly, for bad posters to stop posting all together.
|
I agree that when talking about current strategies, people's posts should contain either evidence, or solid reasoning that can be followed easily, not just a "because I said so" argument, which seems to be so prevalent.
I say either/or though, because sometimes there isn't evidence. I know a lot of people hate theory crafting, and it doesn't usually help unless used correctly, but that's one of the only ways to discover new builds and strategies. All strategies start as ideas. I am of the belief that discussion is vital to the development of these ideas. Not everyone is a high enough level to test their strategies, and even for those who are, they might still be missing something that could make a seemingly failed idea work.
I think this is a general problem of the strategy forums. People theory craft in Help threads, and demand hard evidence that doesn't yet exist in Guide and Discussion threads. Maybe if people respected the point of different kinds of threads, we would have more progress and quality. I don't mean to say that new strategies don't require proof, but just that posts like "Oh yeah, show me a replay, this could never work" are somewhat useless and don't contribute to discussion. Instead of cluttering up a thread, why not give your reasons for the perceived weaknesses of a build, or expand upon ideas that could help revolutionize the strategy. Even better, if you're at a high rating, why not test it yourself against competent players? [D] stands for discussion, not dismissal. Help threads suffer from a similar problem where people would rather theory craft than give good advice to the OP or help analyze his play. It is not the place for theorizing new strategies.
I also don't think lower rated players should simply be dismissed either. I know there are some people who barely play, but who watch lots of replays, and who have a very strong grasp of the game. In the same vein, I know highly rated players who know a number of builds very well, but who wouldn't be able to be creative to save their lives. These people should try to stick to what they're good at, or even help each other. Some players are both highly skilled and very imaginative, but a lot of people are sometimes one or the other. The strategic analysts should try to contribute to discussions about general strategy or the strengths and weaknesses of new builds, while highly rated players should help other players with their actual game right now. There is crossover, but people should use their own discretion about where their knowledge really applies and would help the most. The best outcome is where people can theorize about new strategies, and then have skilled players test them in a real environment. This allows both kinds of people to play to their strengths and contribute the most to the forum.
As for people who don't know anything and are not skilled? Sit back and watch. Ask questions, give new ideas. Don't just post crap in threads that says nothing and doesn't contribute content. Don't be angry or dismissive for no reason. Stop attacking people when you disagree and don't provide any reasoning. In short, don't post unless you have an actual concern or something useful to say about the topic at hand.
This turned out to be longer than I imagined. [/rant] :p
|
I agree the quality of posting has declined recently but to be honest, compared with the rest of the internet this place is still a haven of semi-logical discourse in my mind.
|
One solution, which would (unfortunately) take some coding to implement would be a community moderation system similar to slashdot.org.
Basically, once you have been in the community for a while, you occasionally get "mod" points and you can mark posts up or down. Then readers can filter by post score. So, if you want to you can see all the posts, or you can filter out to see only the highest rated posts.
There are potential pitfalls with this method, but I like the end result at slashdot.
|
On January 17 2011 02:01 PepperoniPiZZa wrote:I want to propose a solution. Divide the forum into levels like 2+2 does it. Have an awesome bronze-gold section aswell as platin-diamond and masterleague sections. ??? profit
Sadly this would not work. I have seen crappy posts by people who come from the master league, and excellent posts from people who come from the bronze league. You can't classify players simply by their ladder level.
I don't think there are magical ways to prevent bad posts and punish bad posters. We can hope they will go away with time because they are obviously not that into Starcraft than the ones willing to discuss the game and thinking before posting, or you can ban them 1 by 1 (wich seems kind of arbitrary though).
|
perhaps makign a seperate discussion forum and strat forum with a requirement that a mod has to check over your post at least to see it meets all criteria and isnt plain awful
bleh its not the best fix but something needs to be done
|
I think one problem is that people can have a different experiences with a certain unit composition or build and then assume that their experience is the only one that is right. Unfortunately there are no absolutes so there isn't an effective way to say who's right. This is why I don't necessary believe in replays as people only show the replays where the build succeeds or fails to prove their point. All evidence should be considered.
I think people are expecting a definitve example where something works everytime when the circumstances are much more important. Strengths and weaknesses should be more important than how many times you can win using it.
There really isn't a solution to this as players will focus on "Will this win me games" instead of "What would this work well/poorly against."
|
On January 17 2011 01:48 ZerG~LegenD wrote:
2) It allows other people to make shorter counter arguments as they only need to point out where you failed instead of providing the counter argument to all possible arguments backing your statement.
I can't believe how many times I've intended to write a response to some post I disagree with, only to realize that I don't have time to give a proper, fair treatment of the post in question. Let's hope people start giving more detailed posts - because then if people are wrong (or if you think someone is wrong, more correctly) you can disagree with them succinctly.
People are always going to be wrong or misguided on the strategy forum. As it is now, though, it's difficult to tell people why (or, again to be fair, why you THINK that they are wrong).
|
On January 17 2011 03:29 Moja wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 02:36 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
Strategy forums were decimated by the massive skill disparity that came as a result of newer players entering the starcraft scene.
At least when BW was around it was:
a) clear who was good and who wasn't, because ratings were meaningful
b) less of a casual scene, so the quality of players was higher
It's not that noobs are a bad thing, but as anyone who played on iccup knows, even a solid D player is orders of magnitude more competent than anyone below diamond.
The fact is, we need a separate high level strat forum. Master's league is a good opportunity for TL. A master's league forum might not cut out all the bad posts, but it'd reduce that skill disparity to something closer to the BW strat forums and iccup rankings.
I know that TL doesn't want to seem noob-unfriendly, but noobs benefit the most from a separate forum as they can go and see actual high level discussion and good solid advice. Except then you lose the high quality contributions that a select few lower skilled players have made (generally these players are mid diamond). Magic box technique. Sockfolding (mineral mining technique that was patched out by blizzard). Kcdc's 1 gate FE. Iechoic's hellion drop build. The 2 Thor push build posted by evoli. Antisocialmunky's marine raven build (popularizing marine trading for larva even before Marine King showcased his impresive splitting micro). Griffith's 4OC build (which still has a lot of untapped potential at the highest level). etc. etc. Yes there's a lot of crap to sift through but you can still find those rare gems. Sometimes it takes someone below the pro level to break out of dogmatic thinking and offer stuff that can really change the metagame. I do agree with OP that posts should be backed at the very least by sound reasoning. High level replays should always be provided when possible, but sometimes there are new concepts that haven't made their way to the pro scene yet. + Show Spoiler +most recent example: terran going mech vs protoss. I even personally argued against it, and tested it in practice games with the proponents to show that a speedray transition completely dominates mech. But with flux vanes removed, Jinro showed that it's at least conceivably viable on some maps by going 2-0 vs MC... Time will tell if it's actually solid or whether it's just a brief phase that can win on the surprise factor, but at the very least it shows that people need to be less dogmatic in their approach to strategies.
iechoic was very high rated when he posted his strat (and I think still is) and generally the rest of the people you mentioned are either solid masters or close to it, also I think the 2 Thor Push was shown by Janook's replays.
|
Great thread. Well written OP. This message is very much needed. This should, indeed, be a large, bold sticky.
The SC2 branch would do good just to take a look at the Brood War forum. Thats how it should be, and which is what made teamliquid.net the name it is today.
EDIT: The rest of my post is not really part of the original topic. I will post this somewhere else.
+ Show Spoiler +I realize that teamliquid.net has been around for 9 years, and you have grown into the largest Starcraft community on the Net; so you're quite obviously doing something right.
I have only been a part of this community for about a month and a half, and have 30 posts. Many people will take this information, and put my opinion/advice off as invaluable and less worthy. (I just used myself as a quick example; I'm not part of the argument) I find this wrong, because of the following:
Two different people.
One person has a post count in the hundreds, but he may have accumulated the majority with posts in threads talking about how cute your cats are. Or meaningless, effortless posts, such as "-NuKeD-" 20+ times over several pages of a thread(from the same person.)
{These are extreme examples.}
Something that has nothing to do with discussing the game and its intricacies; is my point.
The other person may not be very active beyond the game/strategy forums, where the discussion is about things unrelated to gameplay. This person may carefully consider their strategy posts, and may delete his seemingly well thought out argument, which was ready to post, when he considers another angle.
I have seen many quality, well thought out posts/thread by people with a low post count.
This is a idea I have been toying with(nothing original obviously):This is just my opinion and I would like to hear some criticism on this, as I can see this having been discussed already. I have been thinking about the point system that is in use on many sites on the internet, as I'm sure many of you are familiar with, where you could 'like' or +1 a post if one finds it is a quality post.
These points would add up for each poster, and be an identifier of the quality of their posts; in addition to displaying their post count.
Maybe have two different point pools:
One for Strategy/Game posts.
One for Social posts.
Arguments I can see against this:
#1: This could be unnecessary, as the quality of their post will be judged after reading that post, on a individual basis.
#2: Misinformed forum dwellers could +1 a post that is well written and may seem like solid advice, but is truly not.
Counter Arguments for Argument #2:
If this system were implemented, that would be a less common scenario; there would be more benefit than loss, IMO.
Please point out any faults in my post. Thank you.
|
I believe a good solution would be to have a mod read all the op's before they are available to the public. Take strat, no replay and the post is not appected.
|
I cant agree with "The argument of authority", it's far from feasible. Yes, you did back it out with one example however you cant possibly expect every game situation has had a past reference.
That clearly missing along with further sustaining the behavior listed above will lead to some other flawed conclusions based on actions, even worse than the current "cause it worked for me". It will be cause it worked for Jinro vs Idra in match X, disconsidering any prior decisions or mistakes and just focusing on the fact.
|
This was an appeal to the community, not the management. Yet so many turn their eyes towards the sky, seeking divine solutions to mortal problems. If you want improvement, look no further than yourself.
|
I really don't think that any of this rests on the mods, I agree with the OP. What mod wants to screen a hundred threads a day? That's dumb.
Anyway, I think that people with "bad" opinions with no support, etc., are going to post those regardless of whether or not they're straight up wrong or not. People in general don't like to admit they're wrong or realize that they're not the authority on the issue in question, even if someone else posts something 10 times more educated and with more evidence, etc. It's really the mindset that needs to change. Accept that you're not always going to be correct. Don't post in a thread to raise post count, post because you know about the subject and want to share your knowledge with other members of the community. Think before you post: "will someone reading this be positively impacted by what I'm posting?" If the answer to that question is no, you probably shouldn't be posting this. I think we're all at fault for this, hell I know I am, but looking at our own posting habits definitely is a step in the right direction. While the majority of people are going to skip this thread and ignore it, this is certainly a good first step on the path to a better Strategy Discussion forum.
|
Has a "like/dislike" system on the comment level been considered?
Unsupported comments on strategy would quickly gather dislikes and at some point could be collapsed and not fully displayed.
This would help deal with the issue of bad comments derailing threads.
Also such a system could help make moderators' jobs easier as a person with a lot of disliked comments would be a good candidate for a warning/temp ban.
|
I started reading the thread and I thought "The Analogy" section was going to be a mockery of how bad analogies can be on this forum. I had a good laugh afterward :p
Anyway, I think people on these forums should try to back up their theorycrafting with replays. I remember when I was talking about Phoenix play last patch, I got a lot of derailers who would simply refuse to acknowledge phoenixes as a solution to muta+ling play. I provided about a dozen replays, and the postings mysteriously stopped (lol). Although, one guy did continue to put up unsupported excuses and theorycrafting about why phoenixes/my opponents are garbage.
More replays. Less unsupported theorycrafting. Not to say theorycrafting is bad, but it's kinda pointless to open a thread and see so many people spouting crap without actually providing evidence for what they claim.
|
No offense: But those of you who have belonged for quite a while to this forum - you guys are really spoiled 
Before SC2 came out, I played WC3 and Dota. Do I have to say more? Well, going through the forums and posting in threads somehow always ended up in insults, flames and balance discussions - especially in WC3. So when SC2 was released I discovered this site and it is such an improvement to what I have experienced so far in terms of forum quality.
The SC:BW community was probably smaller than that of WC3 and I assume that the players were older on average and thus more mature. Now as SC2 has been released, the SC:BW community and that of WC3 (and all other strategy games) merge and become one. Furhtermore, SC2 got great ratings and lots of people who'd never touched an RTS-game may have joined the community. So the SC2 community is probably younger and not as mature as the old SC:BW community.
Now, I may start speculating at this point and I don't want offend anyone, as already said, but sometimes it seems to me that the SC:BW community is a bit elitist.
SC:BW achieved a balance, no other RTS game ever did. SC:BW developped to such a perfection that it has been so succesful for over 10 years. So I understand why Starcraft players kinda looked down on other RTS games, because they were easier to play, because they were not as deep as SC1 and because the community was full of flaming and trolling kids.
But now those people come together and those who are used to the SC:BW standard will have to live with it.
So, even though I may agree with the OP, I don't think that separating "bad posters" from "good posters" will help at all. I actually find it very anti-democratic. Everyone should be allowed to express his or her opinion and if a post is crappy then ignore it or tell the poster.
After all, we, who come to this forum, want to have fun and learn more about the game. There might be people who should put a little more thought into what they say, but hey: give them a chance to improve their post quality. I was given it to and I believe that I kinda grew into this community and changed my ways of forums-behaviour.
I understand all the frustration, but really what do you want:
A small, exclusive club where only the "good players" (who are automatically mature, smart and mannered" are in? Or do you want a big community that spreads esports and represents the importance of esports? I want the latter. Yeah, there are more things to get upset about, but in the end: It really ain't that bad.
|
On January 17 2011 06:21 Equalizer wrote:
Has a "like/dislike" system on the comment level been considered?
Unsupported comments on strategy would quickly gather dislikes and at some point could be collapsed and not fully displayed.
This would help deal with the issue of bad comments derailing threads.
Also such a system could help make moderators' jobs easier as a person with a lot of disliked comments would be a good candidate for a warning/temp ban.
Perhaps incentives as well: people who make good posts in the strategy forums can get a special icon?
|
On January 17 2011 01:48 ZerG~LegenD wrote:
The Solution
The world is infested with an illusion of self importance. Children are taught to stand up for their rights, to fight for their beliefs, to never admit defeat, to always seek the last word and to take up their god-granted space.
This is so true, and I've been getting increasingly frustrated with the way that people are taught to be opinionated about issues without knowledge about them. I remember in a science class in high school, we learned about something (let's just say it was global warming) by reading a few articles. At the end of this, we were asked to take a position on the issue and debate one side.
Why were we taking a position on something that none of us knew anything about? If you're a not an expert, you shouldn't be discussing the merits of global warming. That day, we were all taught a little bit that it's okay to be opinionated with almost no knowledge on the topic.
If I ever teach, I'm going to give kids materials on global warming, and then ask them to take a side. When they take a side, I'm going to tell them they just embarassed themselves, they don't know anything, and they should never take a side on any issue if they have 5 minutes experience with the topic. It would be a good life lesson.
|
assuming there was a masters forum On January 17 2011 02:36 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
Magic box technique.
can be posted in general forum
Sockfolding (mineral mining technique that was patched out by blizzard).
can be posted in general forum
Kcdc's 1 gate FE.
kcdc is in masters
Iechoic's hellion drop build.
iechoic is in masters, the build is still dreadful imo
The 2 Thor push build posted by evoli.
build+replay was by janook also in masters league
Antisocialmunky's marine raven build
he isnt at masters level and the raven part of the strategy is pretty terrible, as can be seen by 0 pros doing that build, if the forums were seperated im sure discussion of this concept (without the specific build) wouldve cropped in the masters forum, im sure
Griffith's 4OC build (which still has a lot of untapped potential at the highest level). etc. etc. i dont know much about this build, i doubt it has the potential you mention
As you see, almost all of the notable strategy threads of the past wouldve seen discussion by masters level players and had much more concise and higher level progressments.
F.e. the kcdc FE thread (which is a great thread) was _incredibly_ washed down by idiots saying ..lol.. 3rax will beat this. and then other people saying (although in a more intellectual manner, no it wont, here are some replays(most of them were absolute garbage, even those by 'notable' players, but still)) that it holds. Funnily enough I was one of the few people (I think actually the only one) that posted lengthily replies supported by replays of abusive rax plays that even gave top players (like socke) trouble to defend off 1 base. I was ignored, maybe because the people defending the build had no counter arguments or replays, maybe because it was already the 500 th post and they had already experienced such a swell of negative feedback that they didnt feel inclined to defend it against well-formulated feedback.
no matter how you look at it, cutting down the bad players expressing their opinions regarding specific strategies has almost no negative effects and can only help the development of one such thread. We don't have membership problems on these forums, most people wash down the quality/quantity of a strategy thread and make it extremely inconvenient for higher-level players to take the time to formulate a response amongst the vast stupidity that surrounds them.
I'm a relatively solid player compared to most (i was top 400 on EU when i still laddered) and even though I've enjoyed expressing my opinion freely and frequently on the forums in the past, more and more i find myself typing out a few lines and then deleting them in frustration at the glance of all the bad advice that was already given. I can only imagine how it must feel for someone that is actually quite certain, and has a huge time investment, regarding the topics on these forums, when faced with this flood of misinformation.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm a good player (even though im masters league lol), infact I am uncertain about the majority of strategies I hear & talk about every day, but in my mind I cannot imagine how one could hope to accomplish a decent discussion when inviting those in the lower leagues (platinum and below). Yesterday I heard HasuObs and Socke co-commentating in the HomeStoryCup and it was fucking amazing. Never before have I heard (mind you I follow almost every tournament) 2 top of the line players actually discussing strategy before. It was so awesome, pure quality and they knew what they were talking about. If I had one wish it would be only pros discussing strategy on these forums and all of us sub top 200 players just marvelling at the pure OMGsogood such a discussion would entail. But unfortunately such a thing won't ever happen and I have to set my hopes for maybe experiencing something similiar when the TL staff starts doing something about the quality of the strategy forum discussion.
I feel this is purely an issue of moderation. Most people are stupid, let's face it, 90% of us are anywhere between 12 and 24 years old and play videogames, one can't expect such a part of the population to be overly considerate or intelligent. With the - compared to other forums on the internet - rather strict moderation on the forums the TL staff has managed to make it a little less shitty of a ride. Unfortuntely most of the posts are still not up to the rules & standards of these forums and the only way to prevent them from posting is by a)punching them in the balls until they drop dead b)restricting their ability to post by either 1)bans or 2)specific forum restrictions.
a) seems to be rather ressource-intensive and inefficient, b1) is done to great effect and it flabbergasts me that b2) is never used beyond stopping regular users to access the mod forums.
As such, I strongly hope for sub-strategy forum to be created where at least SOME of the bad posters are weeded out. It's not a matter of people not seeing the good posts, it's a matter of good posts not coming to existence because of all the shit that surrounds their future-self.
Unfortunately, the TL staff (which is largely free-time based so there is almost 0 pressure) is so extremely slow with decisions(theyve been working on the new -good poster gets highlighted- system for months(years?) now and we havent seen anything), that I doubt any discussion regarding this topic will bring much merit.
The good posters will agree and wallow in self-pity further reducing the amount of good posts they make, the bad posters will not change (why would they, according to them they are not to blame) and the TL staff will maybe agree, maybe disagree, but most important of all, they wont change anything in the near future.
|
On January 17 2011 05:07 PatouPower wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 02:01 PepperoniPiZZa wrote:I want to propose a solution. Divide the forum into levels like 2+2 does it. Have an awesome bronze-gold section aswell as platin-diamond and masterleague sections. ??? profit Sadly this would not work. I have seen crappy posts by people who come from the master league, and excellent posts from people who come from the bronze league. You can't classify players simply by their ladder level. I don't think there are magical ways to prevent bad posts and punish bad posters. We can hope they will go away with time because they are obviously not that into Starcraft than the ones willing to discuss the game and thinking before posting, or you can ban them 1 by 1 (wich seems kind of arbitrary though).
The point isn't to divide the forums into "here bronze players, go make bad posts together" and "good players go enlighten one another with amazing posts by yourselves;" the point is to make it easier for people to find advice that pertains to them.
There are good and bad posts in the micro stakes forums on 2p2, and there are good and bad posts in the high stakes forums on 2p2. But, the advice given in the high stakes forums are totally worthless (and potentially harmful) to people at micro stakes. Do I really need to know about range merging when I don't hardly even know what a range is? Of course not. Learning a bunch of difficult techniques for marginal situations isn't useful for a relatively weak player, they need more general advice.
I'm sure most people on these forums who are high diamond already either don't read/post anything or have to filter out thread titles like "Mutas are overrated" or "how do I beat mutas" or "how do I beat terran," which are clearly by lower diamond or lower league players who need general advice for macroing and unit composition. Since I already know different ways to deal with mutas, and the real issue for me is "how do I deal with mutas in this very specific situation?" this thread is going to rarely ever contain information I don't already know.
Similarly, I doubt that threads about super new trends in various matchups is really all that helpful to someone in gold. Sure, maybe they find it interesting or want to try new things, but is it really going to help them improve to learn that if they scout 14 gas 13 pool versus 14 pool no gas versus 15 hatch to lay down either forge then cannon or forge then nexus then cannon or nexus first? These things are so marginal compared to the huge mistakes these players really should be focusing on. Furthermore, I doubt that most people who are in high diamond even know how to help a gold player improve. A high gold player probably knows more about the mindset and mistakes that a low gold player is making, and can help them improve, just like how someone play .10/.25 can help a .02/.05 player in poker better than tom dwan probably can.
Subdivided forums would benefit all skill levels of players.
|
Subdivided forums would be awesome, but we really need to wait for grandmaster league. Master's league is basically just the new Diamond - I personally know some really terrible master league players. It's not really a good qualification. That said, the administrative work in setting that up and keeping it running would most likely make it unfeasible.
|
The resolution to find the forum ugly and bad has made the forum ugly and bad. What is true in high diamond is not always true in high master. If you want more quality posts concerning strategy you need people with quality skill and knowledge of the game to post.
Unfortunately atm if youre that good and not on a pro team no one knows who you are so you find yourself drawn into an argument with someone of a fraction of your skill, or worse disciplined by a mod for not providing enough back information (assumed). Time posting and arguing is better spent training for these players anyway.
|
I'd 5star this is if it were a blog 
|
On January 17 2011 21:07 iEchoic wrote:
Subdivided forums would be awesome, but we really need to wait for grandmaster league. Master's league is basically just the new Diamond - I personally know some really terrible master league players. It's not really a good qualification. That said, the administrative work in setting that up and keeping it running would most likely make it unfeasible.
Masters is still better than diamond, even if it's just a new tier it's still what the old top diamond was. That being said, a person can be high or play well but if they don't understand that their own experiences are merely part of the answer instead of THE answer then they still are bad posters.
It really just comes down to the understanding that what we perceive as fact isn't always fact thus we have to discuss things with the possibility of these facts being wrong.
|
On January 17 2011 21:07 iEchoic wrote:
Subdivided forums would be awesome, but we really need to wait for grandmaster league. Master's league is basically just the new Diamond - I personally know some really terrible master league players. It's not really a good qualification. That said, the administrative work in setting that up and keeping it running would most likely make it unfeasible.
The problem with only allowing grandmasters is though, these forum would mostly be empty I suppose. I mean, let's be honest here, how many top200 players post here...CONSISTENTLY? Like in a way that would lead to interesting discussions to follow?
I'm afraid that there would probably be 1-2 threads a week with maybe around 10 posts a day, don't you think?
I'm also strongly in favour of subdivided forums, even if I'm not invited since I'm not master 
|
On January 17 2011 21:19 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 21:07 iEchoic wrote:
Subdivided forums would be awesome, but we really need to wait for grandmaster league. Master's league is basically just the new Diamond - I personally know some really terrible master league players. It's not really a good qualification. That said, the administrative work in setting that up and keeping it running would most likely make it unfeasible. The problem with only allowing grandmasters is though, these forum would mostly be empty I suppose. I mean, let's be honest here, how many top200 players post here...CONSISTENTLY? Like in a way that would lead to interesting discussions to follow? I'm afraid that there would probably be 1-2 threads a week with maybe around 10 posts a day, don't you think? I'm also strongly in favour of subdivided forums, even if I'm not invited since I'm not master
Well I mean I'm in Masters but I know that what works for me against my opponent wont' work for a pro against his. So I don't really see how sub dividing the forums so people get an even bigger sense of their experience being the one right experience is a good thing.
It's as the OP said. It's not up to the admins to make this better, it's up to the people to open their minds and argue not from their own perceptions but from solid reasoning and good evidence.
|
I agree with what you said siege/zerglegend. Im personally getting very tired of posting in this forum, because it always feels like a bunch of people without any clue will immidiately start jumping at me and telling me how the build i am critizing is so great because it worked in their bronze/plat whatever league game :/.
While i agree with what you wrote, i very much doubt that people will actually read, understand and then act according to it (they will probably only do the first 2 ). In my opinion it will be necessary for the forum moderation to do something about it, but i guess its not easy for them to decide what to do and then implement it, as this takes time and people who do it.
|
On January 17 2011 21:19 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 21:07 iEchoic wrote:
Subdivided forums would be awesome, but we really need to wait for grandmaster league. Master's league is basically just the new Diamond - I personally know some really terrible master league players. It's not really a good qualification. That said, the administrative work in setting that up and keeping it running would most likely make it unfeasible. The problem with only allowing grandmasters is though, these forum would mostly be empty I suppose. I mean, let's be honest here, how many top200 players post here...CONSISTENTLY? Like in a way that would lead to interesting discussions to follow? I'm afraid that there would probably be 1-2 threads a week with maybe around 10 posts a day, don't you think? I'm also strongly in favour of subdivided forums, even if I'm not invited since I'm not master
It doesn't have to be just top 200, but inviting everyone in master's would still end up pretty bad.
You can be lower ranked and give good advice, I'm just saying that being in master's doesn't qualify you. Earlier I read a self-proclaimed master's player who said that "getting 30 thors + vikings on 2 bases is basically a free-win for terran". Blagh.
|
On January 17 2011 21:33 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 21:19 sleepingdog wrote:On January 17 2011 21:07 iEchoic wrote:
Subdivided forums would be awesome, but we really need to wait for grandmaster league. Master's league is basically just the new Diamond - I personally know some really terrible master league players. It's not really a good qualification. That said, the administrative work in setting that up and keeping it running would most likely make it unfeasible. The problem with only allowing grandmasters is though, these forum would mostly be empty I suppose. I mean, let's be honest here, how many top200 players post here...CONSISTENTLY? Like in a way that would lead to interesting discussions to follow? I'm afraid that there would probably be 1-2 threads a week with maybe around 10 posts a day, don't you think? I'm also strongly in favour of subdivided forums, even if I'm not invited since I'm not master It doesn't have to be just top 200, but inviting everyone in master's would still end up pretty bad. You can be lower ranked and give good advice, I'm just saying that being in master's doesn't qualify you. Earlier I read a self-proclaimed master's player who said that "getting 30 thors + vikings on 2 bases is basically a free-win for terran". Blagh.
everyone in masters would be infinitely better than what it is now, masters is the top 2% of players, you cant really make it much more exclusive than that without drying out the activity. that plus it is a convenient way to check for eligibility
|
To me there's one specific thing that the forums are lacking, that has changed since the release of SC2: humility.
Everyone thinks their opinion is right, and everyone thinks that their way is the best, and they will argue to the death to make sure that they are right in the end. People really need to realize that they aren't the best player in the game, and that there are indeed many other people who are better than them.
In BW, you accepted certain strategies, builds, etc., to be true, because you just assumed that whoever created them was 1000 times better than you. And 99% of the time, that assumption was correct. And yet still when someone brought up a new idea, you would discuss it gracefully, talking about the pros and cons and considering both sides. And if the person's opinion did indeed turn out to be dead wrong, you would constructively correct them with the goal of helping them improve as a player, rather than correct them just to show that you are a better player. These days there's this feeling of an air of superiority in a lot of posts for whatever reason; at least that's how it feels to me. There's a bunch of black and white statements, rather than unbiased (racial or otherwise) discussion.
I really hope that people can be just a bit more humble in discussions, instead of having a massive amount of unwarranted pride in their race, rating, knowledge of the game, or otherwise. It would really help the forum a lot I think.
|
On January 17 2011 21:33 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 21:19 sleepingdog wrote:On January 17 2011 21:07 iEchoic wrote:
Subdivided forums would be awesome, but we really need to wait for grandmaster league. Master's league is basically just the new Diamond - I personally know some really terrible master league players. It's not really a good qualification. That said, the administrative work in setting that up and keeping it running would most likely make it unfeasible. The problem with only allowing grandmasters is though, these forum would mostly be empty I suppose. I mean, let's be honest here, how many top200 players post here...CONSISTENTLY? Like in a way that would lead to interesting discussions to follow? I'm afraid that there would probably be 1-2 threads a week with maybe around 10 posts a day, don't you think? I'm also strongly in favour of subdivided forums, even if I'm not invited since I'm not master It doesn't have to be just top 200, but inviting everyone in master's would still end up pretty bad. You can be lower ranked and give good advice, I'm just saying that being in master's doesn't qualify you. Earlier I read a self-proclaimed master's player who said that "getting 30 thors + vikings on 2 bases is basically a free-win for terran". Blagh.
I agree, having some sort of "automatic" master-qualification wouldn't solve much. Probably even the opposite, because some would feel their advice is "supposed" to be highly valued "because" they are in master.
To be honest, I don't really know what the perfect way to improve this would be either...
On January 17 2011 21:27 DarKFoRcE wrote:I agree with what you said siege/zerglegend. Im personally getting very tired of posting in this forum, because it always feels like a bunch of people without any clue will immidiately start jumping at me and telling me how the build i am critizing is so great because it worked in their bronze/plat whatever league game :/. While i agree with what you wrote, i very much doubt that people will actually read, understand and then act according to it (they will probably only do the first 2 ). In my opinion it will be necessary for the forum moderation to do something about it, but i guess its not easy for them to decide what to do and then implement it, as this takes time and people who do it.
As far as I know you still post on instarcraft.de, so your tolerance-level of infantility must be very high anyways
|
Really good post, i fully agree with it, there can be no discussion without argument, and no argument without proof.
I'd like to add, something about people only considering ranking for a post reliability.
I'm currently in plat, playing not that much but watching lots of vods, replays, and strategy thread. Even though my practice isn't perfect, i think i deserve to be ranked in diamond league: my mechanics and my game understanding are OK but i fail to put it in practice and to stay focus enough during the game. Btw, i'm not discussing about my level, but about the vain people who thinks that bronze player can't handle the theory.
Points and league aren't a proof a reliability of a post. Few days ago, i saw a post written 'Only master 2k5' with the justification that the strategy aren't the same at master 2k5 and master 2k3. I don't think that guy will garbage day9 advise, despite the fact day9 isn't in master league.
That's stupid, dealing with a 2 gate stargate won't change from one league to another. You need timings, advise and maybe replays to fully understand way to react, and you don't need to know what's the ranking of the guy who tries to help you.
|
this would require JUDGES who's reputation/knowledge allow to separate the crap from the crop.
And I mean group of judges who would evaluate specific builds/advice etc. An average grade would be what's interesting for us. Make it so that only the judges can give grades, so we would know that what they say has some value.
I'm not sure I'm being clear enough, but I've seen someone asking for bronze/gold subforums which is plain silly, considering the lack of knowledge of such posters. I myself am bronze and I rarely state anything - I'm a lurker more than a poster when it comes to teaching people.
On January 17 2011 21:19 sleepingdog wrote:The problem with only allowing grandmasters is though, these forum would mostly be empty I suppose. I mean, let's be honest here, how many top200 players post here...CONSISTENTLY? Like in a way that would lead to interesting discussions to follow? I'm afraid that there would probably be 1-2 threads a week with maybe around 10 posts a day, don't you think? I'm also strongly in favor of subdivided forums, even if I'm not invited since I'm not master
moreover - why would they even ask anything strategy related when they're the one's who create strategies of their own?
|
It's sad that this already got pushed to the second page so quickly with only 3 pages of posts.
It's clear that the people to whom this thread is addressed to simply 'TLDR' it and move on.
You can't ask a community to change when it is already warped around to the point where it ignores itself. Right now people post to post, no other reason. Threads automatically restart every few pages because most people don't even read the messages of those two or three entries above them let alone two or three pages.
That combined with the problem of content that the OP describes and you get a soulless forum. Not a dead forum, because posts will be up by tenfold, but everyone who has half a brain would have already left the hornets nest for what it is.
Either moderators crack down, something I think they wouldn't really look forward to considering the amount of work is involved.
Or you start confronting bad posts. Only a small group of people is needed, a sort of vigilante. Nothing malicious, simply pointing out bad posts while still contributing to the thread. People will need to be confronted with this, hardly anyone is going to read this thread, and it'll be forgotten in a few days after people stop bumping it.
It'll flush out the trolls and indicate who is simply not fit to be in this forum. Giving mods a helping hand in wading through the sludge.
|
On January 18 2011 19:00 Greth wrote:
It's sad that this already got pushed to the second page so quickly with only 3 pages of posts.
It's clear that the people to whom this thread is addressed to simply 'TLDR' it and move on.
I wanted to write this yesterday already, lol. The people who take the time to read this are those that are probably NOT those the OP wanted to appeal to. The people who post 90% crap will probably never bother to read more than the first paragraph, then decide that they are too lazy to continue reading - if they click on it at all.
|
I can't remember who said it, but a Like/Dislike option would be helpful. But even moreso would be if TL updated the website to allow a persons rank and record in their signature (I can't remember what website has this already?) Members would just enter their SC2 name and ID and their signature would be updated automatically. That way when you see a point made by a Master league player you may take it into consideration and if you see a point made by a diamond/platinum player you can take it into consideration with a grain of salt type deal.
Now I know this isn't a be all solution, but frankly, their isn't one. We're still on the internet here after all.
|
This thread is a good thread, I've been reading it all, and I cannot agree more.
I can't remember who said it, but a Like/Dislike option would be helpful.
I don't know. We have those on youtube, and there they are only used in a big battle for the most thumbs up. I don't think that will contribute too most threads.
And I often write a few sentences, only to skip them later on. Why? I know I'm not a brilliant player. So I look at what I wrote, and then decide, let's not post this, it might be bad advice. And I'd rather post nothing then bad advice.
This thread should be a sticky.
|
Hey there,
I just wanted to give some points that I think are quite important but not really discussed enough:
1. The game is still in an early stage. As iNcontrol said in his recent ZvP Stargate Play lesson with MrBitter (It's in the early minutes) we're not in the state of 12 years experience with the game like we are in SC1.
This means, in my opinion, that it is completely valid to make points that MAY seem wrong. Just for example: A few weeks ago everyone said "Ooh mass queens is so lame, not effective and you shouldn't even bother that." Now somebody gave some good points about that and many people are like "F*** yea mass queens <3.".
So for some part, what happens here is good. Not the flaming, not the diffarmation etc. but all the good theorycrafting of everyone. I actually think we NEED this!
2. Yes, the argument of authority is a solid point. But again: if you watch MrBitter's lessons with the pros you'll see that they don't say "I said that before so this is always right and it should be written into stone." No, they are like: "I found out that this is wrong, so I'll be doing this." (For example a Zerg-Pro said that he found out that 1base roach is actually pretty good.(I think it's the recent ZvZ Lesson with MrBitter & Ret... I'm not quite sure tho. May be Machine as well. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.)
So here's what I think:
If you have your own experience, this is fine.
It's good if you say "Well I think that [...] so I think you're wrong."
The problem with this is(this may sound like flaming, but it really isn't):
People get butthurt really fast if you say that they are wrong. They don't think you want to discuss, they always think that you want to just flame/hurt their feelings/whatsoever.
I think it's totally fine if a bronze player comes to me and say "Hey I actually find that 1 base play is pretty good". If he's saying that he's bronze, not facing anything other than bronze-standard cheese and that stuff.
When I read the OP I was thinking about Huxley's Brave New World all the time. I really think that we are facing somehow the same kind of problems. I we could somehow part the bad posts from the good posts or at least find a good way to define "good posts", as OP already tried, it would be a lot better.
I'm reading for a pretty long time now and it often happens that somebody made a good post, got flamed by somebody who was butthurt(no offense here, this is just my bad way to describe the reaction) and suddenly it all turned into a flamefest for some time and the good post was forgotten and the discussion didn't have a single result.
So just a small conclusion:
I think discussions are good. I think it's okay if somebody says "I think Pro-XY is wrong". But not because he played 1game where he experienced a different thing that Pro-XY said, but maybe like "Well I played 100 Laddergames in diamond league with this build and I got owned all the time, so I think Pro-XY is wrong". But still this is not a valid argument since you could just play bad, but it's way better than just saying "olol you're so wrong I can't even express how wrong you are.".
So yea, I think there are enough good-quality posts, there are just way more bad-quality posts that distract people from the real discussion.
|
On January 18 2011 22:00 KeksX wrote:
So just a small conclusion:
I think discussions are good. I think it's okay if somebody says "I think Pro-XY is wrong". But not because he played 1game where he experienced a different thing that Pro-XY said, but maybe like "Well I played 100 Laddergames in diamond league with this build and I got owned all the time, so I think Pro-XY is wrong". But still this is not a valid argument since you could just play bad, but it's way better than just saying "olol you're so wrong I can't even express how wrong you are.".
So yea, I think there are enough good-quality posts, there are just way more bad-quality posts that distract people from the real discussion.
I understand where you coming from: I noticed that it's gotten to a point where a MASSIVE amount of rather low-level players disagrees with high-level players on certain issues, while the high-level players have actually tested their stuff against exactly the things the low-level players bring into the discussion.
Perfect example: kcdc's one gate FE: Minigun used to post a lot, especially in this thread, that it was viable and didn't lose to 3 rax play. Still there were constantly newbish people disagreeing with him, it was painful to watch. I think on some point you just have to accept your own limitations when people way better than you talk about stuff - even if you think like "wtf, he plays with strategies that I never got to work"...keep it to yourself. Chances are, that the (semi-)pro has probably tested his strat against exactly the stuff you keep losing against and still found it useful. If the poster isn't on a comparable level, the discussion is more likely to get derailed if he tries to argue against the points made.
|
Although the analogy made in the OP was long-winded, its point is well-taken. Supported arguments are always more powerful.
The quality of posts here on TL and in most other places is shoddy because, in general, people have never learned how to craft arguments -- or if they have, they've forgotten. In the US, this type of critical discourse is typically learned in very late high school or in university. (I would submit that the only worthwhile thing learned in most university curricula is how to support a claim properly.) Even so, among the people who are educated most barely remember the courses they took at university, much less what was covered in them. So the problem is not unique to TL or even internet forums (though it can manifest iself quite badly on the internet), it's a wider problem of societal ignorance. This is not something that can be fixed on this forum, nor will it diminish with time. There really is no way to rid TL of bad posts other than to have administrators remove every such post and punish the poster with a temporary ban. But do the admins even know how to properly craft an argument?
tl;dr -- It's not just TL.net. Most people don't know how to make a good argument. The ability to support claims and filter one's own opinion is something that only comes with education.
|
Maybe they should restrict strategy discussions to Masters league AND have some new rule regarding posts. What do people think of the following:
1. All posts must be positive - e.g. saying what works rather than what doesn't. e.g. Someone that posts "Phoenix are crap" cannot possibly know that since no one has yet tested out all the possible phoenix related plays. However, someone that says "Here is a build that works at the 2200 Diamond level and here are the replays to prove it" is making a good contribution even if the same build completely fails when you get to Masters.
2.All posts must be evidence based - Posts must say objective things that can be supported with facts. e.g. "I play in bronze and I find that build X works really well vs zerg when they go build Y and here are the replays to prove it" is a better post than "I play in Diamond and I think phoenix are crap"
The two rules are overlapping since the reason you cannot do 1 is that it is impossible for a strategy to be dismissed since noone has yet tested all strategies of one race vs all possible strats of the other races. Maybe in 10 years time we can relax rule 1 since most builds are understood but until then it will get rid of a load of rubbish posts.
The mods do a good job of weeding out the REALLY bad posts already but they should just be more liberal in banning for this new strat forum.
|
In my opinion, the only feasible way to define what good and bad posts are is to let the community decide. I am convinced a like / dislike feature as mentioned would help a lot.
However, I would like to propose a somewhat more refined rating system:
Each member gets to rate any post with either +1 or -1.
Each poster is assigned a rating = the total rating of all his posts.
Each rating is weighted the following way: rating * (rating of rater) / (number of rates by rater)
This has the following effect:
- the rating of popular raters is more important
- the influence of a single rater is very small, since each subsequent rating loses value, therefore abuse is virtually impossible
After an initial phase the system should stabilize and good posters should stand out.
Now, I should back up my statements with evidence and a replay, but I won't ;-)
|
brilliant post op, great observation many of us have made...the best solution is to just try and have everyone put their rating/leauge at the beginning of their post (i know its not fool proof but its a thought) and that MIGHT (unlikely) give a kind of idea over which info is good or bad
just a crappy suggestion but every little thing might help someone think of an actual solution
|
This probably makes me a jackass, but the fact that you even posted this is a problem.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the strategy of SC2 and only is exacerbating the problem by its mere existence.
My theory is that the mods aren't ninjas, but if they were, they could simply enforce the existing rules faster.
I think it's great that you're trying to instill some basic logical reasoning foundations in here, but you should probably have posted this in the forum guidelines thread.
|
People have already thrown this idea around, but I think that some sort of system for rewarding good posts and good posters is the best way to go. That way highly ranked posts would float to the top, and posters who regularly give good contributions might be given some sort of higher ranking.
|
This forum is good, the problem is that you can't judge who give you an advice, on other site of the "elite" in gaming, when you post into a section of forum, you can see the achievement and the ratings like in this website about wow pvp
http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=230932
you can see the ratings of the user, and his title of the seasons that he got.
If the same system is applied to TL.net, it will be good, because when you read something that seem good on a forum, you try it ou 100 games on ladder, then you realise its pure bullshit, it wont happen if you can see the "skill" of the member who told you that( if boby28 tell me something and i see that he's bronze, i wont follow his advice).
sorry for my engrish
|
On January 19 2011 10:38 SlyinZ wrote:This forum is good, the problem is that you can't judge who give you an advice, on other site of the "elite" in gaming, when you post into a section of forum, you can see the achievement and the ratings like in this website about wow pvp http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=230932you can see the ratings of the user, and his title of the seasons that he got. If the same system is applied to TL.net, it will be good, because when you read something that seem good on a forum, you try it ou 100 games on ladder, then you realise its pure bullshit, it wont happen if you can see the "skill" of the member who told you that( if boby28 tell me something and i see that he's bronze, i wont follow his advice). sorry for my engrish
I think you should propose this officially for sure.
|
Arena Junkies has become pretty great. It was not always that way. hah
|
I agree. Threads get totally shitted on and I spend days looking for arguments under a pile of crap posts. There doesn't need to be segregation of posters, forums, or posts because that will just make this site an elitist clique. All we need is a system where the good posts stick out from the bad posts.
|
Thank u very much for posting this. to be honest I was going to post something like this a week ago because I was so angry about how bad some of the topics were.
I have been following tl for about 2 years now but I hardly post as u can tell because I feel that my advice want be that great and that there are other players who r more qulified to post,hell I have never made a thread.
My point is please before any one makes a thread please check if its been disscued before, watch replays practice partner ect...
then if all else fails make a thread.
By the way 2500 dimand brotoss player here.
Edit: typos not my first language.
|
The biggest thing is that the game has been released so recently. There are a lot of people on here that played BW as a kid, came back to SC2 and heard that TL is a good forum.
I would guarantee that within 12 months these people will subside and the quality will rise as all players who remain have improved. Just an over time/stablizating matter imo.
|
I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but what about a youtube-esque system?
A low-effort, anonymous ratings system like youtube's thumbs-up metric might actually achieve something. You could obviously improve on youtube, but the general thrust of it is there.
As you read, you get in the habit of clicking +/- for good or bad advice, and that translates immediately into a visible post and/or user ranking.
You could then allow people to set an individual threshold for visible posts (ie. I don't want to see anything below +5).
Adding even more complexity, posters could then get a kind of rolling community rating if enough of their posts are highly starred, so replies from people with a good history would automatically start at like +6. You could even tie it to people's real rank similar to mlbrandow's suggestion, so a top masters would get +10 etc. Jinro etc would clearly be over 9000.
If people got in the habit of rating on the go, it might be a partial solution.
|
On January 19 2011 15:59 imBLIND wrote:
I agree. Threads get totally shitted on and I spend days looking for arguments under a pile of crap posts. There doesn't need to be segregation of posters, forums, or posts because that will just make this site an elitist clique. All we need is a system where the good posts stick out from the bad posts.
That's what this forum should be.
The most knowledgeable players should be the ones discussing most of the time.
One of the best forums from WoW strategizing and theorycrafting is elitistjerks.com's forum, and it's even in the name.
No one will argue though that that forum is home to the most knowledgeable and enlightening discussion related to WoW strategy.
|
As a rubbish player myself, I reckon it would help to emphasise the Liquipedia as a place to re-direct a lot of the repetitive topics, such as how to stop a 6 pool.
a. If any gun players make a contribution, then it can be made once, and then recorded in the Liquipedia for all future noobs.
b. Next time someone makes that thread, then point them here:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/6_Pool#Countering_the_6_Pool
|
I like this topic and ZerG~LegenD's post in the beginning.
The truth is elsewhere in my opinion. There are a lot of ways to improve.. but the statement I liked the best was: If you seek improvement, look no further but yourself.
The next truth is:
1) There always will be bad post.
2) There always will be trolls.
3) It's hard to find the good information when you need it. BUT it's not impossible.
But dividing a the forum for nubs and pros is an idea lacking reasoning whatsoever. That would only make the good players better and the bad players worse.
The best idea I have read so far was thread and post rating on the go. Each post could have a rating based system used from -5 to +5, but you should not be ably to rate if you don't make a shorty statement why in a small area. (ipmart-forum.com has just that system you can check it out)
ex: I like a post. I rate it +4, state: good idea, solid reasoning
ex: I don't like a post, consider it as trolling. I rate it -5, state: TROLL
Thus solid posts will lead to high rating and trolls will get spotted by very easily.
Cheers to all players/ people thinking out of the box and in ways to improve. You all have my respect.
|
Regarding the short statement thing, I see why you want it, but I'm not sure it's the best idea. For a rating type system to really work, I feel like it needs to be very easy to do. Passive, and anonymous.
As soon as you start requiring people to type something to do it, a lot of folks won't bother, and those that do are just as likely to make an actual reply going " ^^ TROLL " instead, so you're left with as much dross as you would have had otherwise, and a very small rating sample.
|
Regarding the rating-system: I truly hate this, I can't see it working. Let's suppose we have our average noob making a nice little [D]-thread about the oh so strong marine/raven/banshee-push, that it's so hard to fight against it, etc. Then he gets 20 thumbs ups from other noobs who also like QQing about marine/raven/banshee. Then I come, protoss-player myself btw, and tell the OP to STFU (nicely of course ) because this has been thoroughly discussed millions of times and that he should post a replay if he wants specific help. Now I get 151971530 thumbs down just because I disagreed with a QQ. No way to see how "knowledgable" the posters really are just from something like that...
|
On January 19 2011 03:24 plagiarisedwords wrote:
Maybe they should restrict strategy discussions to Masters league AND have some new rule regarding posts. What do people think of the following:
1. All posts must be positive - e.g. saying what works rather than what doesn't. e.g. Someone that posts "Phoenix are crap" cannot possibly know that since no one has yet tested out all the possible phoenix related plays. However, someone that says "Here is a build that works at the 2200 Diamond level and here are the replays to prove it" is making a good contribution even if the same build completely fails when you get to Masters.
2.All posts must be evidence based - Posts must say objective things that can be supported with facts. e.g. "I play in bronze and I find that build X works really well vs zerg when they go build Y and here are the replays to prove it" is a better post than "I play in Diamond and I think phoenix are crap"
The two rules are overlapping since the reason you cannot do 1 is that it is impossible for a strategy to be dismissed since noone has yet tested all strategies of one race vs all possible strats of the other races. Maybe in 10 years time we can relax rule 1 since most builds are understood but until then it will get rid of a load of rubbish posts.
The mods do a good job of weeding out the REALLY bad posts already but they should just be more liberal in banning for this new strat forum.
Thats a terrible idea. It is much easier to make statements about what doesnt work and basically noone can prove that something works, because there might just be a variation that has not been found yet.
Also your example for your second point is terrible. I personally would still rate the opinion of the diamond player higher (even though diamond is already beyond terrible) because the bronze player juts has ABSOLUTELY no clue at all. and bronze replays prove nothing.
|
The thing about having a pro only forum, is that most of the people playing to win tours etc, will probably not share build orders and strategies.
I do however think it would be a nice idea to have your bnet account in your profile or something. So people will know if this is a gold player or a top master league player that post. So you can see if the advice actually comes from someone with a bit of experience playing at the upper level.
|
On January 17 2011 02:32 Azzur wrote:
I was going to make a similar post as well, but was too lazy. The OP is asking for people to provide proof as to their actions rather than give anecdotal evidence. As for the OP's example, saying, "Ret believes that hatch first is stronger than 2-rax" is a lot better than "I'm a XXXX pt Zerg and I'm right and you're wrong".
I agree with what I think the intention behind this is, but I do not agree with this as written.
Quoting Ret (or any generally recognized authority) might lend some credence to a given statement. But that is the point, it is just a statement and not an argument.
What is important to say is the hatch first is better for these reasons. Or Ret says hatch first is better for the following reasons.
It is the reasons given that are important and can be argued for or against. They enhance everyones understanding of the game and generates useful debate, whether you agree or disagree. Saying Ret is right because he is Ret does not lead the discussion anywhere.
|
Where is baller, the OP could really use a much better analogy.
OT: Having been involved in fora previously with a youtube-esque poster rating system, I don't believe it would serve the desired purpose. People are generally more likely to rate someone highly for saying something they already agree with or something funny than for something insightful.
|
I think a topic like this has been needed for a while, I've lurked these forums for quite a while now and can't help but notice the difference in quality of OPs and responses when compared to SC1 strategy forum before SC2s release/beta or even announcement. It just makes me sad to see low level players (Silver Gold Plat Low Diamond) doling out advice left right and centre when they clearly don't understand the game well enough. IMO if these lower level players should be giving any advice at all (and as elitist as it sounds, I don't think they should) it should be "improve macro" or "scout better" rather than use X build, use X unit etc etc
When you compare this to the way TL used to be, low level players (D/D+) getting help from high level players(C/C+), and even high level players getting help from higher level players (B- and up), this made almost every thread accurate, informative and just fun to read, I used to be able to spend hours reading the SC1 strategy forum, now I can barely stand to stay on the site for longer than 30 minutes and don't even bother with half of the threads anyway.
I guess there's only 1 way you can look at it, SC1 had been around for a loooong time and almost everyone who played had a decent understanding of the game and played quite well since the game was all but completely figured out. And given the high level of play it made it difficult for new comers to really get into the game without making a massive commitment. Then along came SC2 and attracted a whole new fan base consisting of people who have little to no RTS experience, no SC1 experience, no understanding of the game, or the resources that are available to help them with the game and no idea of how TL used to be, how fun, interesting, entertaining, informative, and educational it once was.
IMO I don't think TL will ever be the same again
TT
|
On January 20 2011 01:33 DarKFoRcE wrote: I personally would still rate the opinion of the diamond player higher (even though diamond is already beyond terrible) because the bronze player juts has ABSOLUTELY no clue at all. and bronze replays prove nothing.
I think that, while this would generally be true in most situations, simply disregarding somebodies opinion/idea/suggestion/analysis because of their league success is incredibly narrow minded. It is entirely plausible that somebody does not have much time to play, or is simply happy with their current ability, or whatever their situation. Which is fine, but it does not also imply that that very same person is not tactically minded, analytical or strategically minded and able to give a relevant and measured contribution. Sometimes it is the case, sure, but correlation does not equal causation.
As an example, I see a huge amount of people, usually new players and elitists totally disregard the opinions and analyses of David Sirlin in regards to Street Fighter. But technically and theoretically, nobody knows that game (specifically Super SF 2 Turbo) better than he does. Nobody. Just because you do not see him winning Evo every year doesn't make his opinion less valid on it's own. I am not implying that every random newbie is David Sirlin, but there is always potential for things to be looked at in a different perspective by a new player.
If somebody gives bad advice, illogical advice, or etc then absolutely call them out on it but I think that listening to one person over another because of league positioning is a bad thing overall. Newer players sometimes have fresh insight which can breathe new life into a strategy or even an entire game when combined with the knowledge and skill of veteran players.
I think the key to solving the issue a lot of people here clearly believe exists is through (as has been proposed already by a good number of people) some kind of community moderation functionality. Perhaps even a simple reputation system where people are rewarded for their contributions in a way that lets others know their contributions are generally good quality.
While I hate to sound negative, especially when I am such a new face on as large and successful a forum as this, I think perhaps the issue is not quite as bad as it seems. So far I have found these forums a million times more helpful, accepting, patient and kind than when the new players invaded Shoryuken's forums just before the release of Street Fighter IV, which really was a disaster. Here though people seem to be able to distinguish between well meaning posts, and dumb posts rather than just hating on anybody with a post count below 50 which has been a really nice and welcome change from other forums I have used 
|
We need moar charts and graphs.
|
My solution,
Open a new post with interesting title:
Start Reading post
Realize poster doesnt know wtf he is talking about
Close the post
Open a different post, lose respect for the last OP, ignore his posts in the future, Continue on my merry way.
This is the internet, and it's not a courtroom. People on here are from different cultures, different political systems, different parts of the world, different ways of thinking, and thats what makes it great. Just because some newb, makes a post in the strategy section and says wahh wahh wahh terran is imba lulz, doesnt mean I have to read the whole thread and all the replies, and get in on the argument. See something stupid??? ignore it.
People get drunk, they get high, some people are just dumb when they are born, People post stupid shit, it happens this is the internet. The problem is when "The TL.Net White Knight" sees a thread that displeases him, the "TL.Net White Knight" then try's to have an honest debate with someone who obviously is incompetent. AND BAM theres the mistake, If you see a stupid post, don't continue to post in it, every time you post, you make it more popular and move it too the top of the list!!!!! Yet if everyone just DIDN'T POST IN STUPID THREADS they would very quickly fall to the bottom of the list and disappear. voila
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/iaSRy.png)
now another issue I've found is people who think they are English/Composition majors and have a PAGE OF STUPID ANALOGIES before they actually get to the point of what they are posting about.......
also this is in the wrong forum, and people who have accounts made in 2010-2011 (myself included) have no place to talk on this issue.
|
This is well articulated and very much appreciated. The application of forethought really helps in the quality of a post.
Similarly I was pretty startled (though I suppose I shouldn't be) about actually seeing an imba thread in the strat forum the other day (which was promptly deleted). This got me wondering if part of the problem with these kinds of posts/threads are that newer members need to be forced to read/agree to the forum rules before they are allowed to post on that specific forum? I can't speak for everyone, but I know that's the first thing I did when I started posting.
|
I like what you say here, Zerg~Legend, and hope many posters see this advice and incorporate into their posts. 5-sentence arguments with support work better than 1-sentence anecdotal evidence or "But if he does this" style of arguing. Even further, 10 sentences with a replay and a logical flow to the paragraph give such credence to the poster and his argument. He at least went through some effort finding a solution to a problem, and found a replay demonstrating his point (hopefully not showing an opponent that has no experience reacting badly).
Here's to more substantive posts in the Strategy forums!
Chant with me,
Nothing is overpowered!
Diamond/Masters league placement isn't the be-all end-all of your authority!
Research and replays are king!
|
I'm glad Danglars and a few others seem to have understood the point that the OP was trying to get across.
I stumbled upon this post after doing a name search of Zerg~Legend. This was motivated by the awesome and thorough ZvP and ZvT guides he posted. After reading those guides I wanted to know if there were other quality posts I had yet to discover. Lo and behold, I find a post regarding the sad state of affairs concerning the strategy forum. The fact that the OP took the time to make this post when he should be working on a ZvZ guide is disheartening.
Those who have had a chance to look at the two guides I'm referring to will note that the OP practices what he preaches. It is rare to see forum posts of such amazing quality where time, effort, and thought were put into the research and the writing.
Readers of those posts will note that the OP did the following.
1. He only briefly mentioned his ranking on his server and did not use that as the only source of "evidence".
2. He provided his reasoning (in this case all the potential tech/unit timings of the opponent)
3. Explained what the post would not cover and why (i.e. no recent experience with 2gate or Blistering Sands) HOWEVER, it would have been nice if there was a description in the guide early on stating it was a guide on Speedlings into Roach&Hydra into Broodlord/Ultralisk, but that's a minor quibble.
4. Provided replays and some fancy looking charts.
5. Made substantive suggestions regarding strategy that could be debated and improved upon because the assumptions and evidence were made clear.
Some other posters have suggested that TL admins should take care of this problem (e.g. create a Pro and Master's League forum). I for one think it is silly to ask for change and not try to be part of the change. One can debate the relative merits of a tiered forum posting privileges to death. inControl has certainly been vocal about how low quality posts and the general lackluster "professionalism" in the strat forum discourages and derails pros from successfully getting their points across. But that's not what the OP is asking for.
He's asking for better posts and I think those who want to raise the bar on posts should take heed. We have nothing to lose and much to gain from improving overall post quality.
Here's to better posts!
Looking forward to:
1. Evidence and/or authority (citation)
2. Reasoning
3. Qualifiers/caveats
4. Replays & vids (when applicable)
5. Fancy carts (optional)
|
Hey I'm sorry if someone has already said this, I read the OP but i didnt read through the whole thread. What if TL just implemented some kind of rating thing, where you can rate other members based on their posts and replies (like seller ratings on ebay) , and on you could see a posters rating before you open the post.
|
While I appreciate your sentiment in regards to the current state of the forum. Your argument dose not hold water. For one, the analogy that the forum is a court room is a well crafted straw-man because in fact a public forum would never be an ideal place to conduct a court proceeding involving a murder. Secondly, an argument from authority is also a logical fallacy because as stated before "not all high level players are necessarily good at the game".
On January 17 2011 03:14 Grumbels wrote:
Not all high level players are pro's of course, and not all high level players are necessarily good at the game (since you get to fairly high ladder ratings by just doing one strategy very well, or having good mechanics, not by good understanding per se).
It is legitimate to consider the training and experience of an individual when examining their assessment of a particular claim. Also, a consensus of scientific opinion does carry some legitimate authority. But it is still possible for highly educated individuals, and a broad consensus to be wrong – speaking from authority does not make a claim true. The converse also apples, where in a complete laymen may be in fact correct about his statement in spite of the fact that he is witless.
That's not to say that your heart was in the right place when you wrote this thread. However, as Aeres said, in time things will reach a equilibrium. Ether the weaker member/poster will elevate themselves to reflect a higher standard or they will grow tired of SC2 and move on to the next fad when that time comes. Ether way it is up to you to represent yourself with your own personal ethics as a roll model and conversely it is not up to you to govern the free exchange of Ideas. Unless you are a mod where you have full authority to be a tyrannical Overlord (at least here).
|
On January 20 2011 04:18 The_A_Drain wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2011 01:33 DarKFoRcE wrote: I personally would still rate the opinion of the diamond player higher (even though diamond is already beyond terrible) because the bronze player juts has ABSOLUTELY no clue at all. and bronze replays prove nothing. I think that, while this would generally be true in most situations, simply disregarding somebodies opinion/idea/suggestion/analysis because of their league success is incredibly narrow minded. It is entirely plausible that somebody does not have much time to play, or is simply happy with their current ability, or whatever their situation. Which is fine, but it does not also imply that that very same person is not tactically minded, analytical or strategically minded and able to give a relevant and measured contribution. Sometimes it is the case, sure, but correlation does not equal causation. As an example, I see a huge amount of people, usually new players and elitists totally disregard the opinions and analyses of David Sirlin in regards to Street Fighter. But technically and theoretically, nobody knows that game (specifically Super SF 2 Turbo) better than he does. Nobody. Just because you do not see him winning Evo every year doesn't make his opinion less valid on it's own. I am not implying that every random newbie is David Sirlin, but there is always potential for things to be looked at in a different perspective by a new player. If somebody gives bad advice, illogical advice, or etc then absolutely call them out on it but I think that listening to one person over another because of league positioning is a bad thing overall. Newer players sometimes have fresh insight which can breathe new life into a strategy or even an entire game when combined with the knowledge and skill of veteran players. I think the key to solving the issue a lot of people here clearly believe exists is through (as has been proposed already by a good number of people) some kind of community moderation functionality. Perhaps even a simple reputation system where people are rewarded for their contributions in a way that lets others know their contributions are generally good quality. While I hate to sound negative, especially when I am such a new face on as large and successful a forum as this, I think perhaps the issue is not quite as bad as it seems. So far I have found these forums a million times more helpful, accepting, patient and kind than when the new players invaded Shoryuken's forums just before the release of Street Fighter IV, which really was a disaster. Here though people seem to be able to distinguish between well meaning posts, and dumb posts rather than just hating on anybody with a post count below 50 which has been a really nice and welcome change from other forums I have used
What a terrible comparision. Someone in bronzeleague really has absolutely no clue about the game, he is most likely not even able to remember a build order up to 20 supply correctly.
Its way better to just ignore all the bla bla of bad players than listening and considering all of it, just because they might randomly find something that actually turns out to be worthwhile (i mean, if you give them infinite tries, one of them will most likely say something thats not completely useless).
|
It seems to me that the SC:BW community grew, slowly and eventually by its own drive and need to exist. The Sc2 community appeared overnight, occupied by the marauding ex-denizens of casual and competitive games alike (though all inferior in some way). I think the BW community was somewhat spoiled; I was not into competitive SC, but I can tell you, WoW, Halo, DotA, and even Wc3 have far worse followers than even Sc2. It has impressed me so far, that Sc2 has been as civilized as it is -- I believe this to be the result of the many upstanding moderators to sites like TL, and just as importantly to the BW players that have come to Sc2.
With that being said, it will take a long time for the OP's request to be fulfilled completely, if at all, but I think it is an admirable goal to strive toward.
Can we do this? Can discussions about strategy be more than just opinions slewn at one another? Can we reach conclusions about a build or strategy; judge its effectiveness and usefulness fully?
|
On January 21 2011 10:49 DarKFoRcE wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2011 04:18 The_A_Drain wrote:On January 20 2011 01:33 DarKFoRcE wrote: I personally would still rate the opinion of the diamond player higher (even though diamond is already beyond terrible) because the bronze player juts has ABSOLUTELY no clue at all. and bronze replays prove nothing. I think that, while this would generally be true in most situations, simply disregarding somebodies opinion/idea/suggestion/analysis because of their league success is incredibly narrow minded. It is entirely plausible that somebody does not have much time to play, or is simply happy with their current ability, or whatever their situation. Which is fine, but it does not also imply that that very same person is not tactically minded, analytical or strategically minded and able to give a relevant and measured contribution. Sometimes it is the case, sure, but correlation does not equal causation. As an example, I see a huge amount of people, usually new players and elitists totally disregard the opinions and analyses of David Sirlin in regards to Street Fighter. But technically and theoretically, nobody knows that game (specifically Super SF 2 Turbo) better than he does. Nobody. Just because you do not see him winning Evo every year doesn't make his opinion less valid on it's own. I am not implying that every random newbie is David Sirlin, but there is always potential for things to be looked at in a different perspective by a new player. If somebody gives bad advice, illogical advice, or etc then absolutely call them out on it but I think that listening to one person over another because of league positioning is a bad thing overall. Newer players sometimes have fresh insight which can breathe new life into a strategy or even an entire game when combined with the knowledge and skill of veteran players. I think the key to solving the issue a lot of people here clearly believe exists is through (as has been proposed already by a good number of people) some kind of community moderation functionality. Perhaps even a simple reputation system where people are rewarded for their contributions in a way that lets others know their contributions are generally good quality. While I hate to sound negative, especially when I am such a new face on as large and successful a forum as this, I think perhaps the issue is not quite as bad as it seems. So far I have found these forums a million times more helpful, accepting, patient and kind than when the new players invaded Shoryuken's forums just before the release of Street Fighter IV, which really was a disaster. Here though people seem to be able to distinguish between well meaning posts, and dumb posts rather than just hating on anybody with a post count below 50 which has been a really nice and welcome change from other forums I have used What a terrible comparision. Someone in bronzeleague really has absolutely no clue about the game, he is most likely not even able to remember a build order up to 20 supply correctly. Its way better to just ignore all the bla bla of bad players than listening and considering all of it, just because they might randomly find something that actually turns out to be worthwhile (i mean, if you give them infinite tries, one of them will most likely say something thats not completely useless).
i agree, we can keep the 'everybody has the right to have his opinion heard' bullshit up in the strategy forums or we could make it what it has the potential to be, which is a sub-forum that almost EVERY pro reads (looking at the latest HomeStoryCup you were able to find TLs theme on almost all the non-sc2ing screens) and a heck of a lot more pros will post in (like every single one that has talked on the subject wants it to be private (as in not everyone has writing rights))
heck, we can even let the noobs have their own place to discuss strategy and then another one for more experienced people.
right now reading & posting in the strategy forums is a joke, sure its good for your average silver/plat player, but if you are good at the game, you might as well (as idra said) "keep the strategy tab closed ... its that bad"
EDIT.
There is absolutely no point to post in a discussion when it has grown past 5 pages unless you make a very controversial post OR are a very recognizable name. The noise from the low-level players makes it too much of a hassle to a) look for informed posters and b) maintain a discussion with such a person since so much random junk just flies in between. If you want to solve this problem by making good posters more visible you will have to make it so extreme that the non-good posters are almost invisible.
Sure, back in the BW days the strategy forum worked because people used to shut up when a pro speaks up & the extremely bad players were in very small numbers.
With the release of SC2 and the influx of new players (just like i once was) the TL community deserves a new system to produce quality strategic discussion. Leaving the community to its own just doesn't do it anymore.
|
On January 20 2011 02:12 gakkgakk wrote:
The thing about having a pro only forum, is that most of the people playing to win tours etc, will probably not share build orders and strategies.
I do however think it would be a nice idea to have your bnet account in your profile or something. So people will know if this is a gold player or a top master league player that post. So you can see if the advice actually comes from someone with a bit of experience playing at the upper level.
plenty of people near the pro level love to share their build orders
people at the pro level still like to discuss strategy, they just want to do it in a somewhat homogenous environment.
|
For what little it's worth, I think this forum could benefit greatly from the strict application of these rules:
1. All OPs must include a replay.
2. Any responses along the lines of "I'm in the bath / on the roof / raping my dog and can't watch the replay right now, but..." earns a crisp warning / ban, exceptions to be made for recognised top tier players who can obviously rape whatever they like.
So, so often I read threads where four out of five responses are "Can't watch the replay now, but...", and when I watch the replay, the actual problem was nothing to do with Thors, or DTs, or Hellions, or whatever the OP was about.
As a personal aside, Darkforce (who was kind enough to contribute to a thread I started) might recall that said thread violated the 'replay' rule and thus should not have been posted. With hindsight I'd have to agree. I didn't post a replay because I was scared my mechanics would undermine the point I was trying to make, which is pretty idiotic. Lesson learned.
|
Here's a story with names from The Simpons to protect the guilty/innocent and to avoid a massive derail of people justifying themselves.
DiamondMartin created a topic regarding a build order he'd been working on. The Strategy Forum guidelines were adhered to (replays given, builds strong/weak points etc) and as much information as any reasonable person could ask for was given.
ProLisa said she didn't believe a word, dismissed everything provided in a condescending manner and even managed to fit in some name calling. ProLisa said she preferred her intuition over DiamondMartin's evidence.
The thread quickly became pointless.
So here is a question, the same question I PMed to a Moderator regarding the above discussion (although discussion is too much of a compliment to ProLisa). Which trumps which? A low ranked player provides replays but then a high ranked player has their opinion weighted differently.
On February 24 2010 00:47 zatic wrote:
SC2 Strategy Forum Guidelines
Everything you say must be supported by evidence
...That said, there are already people much more qualified to talk about strategy than others.
...In the end everything will need proof.
Provided one ignores the last sentence, and ProLisa certainly did, there is a question of who trumps who.
Oh, those guidelines go on for a while don't they...
On February 24 2010 00:47 zatic wrote:
Feedback on Guides
It makes your point incredibly more believable if you post a replay.
I think the jury is still out on that one. High level players have the fail-safe "You're wrong" and replays be damned.
From the order of the OP's headings - Authority, Reasoning, Demonstrating - I take it he believes these are in order of least to most reliable. If not then I've read too much into the post, but I certainly believe that. The Strategy Forum Guidelines seem to say that. The Appeal to the Community is based on the idea that high level players agree with that. But as far as I can tell the jury is still out.
|
On January 21 2011 15:16 SixtusTheFifth wrote:Here's a story with names from The Simpons to protect the guilty/innocent and to avoid a massive derail of people justifying themselves. DiamondMartin created a topic regarding a build order he'd been working on. The Strategy Forum guidelines were adhered to (replays given, builds strong/weak points etc) and as much information as any reasonable person could ask for was given. ProLisa said she didn't believe a word, dismissed everything provided in a condescending manner and even managed to fit in some name calling. ProLisa said she preferred her intuition over DiamondMartin's evidence. The thread quickly became pointless. So here is a question, the same question I PMed to a Moderator regarding the above discussion (although discussion is too much of a compliment to ProLisa). Which trumps which? A low ranked player provides replays but then a high ranked player has their opinion weighted differently. Show nested quote +On February 24 2010 00:47 zatic wrote:
SC2 Strategy Forum Guidelines
Everything you say must be supported by evidence
...That said, there are already people much more qualified to talk about strategy than others.
...In the end everything will need proof. Provided one ignores the last sentence, and ProLisa certainly did, there is a question of who trumps who. Oh, those guidelines go on for a while don't they... Show nested quote +On February 24 2010 00:47 zatic wrote:
Feedback on Guides
It makes your point incredibly more believable if you post a replay. I think the jury is still out on that one. High level players have the fail-safe "You're wrong" and replays be damned. From the order of the OP's headings - Authority, Reasoning, Demonstrating - I take it he believes these are in order of least to most reliable. If not then I've read too much into the post, but I certainly believe that. The Strategy Forum Guidelines seem to say that. The Appeal to the Community is based on the idea that high level players agree with that. But as far as I can tell the jury is still out.
A replay, even at the diamond level, doesn't prove much. You have people successfully 7RRing their opponents but darkforce doesnt need to hop on ladder and play it ten times to know that good players can scout AND defend it. Even 20000 replays of beating diamond players doesnt help the strategy in that case.(unless you want to practice stuff that only works against bad players(i.e. dont want to improve))
imo, people should just be happy the pros even post on these forums. getting a pros input is valid information even if it isnt INSTANTLY PROVEN BY REPLAYS. just accept their authority, if you dont want to, you can ignore but, but accept that most peoeple do, and for a good reason too.
ninja edit:
quite recently a (pre-patch 3.3k) Zerg posted a strategy in the strategy forum. darkforce very quickly said you will die to a 5 minute stimpush. now the zerg was - compared to the normal populace - _very_ high level, easily top 200, and he replied with 'i think it can work, but maybe i dont play good enough players and youre completely right'
now think about that for a second.
Mr Plat McIdiot starts getting argumentative when darkforce posted that his build is crap and clings onto replays to try to find some evidence for his build, and a top 200 zerg IMMEDIATELY admits that he isnt at a level where he EVEN WITH REPLAYS could argue his point reliably.
How do we solve this problem? Well we certainly won't be able to change much telling that guy that he please should stop being such a ignorant & bad poster and I'm certainly not saying that if only master league players would post that problem would instantly vanish, but it would give good players a place where they can discuss strategy without having as much garbage thrown their way.
|
On January 21 2011 11:18 Poonchow wrote:
It seems to me that the SC:BW community grew, slowly and eventually by its own drive and need to exist. The Sc2 community appeared overnight, occupied by the marauding ex-denizens of casual and competitive games alike (though all inferior in some way). I think the BW community was somewhat spoiled; I was not into competitive SC, but I can tell you, WoW, Halo, DotA, and even Wc3 have far worse followers than even Sc2. It has impressed me so far, that Sc2 has been as civilized as it is -- I believe this to be the result of the many upstanding moderators to sites like TL, and just as importantly to the BW players that have come to Sc2.
This I agree with completely.
While I don't necessarily disagree that separate forums would be a good idea, I think making the higher level ones private borders on segregation, and that' is never good any way you slice it.
It's a fair point that a Bronze League player is not going to be of the same standard as a Diamond League player, but people come to highly regarded, well respected sites like these with the aim of learning, becoming better at the game and discussing it with other like-minded people. Knowing very little about a game does not always go hand-in-hand with being a complete idiot.
The forum rules already make it abundantly clear that if your post does not at least contribute to the thread, it will be removed and I think that is a fantastic barrier against some of the drivel that infests most websites for other competitive games. I just think this attitude of tying peoples opinions to their level of success, to the point of actually suggesting segregating the community by blocking new players from a Pro's-Only Forum is kinda dangerous. I have seen attitudes like this tear communities apart, and fast. All it does is make new players feel like they are unable to connect with the community, and it puts them off. While that might sound like a plus to some people, it can suffocate competitive games over time to the point of stagnation.
New blood is never a bad thing, and sure, a whole host of morons will need a good whomp with the banhammer, but that happens with the release of any new game in today's internet-focused culture. Personally I think the value of just a handful of new players who are able to act with respect, take the advice of players who are better than them and overall strive to become a better player are worth the trouble a few hundred other new players cause with inane comments or bizarre questions.
|
On January 21 2011 18:11 ChickenLips wrote:
ninja edit:
quite recently a (pre-patch 3.3k) Zerg posted a strategy in the strategy forum. darkforce very quickly said you will die to a 5 minute stimpush. now the zerg was - compared to the normal populace - _very_ high level, easily top 200, and he replied with 'i think it can work, but maybe i dont play good enough players and youre completely right'
now think about that for a second.
Mr Plat McIdiot starts getting argumentative when darkforce posted that his build is crap and clings onto replays to try to find some evidence for his build, and a top 200 zerg IMMEDIATELY admits that he isnt at a level where he EVEN WITH REPLAYS could argue his point reliably.
How do we solve this problem? Well we certainly won't be able to change much telling that guy that he please should stop being such a ignorant & bad poster and I'm certainly not saying that if only master league players would post that problem would instantly vanish, but it would give good players a place where they can discuss strategy without having as much garbage thrown their way.
This is the core problem. It's the engine that drives the +10 page discussions or ends the involvement of more knowledgeable people.
It's the constant 'rock paper scissors' discussion:
"I want to try a build where I go Rock."
"Your build is invalid because your opponent will just Paper you."
<OP leaves discussion>
"Yeah but if he uses some scissors it could work."
"Going both Rock and scissors will defeat the purpose of the build, you should just go Paper which is tried and true."
<Queue build order nitpicking and endless buildorder tester logs.>
<5 pages later>
"But what if you forget about all this and just go Rock?"
<thread is locked on page 23 during the fifth recursion of the Rock debate.>
The reason why these kind of discussions could manifest constructively in the BW scene was because the community had come to the consensus that this would always be a problem. That the nature of the game allows your opponent to go X to beat your Y. Strategical discussions are very fast to go into the realm of theorycrafting and throw out 90% of the game 'for the sake of simplicity'. But right now most people (sometimes willingly) will only focus on the remaining 10% and hold it as law.
I remember a discussion that boiled down to something like 'Zealots will always counter Marauders when they have charge.' I didn't exactly participate in the debate, I simply tried to incorporate a critical component: surface area. You can't discuss this without that 'real world' component. It took about 4 pages before someone even read my post and defended it. Right before the thread closed at about 15 pages people started to talk about it.
The BW community accepted strategy posts. They all knew of an unwritten 'disclaimer' at the top of every OP.
"Things might appear simpler than they are in reality. Reader discretion is advised. It is implied that all concepts and suggestions are subject to real world conditions."
Maybe it's time that we did write that disclaimer in full. Because the BW community had over a decade to evolve, isolated. Remember, the internet was far more tribal than it was now. The power to destroy is not contained to a 'local' clan or channel. Ignorance is a powerful force now.
A mass without education is dangerous. It won't be long before all the 'gamers' that hop from game to game will discard Starcraft 2 for being too 'old', calling it 'dead' and drag everyone along with them, peer pressure ensuring that only a fraction of people will remain. Something the diehard BW players will embrace with open arms.
The strat forum is a small piece of it, but it's a place to start educating the masses.
|
I think there is a general problem with reasoning in most of the posts in the strategy forum.
Most of the reasons look a bit like this:
A: Mass Marines are imba, because they have lot's of dps
B: Banelings counter marines, because they splash and marines die instantly
A: You cannot build banelings, because tanks steamrole everything
B: You can do etc etc...
What i mean by that is, that all arguments are very one dimensional. They do not take into account the whole situation of the game. This is probably not even the fault of the authors but of something like a forum because you simply cannot explain the whole situation. Furthermore we always want to find quick solutions in a complex system, which is probably not possible.
Thats just my thoughts on the whole reasoning part the OP adressed.
|
On January 17 2011 02:02 Aeres wrote:
That courtroom analogy is probably the most accurate comparison I've seen. Really illustrates the point. Unfortunately, this topic has been brought up quite a few times, and from the looks of it, each thread's consensus seems to be that the only remedy for this issue is time. Once all the bad / ignorant / overly assertive / what-have-you people get bored of TL and leave, and once people in general get better at the game, the crappy, unsupported advice will dissipate and the quality advice will become more prevalent.
It sucks now, yes, but for now, one should heed the old military phrase, "Hurry up and wait". Patience, dude. =)
the problem is that people are too arrogant to take eachothers advice.. a 1400p diamond player will already think of the advice of a 1200p diamond player as "not applicable to his/her skill level"
|
Ok then. The jury is definitely out and not coming in anytime soon.
On January 17 2011 01:48 ZerG~LegenD wrote:
The Problem
There are a lot of awesome advice given out daily in these forums... lost in a whole swarm of imbecilic comments, poor arguments and plain terrible advice.
So there is little or no argument about the problem but...
On January 17 2011 01:48 ZerG~LegenD wrote:
The Solution
Instead those who know what they're talking about and those who understands this game well enough should try to stick out from the crowd.
How you ask? By actually arguing your points and backing them up with evidence.
On January 21 2011 18:11 ChickenLips wrote:
How do we solve this problem? ...I'm certainly not saying that if only master league players would post that problem would instantly vanish, but it would give good players a place where they can discuss strategy without having as much garbage thrown their way.
...also little or no agreement on the solution.
"Stick out! Back up! Yes that means you!"
or
"Stuck up? Back out! Can someone give us a room?"
|
On January 21 2011 20:47 Kultfrisur wrote:
I think there is a general problem with reasoning in most of the posts in the strategy forum.
Most of the reasons look a bit like this:
A: Mass Marines are imba, because they have lot's of dps
B: Banelings counter marines, because they splash and marines die instantly
A: You cannot build banelings, because tanks steamrole everything
B: You can do etc etc...
What i mean by that is, that all arguments are very one dimensional. They do not take into account the whole situation of the game. This is probably not even the fault of the authors but of something like a forum because you simply cannot explain the whole situation. Furthermore we always want to find quick solutions in a complex system, which is probably not possible.
Thats just my thoughts on the whole reasoning part the OP adressed.
Funny how one of the things we have discussed here is that people don't even read two posts above their own, let alone the whole thread before responding ...
EDIT:
But it's nice to see we are in agreement
|
I believe myself to be self-aware enough to know that my opinion is both unimportant and irrelevant to the discussion amongst you high level players, but I'd like to point out something for your consideration.
Amongst the myriad of bad posters, and low level players, there are the few players both with the intention and diligence to improve their gameplay. I personally have gone from bronze beta to diamond, from reading posts here and trying to learn from the opinions of the players obviously better than me. I've drastically improved both my gameplay and understanding- and I am still leaps and bounds from remotely understanding either at what I consider "high level." Diamond had been my goal for some time- while merely a stepping stone to masters for many of you.
I attempt to soak up the opinions that I know have a better understanding of the game. In many threads, I will repeat what I have learned. Not as gospel, and if possible I will always try to reference the thread I have taken it from. But, alas, very few bad players follow this behaviour, and that imo is where the focus must be.
Part of the reason Team Liquid has such an enormous thriving community is the fact that it opens itself up to anyone. This site has allowed me to improve to the level I am today, and as one of the few that actually went from bronze-diamond with the help of this site, it would upset me to see the course of the site lead towards segregating the good from the bad.
Ultimately, this is something that must change over time with the community. While I personally have never bought into the cop-out of "its a new game, give it time"- I do personally feel like the bad advice is slowly dwindling relative to the time the game has been out.
Given the majority of reactions I've read (and yes, unlike most newer posters here, I have read the entire thread and not just OP/last page), it seems the higher level players are truly getting fed up with the redundancy of trying to help the nubs who aren't willing to accept their help. I understand your frustration, and ask you to believe that there are some underlings on here that appreciate the effort of the few high level posters that try to help us out.
Please, my appeal to you (the higher level players) is to not follow the path to elitist separation. I understand the desire to eliminate the idiots, but it is the availability and prevalence of your posts and opinions that keep this site as enriching as it can be.
|
On January 21 2011 18:11 ChickenLips wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 15:16 SixtusTheFifth wrote:Here's a story with names from The Simpons to protect the guilty/innocent and to avoid a massive derail of people justifying themselves. DiamondMartin created a topic regarding a build order he'd been working on. The Strategy Forum guidelines were adhered to (replays given, builds strong/weak points etc) and as much information as any reasonable person could ask for was given. ProLisa said she didn't believe a word, dismissed everything provided in a condescending manner and even managed to fit in some name calling. ProLisa said she preferred her intuition over DiamondMartin's evidence. The thread quickly became pointless. So here is a question, the same question I PMed to a Moderator regarding the above discussion (although discussion is too much of a compliment to ProLisa). Which trumps which? A low ranked player provides replays but then a high ranked player has their opinion weighted differently. On February 24 2010 00:47 zatic wrote:
SC2 Strategy Forum Guidelines
Everything you say must be supported by evidence
...That said, there are already people much more qualified to talk about strategy than others.
...In the end everything will need proof. Provided one ignores the last sentence, and ProLisa certainly did, there is a question of who trumps who. Oh, those guidelines go on for a while don't they... On February 24 2010 00:47 zatic wrote:
Feedback on Guides
It makes your point incredibly more believable if you post a replay. I think the jury is still out on that one. High level players have the fail-safe "You're wrong" and replays be damned. From the order of the OP's headings - Authority, Reasoning, Demonstrating - I take it he believes these are in order of least to most reliable. If not then I've read too much into the post, but I certainly believe that. The Strategy Forum Guidelines seem to say that. The Appeal to the Community is based on the idea that high level players agree with that. But as far as I can tell the jury is still out. A replay, even at the diamond level, doesn't prove much. You have people successfully 7RRing their opponents but darkforce doesnt need to hop on ladder and play it ten times to know that good players can scout AND defend it. Even 20000 replays of beating diamond players doesnt help the strategy in that case.(unless you want to practice stuff that only works against bad players(i.e. dont want to improve)) imo, people should just be happy the pros even post on these forums. getting a pros input is valid information even if it isnt INSTANTLY PROVEN BY REPLAYS. just accept their authority, if you dont want to, you can ignore but, but accept that most peoeple do, and for a good reason too. ninja edit: quite recently a (pre-patch 3.3k) Zerg posted a strategy in the strategy forum. darkforce very quickly said you will die to a 5 minute stimpush. now the zerg was - compared to the normal populace - _very_ high level, easily top 200, and he replied with 'i think it can work, but maybe i dont play good enough players and youre completely right' now think about that for a second. Mr Plat McIdiot starts getting argumentative when darkforce posted that his build is crap and clings onto replays to try to find some evidence for his build, and a top 200 zerg IMMEDIATELY admits that he isnt at a level where he EVEN WITH REPLAYS could argue his point reliably. How do we solve this problem? Well we certainly won't be able to change much telling that guy that he please should stop being such a ignorant & bad poster and I'm certainly not saying that if only master league players would post that problem would instantly vanish, but it would give good players a place where they can discuss strategy without having as much garbage thrown their way.
As a serial Mr Silver McIdiot myself, I'd love to get clarification on something I think bears strongly upon this issue, particularly with respect to the idea of segregating the community that pops up from time to time:
Some posters plainly feel that if a build won't work at a pro level, it should never be recommended. Is that right, and should the strategy forum be structured to reflect it? Or can that attitude actually retard players' development?
Personally, I'm not sure what to think. The argument in my head goes something like this:
Yes: A build or strategy that only works up to, say, mid-diamond is, beyond that point, a bad habit, and one should not go learning bad habits.
No: Brood War pioneers learned plenty of bad habits, and yet between them managed to refine the game to an art form.
Yes: That took a long time, though, and they didn't play sub-optimally out of choice either.
No: But don't 'pro' strategies often rely upon tight timings, great game-sense and razor-thin defence? And can't their advantages over 'safer' builds be marginal - significant at top levels of play, without question, but lost in the noise of sub-standard mechanics otherwise. Isn't attempting to emulate them before you're ready begging for a string of frustrating losses?
Yes: Winning and losing doesn't matter. Focus on your fundamentals and you'll start winning in the long run.
No: But dropping down the rankings because you're struggling with a build might mean you end up facing players who don't actually tax the skills you're trying to train.
This last seems very much the case with my ladder experience. The moment I get a run of losses, the matchmaking system seems to take pity on me and I end up with a string of wins that, upon inspection of the replays, turn out to be utter garbage and would have been losses if I'd been matched against the players I was losing to before.
In a way, I feel like if I was 7RR-ing every other game, I'd at least keep banging my head against the kind of players I need to learn to beat, rather than ending up playing versus the equivalent of the 'medium' AI for five games in a row. What are your opinions?
Poll: Is it OK to recommend different strategies at different levels of playNo. Bad habits are bad, no matter how many losses you incur trying to develop good ones. (16) 52% Yes, so long as it's made clear what you'll learn from a strat and what its deficiencies are (15) 48% 31 total votes Your vote: Is it OK to recommend different strategies at different levels of play (Vote): Yes, so long as it's made clear what you'll learn from a strat and what its deficiencies are
(Vote): No. Bad habits are bad, no matter how many losses you incur trying to develop good ones.
|
On January 21 2011 21:55 Greth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 20:47 Kultfrisur wrote:
I think there is a general problem with reasoning in most of the posts in the strategy forum.
Most of the reasons look a bit like this:
A: Mass Marines are imba, because they have lot's of dps
B: Banelings counter marines, because they splash and marines die instantly
A: You cannot build banelings, because tanks steamrole everything
B: You can do etc etc...
What i mean by that is, that all arguments are very one dimensional. They do not take into account the whole situation of the game. This is probably not even the fault of the authors but of something like a forum because you simply cannot explain the whole situation. Furthermore we always want to find quick solutions in a complex system, which is probably not possible.
Thats just my thoughts on the whole reasoning part the OP adressed. Funny how one of the things we have discussed here is that people don't even read two posts above their own, let alone the whole thread before responding ... EDIT: But it's nice to see we are in agreement
:D i thought the same thing about me when i read your post afterwards :D.
The truth is i read the thread when your posts wasn't there and after i had thought about it i wrote something, forgot to check again apparently. I mean there are some posts in that direction but one should not just say nothing because there are posts that say something similar.
|
On January 21 2011 21:58 Durp wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +On January 21 2011 21:58 Durp wrote:
I believe myself to be self-aware enough to know that my opinion is both unimportant and irrelevant to the discussion amongst you high level players, but I'd like to point out something for your consideration.
Amongst the myriad of bad posters, and low level players, there are the few players both with the intention and diligence to improve their gameplay. I personally have gone from bronze beta to diamond, from reading posts here and trying to learn from the opinions of the players obviously better than me. I've drastically improved both my gameplay and understanding- and I am still leaps and bounds from remotely understanding either at what I consider "high level." Diamond had been my goal for some time- while merely a stepping stone to masters for many of you.
I attempt to soak up the opinions that I know have a better understanding of the game. In many threads, I will repeat what I have learned. Not as gospel, and if possible I will always try to reference the thread I have taken it from. But, alas, very few bad players follow this behaviour, and that imo is where the focus must be.
Part of the reason Team Liquid has such an enormous thriving community is the fact that it opens itself up to anyone. This site has allowed me to improve to the level I am today, and as one of the few that actually went from bronze-diamond with the help of this site, it would upset me to see the course of the site lead towards segregating the good from the bad.
Ultimately, this is something that must change over time with the community. While I personally have never bought into the cop-out of "its a new game, give it time"- I do personally feel like the bad advice is slowly dwindling relative to the time the game has been out.
Given the majority of reactions I've read (and yes, unlike most newer posters here, I have read the entire thread and not just OP/last page), it seems the higher level players are truly getting fed up with the redundancy of trying to help the nubs who aren't willing to accept their help. I understand your frustration, and ask you to believe that there are some underlings on here that appreciate the effort of the few high level posters that try to help us out.
Please, my appeal to you (the higher level players) is to not follow the path to elitist separation. I understand the desire to eliminate the idiots, but it is the availability and prevalence of your posts and opinions that keep this site as enriching as it can be.
It's not a case of elitism. It's a case of arrogance on the part of the 'lesser' players that decide to voice their opinions instead of taking advice under consideration. Of course it is pretty black and white in this thread, as with every post on a forum some things are left to interpretation.
There is no problem with people asking for help, and it's fine to criticise. But a functional discussion must be held. And that's the issue at hand.
Now, people aren't even asking for help anymore. They are only voicing opinions riddled with ignorance and it is impossible without having actual advanced knowledge of the game to determine who is an 'ignorant' a troll or an actual credible source.
... I think that summed it all up pretty nicely.
On January 22 2011 00:35 Kultfrisur wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +On January 22 2011 00:35 Kultfrisur wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 21:55 Greth wrote:On January 21 2011 20:47 Kultfrisur wrote:
I think there is a general problem with reasoning in most of the posts in the strategy forum.
Most of the reasons look a bit like this:
A: Mass Marines are imba, because they have lot's of dps
B: Banelings counter marines, because they splash and marines die instantly
A: You cannot build banelings, because tanks steamrole everything
B: You can do etc etc...
What i mean by that is, that all arguments are very one dimensional. They do not take into account the whole situation of the game. This is probably not even the fault of the authors but of something like a forum because you simply cannot explain the whole situation. Furthermore we always want to find quick solutions in a complex system, which is probably not possible.
Thats just my thoughts on the whole reasoning part the OP adressed. Funny how one of the things we have discussed here is that people don't even read two posts above their own, let alone the whole thread before responding ... EDIT: But it's nice to see we are in agreement :D i thought the same thing about me when i read your post afterwards :D. The truth is i read the thread when your posts wasn't there and after i had thought about it i wrote something, forgot to check again apparently. I mean there are some posts in that direction but one should not just say nothing because there are posts that say something similar.
Yeah I thought something like that might have happened, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to point out the obvious irony.
And you're right; I believe the general tendency right now is to quote a full page worth of posts and then write: "^this". So it's a welcome change.
@Umpteen (not going to bother quoting all that)
It's not an A or B situation at all. There is however a question to be asked:
How far are you willing to go?
You can either treat SC2 as a game or as a hobby. If you want to play a few games now and then I don't think you'd worry too much about buildorder perfection. But then you shouldn't busy yourself with strategy forums. If you want to muck around a bit go through liquipedia, browse the forums, lurk, have a laugh on IRC. You'll get the general gist of things. It's what I do.
If, however, you want to get into the top 200 or at least be the top of your diamond division, if you want to compete in a tourney or two then you're in for keeps. You'll have to accept that it will be a long road ahead. You don't play competition in a football or tennis club and then refuse to kick the ball the right way or swing your tennis racket upside down. You're going to keep practising the basics until they are second nature. And then you're going to take a step further with tactics of the game.
That's how it is with all sports, and SC2 is one of them.
So it is a choice of what you want to do. And when you have made that choice, there is only one road to follow.
|
I blame all the reddit fags that troll the TL forums.
User was banned for this post.
|
On January 19 2011 05:12 imp42 wrote:
In my opinion, the only feasible way to define what good and bad posts are is to let the community decide. I am convinced a like / dislike feature as mentioned would help a lot.
However, I would like to propose a somewhat more refined rating system:
Each member gets to rate any post with either +1 or -1.
Each poster is assigned a rating = the total rating of all his posts.
Each rating is weighted the following way: rating * (rating of rater) / (number of rates by rater)
This has the following effect:
- the rating of popular raters is more important
- the influence of a single rater is very small, since each subsequent rating loses value, therefore abuse is virtually impossible
After an initial phase the system should stabilize and good posters should stand out.
Now, I should back up my statements with evidence and a replay, but I won't ;-)
I agree with this.
There was also a suggestion about having subdivided forums where only masterlvl players where allowed to post; what if instead of masterlvl players you use the above described system as divider and give posting-privilege in the "quality-forums" only to posters who have a +rating overall?
This would make ppl more careful of writing nonsensical posts because their rating would drop and that could have an actual negative impact on their ability to participate in the forums.
Its an idea atleast of how to design the forum to have the communities collective inteligence weed out some of the worst spammers.
|
The problem with quoting is, that you might search via tl search and find a quite old topic in which ret
says that: "roaches are the most important lategame unit for zerg vs any civ"
So this statement suits your own opinion and thus you don't care about it that that statement was from the time roaches were 1 Food.
It would be extremly difficult to argue against ret's 100% quoted opinion, as they long don't have the game understang which ret has.
Note: This is an extreme example but point remains it will be difficult through all the patches this game went to figure out if the quotation is still up to date.
And now my own Opinion: Your post blows, it is well written and such but you talk way too much around your actual problem.
Pro Tip: next time put a TLTR.
Edit: To the solution I agree with some post above. It would be totally amazing if you could connect your TL Account to your battlenet account, so that in The line of your name your Ligue and Rate is written. (Best would be if one could use the hidden elo system but w/e)
|
LOL at stressing abt posting quality on a ''game'' forum.
I agree that peeps neeed to post replays…but as for the rest... I disagree
Every1 can give advice, all advice comes from something that either worked for them, they saw / read abt…bottom line is…they trying to help and get enjoyment from putting their 2 cents on the internet…is this not like 90% of posts here?
If you want to isolate high diamond / masters / higher grade english & comprehension.…why not just request a section be made for them? Call it the ''no noob strat section for serious gamers who play and write good only''.
We can ALL learn from a bronze player….it just requires more chewing on what advice he gives…and a bronze player can drink in advice from everyone….hence ALL should have absolute freedom to post.
If anything….we need to be grateful that any1 even posts a reply.
This is a good idea!
Edit: To the solution I agree with some post above. It would be totally amazing if you could connect your TL Account to your battlenet account, so that in The line of your name your Ligue and Rate is written. (Best would be if one could use the hidden elo system but w/e)
Last edit: 2011-01-23 20:33:19
|
I agree with the sentiment, but I really do not believe it is possible to divide good posts and bad posts in a way clear to everyone. All the measures proposed here are solid, but the truth is that people either are willing to put the effort necessary to provide proper reasoning and replays, or they are not. I bet most of you just ignore the topics that lack the reasoning and replays anyway, even if they bear some credence. You just can't be bothered. Or you post for the sake of argument. There is really no difference between that and the proposed approach, other than the hope for more quality posts. I would like to believe that the appeal is going to convince more people to put more effort in their posts, but I am somewhat doubtful of it.
Also remember that bad ideas can also be reasoned and backed with bad evidence. It always requires you to be the final judge of the credibility of it. And it requires you to be able to reason and test things on your own. Which is what most people here complain about.
|
On January 24 2011 19:49 KawasakiJ wrote:
LOL at stressing abt posting quality on a ''game'' forum.
I agree that peeps neeed to post replays…but as for the rest... I disagree
Clearly you haven't been visiting this forum for long. Is it so bad to want intelligent and worthwhile discussions on what used to be a uniquely civil, friendly and informative website, something that is enough of a rarity on the internet as it is?
Every1 can give advice, all advice comes from something that either worked for them, they saw / read abt…bottom line is…they trying to help and get enjoyment from putting their 2 cents on the internet…is this not like 90% of posts here?
Just because someone reads about something or experiences something doesn't mean they fully understand it, why it worked, why it failed, how to counter it, defend it etc The point is, regardless of the posters intentions, if they do not truly understand what they are talking about, then they shouldn't say anything, ignorance feeding more ignorance makes for very weak discussion and post quality and is exactly what is ruining this forum.
If you want to isolate high diamond / masters / higher grade english & comprehension.…why not just request a section be made for them? Call it the ''no noob strat section for serious gamers who play and write good only''.
This is not even close to what is being asked for, I suggest you actually read through the OP 1 more time.
We can ALL learn from a bronze player….it just requires more chewing on what advice he gives…and a bronze player can drink in advice from everyone….hence ALL should have absolute freedom to post.
If anything….we need to be grateful that any1 even posts a reply.
I'm only a low diamond player myself, but there is no way in hell I will ever learn anything at all from a bronze player, except for how to fight off poorly executed cheese. A bronze player cannot simply learn from advice alone, that advice needs to be taken into context of the situation, their skill, their game knowledge/sense, their scouting etc.
For example, a bronze player posts a replay of him losing a TvP vs a 2 gate zealot rush, a silver player tells him, wall in every game, you will never lose to zealot rushes again, the bronze player proceedes to wall in every game and starts getting roflstomped by voidray rush variations, so the advice to wall in alone is not sound enough advice, where as a much higher level player might tell him something along the lines of, scout constantly, control xel naga watch towers, and respond to what you scout, see 2 gates and no gas, no cyber core, expect zealot rush, throw down 2 bunkers at your ramp, continue to macro.
Why should anyone be grateful for any replys at all? Teamliquid got along just fine before SC2 was released and TL was flooded with your typical moronic forum user. IMO I would prefer it if only certain users like TL staff or recognized pro gamers could post on the strat forum, atleast then it would stop the flood of moronic, uneducated, unintelligent posts that have taken over this forum
|
|
|
Would it be possible to have a sort function in threads?
Like on YouTube, where people can vote up or down posts. default thread setting would be as now, all posts in date order. however you could click to sort by popularity and see the most popular replys first.
This doesn't solve the problem of bad posts, but provides a work around to enable users to circumvent all the chaf and get at the good posts quickly.
With regards to implementing, I have little experience in website design but on the basis that many websites use functions like this for user comments, it would appear to be a fairly standard thing.
EDIT: I see this has been mentioned by others. lots of long posts made me unwilling to read all 6 pages. TL:DR's should be compolsury for posts over a certain length!
seeing some peoples posts re linking sc2 ranks to posts to validate your opinions, has, in my view, a couple of flaws:
- some diamond players aren't very good at the game overall, and just have a couple of good strats which they repeat.
- there are some such as myself, who have played abit, but generally watch a lot more SC2 then I play. However they can have just good ideas as someone who plays lots but doesn't watch much.
|
On January 24 2011 19:49 KawasakiJ wrote:
If you want to isolate high diamond / masters / higher grade english & comprehension.…why not just request a section be made for them? Call it the ''no noob strat section for serious gamers who play and write good only''.
Rolling on the floor here.
|
The length of a post does not make it more informative. I could of got your point across in a few lines. But then of course the quality would not be good enough for the likes of you. Walls of text are just as bad as dumb posts imo!
|
On January 26 2011 03:05 BigBossX wrote:
Just because someone reads about something or experiences something doesn't mean they fully understand it, why it worked, why it failed, how to counter it, defend it etc The point is, regardless of the posters intentions, if they do not truly understand what they are talking about, then they shouldn't say anything, ignorance feeding more ignorance makes for very weak discussion and post quality and is exactly what is ruining this forum.
Thing is, esports has adapted the tendency to only accept good "players" - although especially in BW and still to some extent in SC2 being able to exectue strategies or "just" understand what's going on is something totally different.
Let's compare this to "real" sports, where many famous and really succesful coaches never practiced the sport themselves on a high level. Although it's certainly "appealing" to only value input of high level players I think it's oversimplifying to generally conclude that, say, a diamond player has less idea what he's talking about than a master. Because there's always the possibility that the master simply executes basic strategies over and over, while the diamond doesn't practice that often but "thinks" more about the game.
Basicly what I'm saying is, that posts and inputs "should" be valued by the intelligence of the content itself, not purely based on ladder ranking. This is also why I hate forums where your profile is shown by default, because so many discussions end with the "highest" ranked player basicly saying "I have a higher rank, therefore I know better what I'm talking about, you don't have the experience and what you are saying won't work on the level where I am playing". This is 100% stupid, because such arguments literally kill each and every discussion. The highest ranked poster would always be kinda "right by default" because nobody could ever argue against the "what you are saying might work at your level but not at mine" - point.
|
On January 23 2011 20:30 oN_Silva wrote:
And now my own Opinion: Your post blows, it is well written and such but you talk way too much around your actual problem.
Pro Tip: next time put a TLTR.
On January 27 2011 03:41 shinogi wrote:EDIT: I see this has been mentioned by others. lots of long posts made me unwilling to read all 6 pages. TL:DR's should be compolsury for posts over a certain length!
So the OP says quality is being lost "in a whole swarm of imbecilic comments" and the solution is more detail when posting.
It is in this context you think to advocate for "TL:DR", a device invented to pander to people who go to forums for the express purpose of not reading.
Actually this thread has been really good. It's 10 days later and only 6 pages long with people being careful to state their point of view with detail, and even some disagreements along the way. It's not the Ask TL Anything thread where on page 50 some of the same questions as page 10 started to crop up.
Perhaps people who come here to not read could invent a new game: go to resturants and not eat, go to movies and not watch, or go to school and not learn (possibly an old game). Or perhaps the compulsory part should be IDREHETR<10PBILYATRMOC: "I don't respect everyone here enough to read <10 pages but I'd like you all to read my opinion carefully".
|
On January 17 2011 04:54 ikarigendo wrote:
One solution, which would (unfortunately) take some coding to implement would be a community moderation system similar to slashdot.org.
Basically, once you have been in the community for a while, you occasionally get "mod" points and you can mark posts up or down. Then readers can filter by post score. So, if you want to you can see all the posts, or you can filter out to see only the highest rated posts.
There are potential pitfalls with this method, but I like the end result at slashdot.
I was going to post a similar thing, im going to quote it in spoiler tags as it is slighty different
+ Show Spoiler +I totally agree with OP. Lately the quality of posts is getting quite lower, specially in the SC2 section.
Maybe a solution to this would be to implement a Like/Dislike post function, were posts with -10 score will be hiden in a special spoiler tag (like in youtube), same with good post scores (I mean responses) where you could see them somewhere highlighted.
I dont know if this would be a huge change but I may see some efectivness hiding awful posts at least. Also there could be a ban for those posts with -2000 score or so (just saying a number) to insta ban trollers or people giving terrible advice (although banlings do an amazing job in this task so maybe this is unnecessary
Edit: I saw some people just post these after reading the whole 5 pages, sorry about that. I love the idea of also using the rating on the poster (adding all his post points) as well as on the post itself.
|
On January 27 2011 18:26 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 03:05 BigBossX wrote:
Just because someone reads about something or experiences something doesn't mean they fully understand it, why it worked, why it failed, how to counter it, defend it etc The point is, regardless of the posters intentions, if they do not truly understand what they are talking about, then they shouldn't say anything, ignorance feeding more ignorance makes for very weak discussion and post quality and is exactly what is ruining this forum. Thing is, esports has adapted the tendency to only accept good "players" - although especially in BW and still to some extent in SC2 being able to exectue strategies or "just" understand what's going on is something totally different. Let's compare this to "real" sports, where many famous and really succesful coaches never practiced the sport themselves on a high level. Although it's certainly "appealing" to only value input of high level players I think it's oversimplifying to generally conclude that, say, a diamond player has less idea what he's talking about than a master. Because there's always the possibility that the master simply executes basic strategies over and over, while the diamond doesn't practice that often but "thinks" more about the game. Basicly what I'm saying is, that posts and inputs "should" be valued by the intelligence of the content itself, not purely based on ladder ranking. This is also why I hate forums where your profile is shown by default, because so many discussions end with the "highest" ranked player basicly saying "I have a higher rank, therefore I know better what I'm talking about, you don't have the experience and what you are saying won't work on the level where I am playing". This is 100% stupid, because such arguments literally kill each and every discussion. The highest ranked poster would always be kinda "right by default" because nobody could ever argue against the "what you are saying might work at your level but not at mine" - point.
I don't really understand what any of this has to do with my post. But the one thing I would like to comment on is the "coach" aspect, sure a coach may not have experience in said sport, but that doesn't mean the coaches don't understand the sport to the highest level.
Also I somewhat agree with last part of your post, while I do not think that a system displaying peoples ranks would help the current situation at all, the whole "right by default" aspect is not entirely accurate, sure a higher ranked player could say that "what you are saying might work at your level but not at mine", but there are going to be many players at that same level who could in fact argue against whatever point. I mean I doubt there is much of a general skill gap between a 2800 master player and a 3000 master, so both players could have an intelligent discussion, without the whole "I'M HIGHER RANKED, YOUR WRONG I'M RIGHT" rearing its ugly head.
|
On January 28 2011 22:41 BigBossX wrote:
I don't really understand what any of this has to do with my post. But the one thing I would like to comment on is the "coach" aspect, sure a coach may not have experience in said sport, but that doesn't mean the coaches don't understand the sport to the highest level.
That is the point. A person can understand an activity at the highest level and yet lack the motor skills/ mechanics to be good at said activity. Vica versa someone can have exceptional execution or said activity but lack the mental capacity to fully understand why they are so successful.
Essentially I do not think rank should entirely bear credence in regards to judging the quality of ones post although it dose have it's merit. It is disappointing and disheartening to have to sort though BS to find legitimate strategies at the moment. However, there are still 2 expansions for this game in the works and I doubt we have seen our last balance patch. I'm sure there will be more concrete understandings of the game mechanics when the state of the game settles down.
I would like to see more people follow the lead of the OP's advice but that is a matter of each individual to take an effort to raise the bar for themselves to set an example. This cannot be governed by arbitrary systems.
|
I miss some way to be noticed if someone quotes you.
|
On January 19 2011 16:29 mlbrandow wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2011 15:59 imBLIND wrote:
I agree. Threads get totally shitted on and I spend days looking for arguments under a pile of crap posts. There doesn't need to be segregation of posters, forums, or posts because that will just make this site an elitist clique. All we need is a system where the good posts stick out from the bad posts.
That's what this forum should be. The most knowledgeable players should be the ones discussing most of the time. One of the best forums from WoW strategizing and theorycrafting is elitistjerks.com's forum, and it's even in the name. No one will argue though that that forum is home to the most knowledgeable and enlightening discussion related to WoW strategy.
I agree. I can't wrap my brain around how it would be bad for anyone to have a separate forum for masters league or even just for pros. That it will be an elitist website? Look I'm all for everybody sharing their opinions, and there's plenty of places on this site to do it. Wouldn't everybody like to be able to browse through some forum posts from pros only on strategy discussions? I know I would. Sure have a strategy forum for all the non pros and life will continue as normal there, exactly as it does here. But are you going to click on the forum where you can't post and listen to the pros talk or load up a forum similar to this one. Of course you're going to click on the pro one. Elitist? Maybe. Exponentially more valuable? Definitely
|
Great post man. As someone who used to come here during the beta of SC2, I just don't see any point really now. This forum is cluttered with absolute garbage, barely any meaningful threads or posts. Endless posts of scrubs spouting out 1 sentence with a "as a matter of fact" tone.
|
On January 24 2011 19:49 KawasakiJ wrote:LOL at stressing abt posting quality on a ''game'' forum. I agree that peeps neeed to post replays…but as for the rest... I disagree Every1 can give advice, all advice comes from something that either worked for them, they saw / read abt…bottom line is…they trying to help and get enjoyment from putting their 2 cents on the internet…is this not like 90% of posts here? If you want to isolate high diamond / masters / higher grade english & comprehension.…why not just request a section be made for them? Call it the ''no noob strat section for serious gamers who play and write good only''. We can ALL learn from a bronze player….it just requires more chewing on what advice he gives…and a bronze player can drink in advice from everyone….hence ALL should have absolute freedom to post. If anything…. we need to be grateful that any1 even posts a reply. This is a good idea! Show nested quote +Edit: To the solution I agree with some post above. It would be totally amazing if you could connect your TL Account to your battlenet account, so that in The line of your name your Ligue and Rate is written. (Best would be if one could use the hidden elo system but w/e)
Last edit: 2011-01-23 20:33:19
Sorry to say, but your post is very painful to read. Your mentality is the exact cancer that they are mentioning. Do not get so defensive, accept that your opinion is not special. Would you walk into a surgeons office and start giving advice? Your taking the freedom a little too seriously, if a low bronze wants to just chit chat it up about something in the game, he can go to a different section of the forum. This post is specifically about the STRATEGY section, apparently you did not understand that.
|
On January 29 2011 14:06 MementoMori wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2011 16:29 mlbrandow wrote:On January 19 2011 15:59 imBLIND wrote:
I agree. Threads get totally shitted on and I spend days looking for arguments under a pile of crap posts. There doesn't need to be segregation of posters, forums, or posts because that will just make this site an elitist clique. All we need is a system where the good posts stick out from the bad posts.
That's what this forum should be. The most knowledgeable players should be the ones discussing most of the time. One of the best forums from WoW strategizing and theorycrafting is elitistjerks.com's forum, and it's even in the name. No one will argue though that that forum is home to the most knowledgeable and enlightening discussion related to WoW strategy. I agree. I can't wrap my brain around how it would be bad for anyone to have a separate forum for masters league or even just for pros. That it will be an elitist website? Look I'm all for everybody sharing their opinions, and there's plenty of places on this site to do it. Wouldn't everybody like to be able to browse through some forum posts from pros only on strategy discussions? I know I would. Sure have a strategy forum for all the non pros and life will continue as normal there, exactly as it does here. But are you going to click on the forum where you can't post and listen to the pros talk or load up a forum similar to this one. Of course you're going to click on the pro one. Elitist? Maybe. Exponentially more valuable? Definitely
I certainly agree that allowing the leading minds of the Starcraft community put their heads together without being annoyed by bad posts is a good idea.
But I don't think a cutoff based on rank is a good idea. I used to play competitive Smash, and on the biggest Smash site there was a system called the Back Room, where top players and smart people could post and discuss things at the highest level. Now, on this site things were hidden, but it could still work with users being able to see and not post. On that site, people were let in in one of two ways. Either they were immediately deemed to be good enough based on accomplishments and posts, or they applied, showing their posts and accomplishments and then being reviewed by the people in charge of the back room. I think something like this could work. Top players could be let in immediately, and then people a few steps down from that who could display their good posts and some accomplishments in applications could be let in as well. That way, players with good ideas would be let in, whether or not their rating reflected that.
To sum it up, I think getting good players together to discuss would be good, but this shouldn't be based on ladder rank (for example Masters League only).
|
|
|
On January 29 2011 14:06 MementoMori wrote:
I agree. I can't wrap my brain around how it would be bad for anyone to have a separate forum for masters league or even just for pros. That it will be an elitist website? Look I'm all for everybody sharing their opinions, and there's plenty of places on this site to do it. Wouldn't everybody like to be able to browse through some forum posts from pros only on strategy discussions? I know I would. Sure have a strategy forum for all the non pros and life will continue as normal there, exactly as it does here. But are you going to click on the forum where you can't post and listen to the pros talk or load up a forum similar to this one. Of course you're going to click on the pro one. Elitist? Maybe. Exponentially more valuable? Definitely
^^^This
Who wouldn't want to use a forum where they can't post but can read posts exclusively from players of higher rank than them? I think masters would be a good cuttoff, as an only pro board would likely be a little too quiet.
I'm not going to be offended just because I can't post in it (2 high diamond accounts, but no masters yet ). I'm going to be happy that I know I'm getting advice from people who have managed to advance more than me.
Leave the regular strat forum in place of course. It will see pleanty of use. And if a topic gets a lot of attention on the "pro" board people of lower leagues can make their own thread where they discuss their thoughts on it.
|
On February 02 2011 06:50 Shadrak wrote:
Who wouldn't want to use a forum where they can't post but can read posts exclusively from players of higher rank than them? I think masters would be a good cuttoff, as an only pro board would likely be a little too quiet.
Definitely agree. I only come to this forum to look for stuff that's been PROVEN to work, that people who are really good at this game use.
I also come looking for build orders, for game plans. If there was a very small number of topics, one dedicated to each viable plan/BO, that would help a lot. As it is, most of the posts are "help me with PvZ", "Help me with Unit X", "Do you think Y is imba?", etc...
I'm a solid diamond player, but there's still a lot of timings, BOs, etc that I never needed to learn to get to where I am. It would be really helpful to have a place to go to read up on those sorts of things.
|
Splitting the forum would be a last ditch effort to save a small fragment of posters. It would be the same as accepting defeat. This thread is not about that.
The suggestion would not only create a secluded area for good posters, but it would leave the other half of the forum a urine soaked kiddiepool. And that's the issue this thread is discussing. An attempt at educating the masses, not protecting the few.
If anything should be separated then it should be the 'help request' threads that spark most of the problems. If they are subject to strong regulations then maybe the attitude in those threads won't affect the other topics as much.
The basic assumption that the OP is ignorant about the subject is so strong that it automatically creates the environment we're trying to combat.
Take the perfect example of this in Travis' latest thread, a help thread coincidentally:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=189683
If there was such a thing, it would be a textbook example.
I read the first pages of this thread, and basically only focused on what the OP was responding to and his conversation with Salv, which eventually solved the problem before Darkforce ended the issue completely. The rest, encouraged with the fact that Travis is 'of TL.net' were discussing completely besides the point, badgering on over points that had stopped mattering several pages ago.
I gave up on the thread after 7-8 because it was like being caught in an eternal loop seconds before the processor was about to give out.
At the time of writing the thread is still going on strongly, at page 36, I have no idea and no intention to find out what the hell they are still going on about.
What needs to happen? People need to confront other users when they are no longer contributing to a discussion. Not the moderators, they have enough work keeping the real tripe out. If you have something to contribute, do so, if you don't, someone else needs to tell you to back off. And if there is an issue with that - if someone can't accept backing off - then a moderator can step in.
|
Unless TeamLiquid wants to patrol the boards like a site such as Elitist Jerks, then you are going to have the trolls. Its just like anything else, most people are trying to do the right thing, but you have a small group that wants to troll and screw up the forums.
In any event, you can skip over that poor post and move on the the "better" post.
|
On February 04 2011 19:39 Greth wrote:Splitting the forum would be a last ditch effort to save a small fragment of posters. It would be the same as accepting defeat. This thread is not about that. The suggestion would not only create a secluded area for good posters, but it would leave the other half of the forum a urine soaked kiddiepool. And that's the issue this thread is discussing. An attempt at educating the masses, not protecting the few. If anything should be separated then it should be the 'help request' threads that spark most of the problems. If they are subject to strong regulations then maybe the attitude in those threads won't affect the other topics as much. The basic assumption that the OP is ignorant about the subject is so strong that it automatically creates the environment we're trying to combat. Take the perfect example of this in Travis' latest thread, a help thread coincidentally: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=189683If there was such a thing, it would be a textbook example. I read the first pages of this thread, and basically only focused on what the OP was responding to and his conversation with Salv, which eventually solved the problem before Darkforce ended the issue completely. The rest, encouraged with the fact that Travis is 'of TL.net' were discussing completely besides the point, badgering on over points that had stopped mattering several pages ago. I gave up on the thread after 7-8 because it was like being caught in an eternal loop seconds before the processor was about to give out. At the time of writing the thread is still going on strongly, at page 36, I have no idea and no intention to find out what the hell they are still going on about. What needs to happen? People need to confront other users when they are no longer contributing to a discussion. Not the moderators, they have enough work keeping the real tripe out. If you have something to contribute, do so, if you don't, someone else needs to tell you to back off. And if there is an issue with that - if someone can't accept backing off - then a moderator can step in.
I don't know if you are actually serious.
Do you really think anything will change when you tell people to scrutinize others that don't contribute? This issue cannot be solved by telling everyone to be a good boy and contribute to make the forums better. It just doesn't work.
You either have the strategy forums as is, 100% shit or you can create a safe haven for good players to exchange information with 98% of the player pool excluded (masters forum).
All this 'the posters need to think and work together to improve posting quality' serves nothing. This thread is essentially filled with bad posters complaining about bad posts. This forum is a lost cause and I can see why every respectable player has almost completely stopped posting.
The stance of the TL staff is quite laughable, ever since the release of SC2, the strategy forum has been shit, and still they haven't done anything. Stickying this thread is even more hilarious. Like that is gonna help.
But whatever, this is the internet, I don't know why I even got my hopes up.
|
MURICA15980 Posts
I honestly believe over 60% of the people in the strategy forums should not be posting advice in the first place. Even things like "I'm a bad player, so don't take my word for it, but I do x y z" sometimes just creates clutter that makes finding legitimate discussion harder.
Post less, read more.
|
On February 06 2011 19:55 ChickenLips wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2011 19:39 Greth wrote:Splitting the forum would be a last ditch effort to save a small fragment of posters. It would be the same as accepting defeat. This thread is not about that. The suggestion would not only create a secluded area for good posters, but it would leave the other half of the forum a urine soaked kiddiepool. And that's the issue this thread is discussing. An attempt at educating the masses, not protecting the few. If anything should be separated then it should be the 'help request' threads that spark most of the problems. If they are subject to strong regulations then maybe the attitude in those threads won't affect the other topics as much. The basic assumption that the OP is ignorant about the subject is so strong that it automatically creates the environment we're trying to combat. Take the perfect example of this in Travis' latest thread, a help thread coincidentally: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=189683If there was such a thing, it would be a textbook example. I read the first pages of this thread, and basically only focused on what the OP was responding to and his conversation with Salv, which eventually solved the problem before Darkforce ended the issue completely. The rest, encouraged with the fact that Travis is 'of TL.net' were discussing completely besides the point, badgering on over points that had stopped mattering several pages ago. I gave up on the thread after 7-8 because it was like being caught in an eternal loop seconds before the processor was about to give out. At the time of writing the thread is still going on strongly, at page 36, I have no idea and no intention to find out what the hell they are still going on about. What needs to happen? People need to confront other users when they are no longer contributing to a discussion. Not the moderators, they have enough work keeping the real tripe out. If you have something to contribute, do so, if you don't, someone else needs to tell you to back off. And if there is an issue with that - if someone can't accept backing off - then a moderator can step in. I don't know if you are actually serious. Do you really think anything will change when you tell people to scrutinize others that don't contribute? This issue cannot be solved by telling everyone to be a good boy and contribute to make the forums better. It just doesn't work. You either have the strategy forums as is, 100% shit or you can create a safe haven for good players to exchange information with 98% of the player pool excluded (masters forum). All this 'the posters need to think and work together to improve posting quality' serves nothing. This thread is essentially filled with bad posters complaining about bad posts. This forum is a lost cause and I can see why every respectable player has almost completely stopped posting. The stance of the TL staff is quite laughable, ever since the release of SC2, the strategy forum has been shit, and still they haven't done anything. Stickying this thread is even more hilarious. Like that is gonna help. But whatever, this is the internet, I don't know why I even got my hopes up.
I posted that reply because I was trying to find alternatives.
Just falling on your knees and throwing your hands up in defeat like your doing sure isn't going to help. A masters forum won't work, it's been discussed before that you can't guarantee the validity of a person's advice by what rank he has. Plus a system to validate accounts to post there is almost impossible to make, mods would have to individually select people to post there. Even if the idea had some merit, the technical side would be a soulcrusher to say the least.
The messages given to other posters wouldn't have to be as obnoxious as your acting now. They can be something as simple as a general reminder, and they don't have to be the only thing in the post. If someone takes a stance that was already discussed, simply quote it to point that out before continuing with the rest of your post. If something has already been debunked, point it out with a quote or a spoiler and carry on with the thread.
If that provokes the poster you were replying to, good, then he can be reported and warned or removed altogether.
The big issue with so many forums and internet communities is that trolls and posts with no real content are tolerated as if they are a force of nature. As if normal communication is no longer possible. As if every post needs to have a TL:DR. And that something with three lines of text is considered a valid contribution. (Sorry Chill )
There is a means of dealing with this outside of outright isolation or removal of posters. It's creating an environment where proper discussion is promoted. Something most people probably don't even know exists.
I was quite an irritant back in my Mohaa and CoD1 days, but I learned on my clan and league forum to post like a human being. It won't work for everyone, but you'd be surprised how effective it can be.
Hell, it might even work for you!
|
I think you have two separate issues that have to remain separate...
The first is posters who detract from discussions about strategy by making things personal... They will insult the poster or the post without adding anything to the discussion. Insults/attacks very clearly should not be tolerated. It's very easy to spot these...is the post about starcraft strategy or is it about the poster and or post. Starcraft strategy should be countered with opposing points on starcraft strategy and not insults.
Then there is the subject of 'bad posts'. This is completely separate... A well meaning but perhaps naive player may post his say his strategy on say a mass carrier strategy. This should not be censored as long as he/she is civil and isn't insulting anybody. It need not turn into a waste either. Posters can post thoughtful counters to this which can give the thread value. A big mistake a mod can make is to just blindly start censoring posts because 'there are too many of them' or 'because they think that strategy is stupid'. This can be dangerously subjective and lead to mod bias and a disenfranchised community. Even high level players have contradictory positions over what strategies are best and the community should be afforded the same option to make honest mistakes.
The forum is kind of like a mini-economy... Each topic started is like a small business, and successful topics will survive with community support like real businesses. In a sense this is self-regulating without the need for top-down centralized deciding which topics are the best. If the community wants to exchange ideas on a pathetic strategy, they should be able to do so. If they want to be able discuss a 'duplicate topic' without having to search through many months of old topics using multiple keywords to find that 'original topic' (but apparently not so old they get accused of raising it from the dead), they should be able to do so. If people want to talk about what units are overpowered, they should be able to do so. The 'topic market place' will naturally correct issues like these...the exception being insults, parasite links and other ego trips that do not relate to SC strategy.
|
On February 07 2011 13:34 Klogon wrote:
I honestly believe over 60% of the people in the strategy forums should not be posting advice in the first place. Even things like "I'm a bad player, so don't take my word for it, but I do x y z" sometimes just creates clutter that makes finding legitimate discussion harder.
Post less, read more.
Pretty much. I'll only contribute to a thread when I know what I'm talking about out of gaming experience. If more people took this stance, threads would be much less cluttered and readable.
If people do what the OP suggests, we're just going to have every post being 3 paragraph long in order to rationalize why their bad idea is good. People need to be less vocal.
Also, if you're having trouble filtering out what is reliable information and what is obviously not viable, then you probably shouldn't be posting in these forums in the first place.
|
I'd like to point out that people posting strategy-related posts should be relying on replays more so than reasoning.
If you try to reason each of your points, then everyone just tries to argue why they're right and it just leads to giant back-and-forth wall-of-text arguments that keep getting bigger & bigger as each person tries to nitpick over each & every point that is made.
For example, look at this debate between me and another poster. We are arguing whether broodlords or ultras are the better 1st hive tech choice in ZvT:
1st my post, explaining the reasons why broodlords are better than ultras:
+ Show Spoiler +On January 26 2011 06:41 BlasiuS wrote:When I get hive, I almost always get broodlords over ultras, especially when terran is going marine/tank, for a few reasons: 1. broodlords tank way more cost-effectively than ultras, for quite a few reasons: - they fly, ultras don't; as a result, broodlords aren't affected by tank fire at all. - they have range 9, ultras are melee - every time broodlords attack, broodlings are 'spawned' instantly in melee range, which means they don't have to travel to get into melee range (unlike ultras), and also means that broodlords/broodlings draw friendly tank fire more quickly & efficiently than ultras. Notice that when you attack a staggered siege tank line with ultras, terran goes  and stims his marines and runs back, and when you attack a staggered siege tank line with broodlords, terran goes 'OH SHIT UN-SIEGE AND HAUL ASS NOW' - broodlings are free and instant with every broodlord attack, ultras cost resources & time...A LOT of resources & time. Let me emphasize here, until terran gets vikings, broodlords are constantly reinforcing instantly and for free. I mention this because you talk about reinforcing...NO unit reinforces as efficiently as broodlords, it's not even close. - tanks do bonus damage vs armored, ultras are armored, broodlings are not. You're actually lowering a marine/tank army's overall damage if you use broodlords over ultras. 2. ultras require upgrades to be effective, broodlords don't, however that leads to my next reason... 3. broodlords benefit from melee/carapace AND air upgrades, whereas ultras only benefit from melee/carapace upgrades. Thus, when you go muta/ling/bane mid-game, your upgrades match up, and as a result late-game broodlords actually synergize better with muta/ling/bane than ultras do. The only drawback is that broodlords are more vulnerable to vikings, however if you are ahead in bases and don't throw away your muta ball in the mid-game, you can use your mutas to defend your broodlords. My ideal late-game army against marine/tank is fully upgraded crackling/bane, my ball of mutas (anywhere from 15-30 mutas), and 4-6 broodlords, with level 2 air attack upgrade (once greater spire finishes, I can resume upgrading air armor as gas allows). Now if terran starts to overproduce vikings to counter my broodlords, at that point I'll switch to ultralisks.
next someone broke down each & every point:
+ Show Spoiler +On January 26 2011 08:26 Toxigen wrote:Show nested quote +tanks do bonus damage vs armored, ultras are armored, broodlings are not. You're actually lowering a marine/tank army's overall damage if you use broodlords over ultras Actually, this is false. Tank damage is so high because of splash and almost nothing else. Their single target damage to armored targets in siege mode is actually less than their unsieged DPS. Ultralisks, when hit by tanks, are so large they absorb ALL splash. A tank shot hitting an ultralisk will result in 0 zergling or baneling deaths. A tank shot hitting a broodling will probably spill over onto zerglings and banelings. Show nested quote +ultras require upgrades to be effective, broodlords don't, however that leads to my next reason... The downside is that broodlords are slower. A greater spire takes 100 seconds to morph. An ultralisk cavern takes only 65 seconds. Granted, the upgrade does take 110 seconds to finish. However, if you start the upgrade once the cavern completes, that means that your first round of ultras will have the upgrade within 40 seconds after spawning. If you add the build time of a corruptor to the time it takes to morph a broodlord, it's actually 4 seconds longer than the build time of an ultralisk (74 seconds). Something for your consideration: Cavern+armor upgrade= 175 seconds (ultralisks are out by 135 seconds) Greater spire+corruptor build time+morph time= 184 seconds Ultralisks are also much less vulnerable to marines after the upgrade. A fully-upgraded ultralisk against a fully upgraded marine will only take 3 damage a shot. Show nested quote +broodlords benefit from melee/carapace AND air upgrades, whereas ultras only benefit from melee/carapace upgrades. Thus, when you go muta/ling/bane mid-game, your upgrades match up, and as a result late-game broodlords actually synergize better with muta/ling/bane than ultras do. Broodlords don't synergize better, they just synergize. Ultralisks share all the same upgrades too. If you don't go mutalisk heavy, spending money on air upgrades isn't necessary, which offsets (imo) the cost of the ultralisk armor upgrade. Why spend 100/100 or more on air attack upgrades if you'll only build 8-12 mutalisks all game long? Show nested quote +The only drawback is that broodlords are more vulnerable to vikings, however if you are ahead in bases and don't throw away your muta ball in the mid-game, you can use your mutas to defend your broodlords. This isn't always the case. Often, vikings are parked on top of thors next to tanks. A broodlord will take damage from vikings and if mutalisks intervene, they'll eat thor missile damage. Corruptors are a slightly better response, due to being armored and have 2 base armor. If he doesn't have any thors, then yes, you're correct... but can you really remember any times you've come up against a late-game Terran without thor support? Personally, I think it might be better to give switching the tech a shot. Start with a couple ultralisks and then switch into broodlords to help unsiege tanks and then swarm in with a couple ultralisks to take shots while the ling/baneling cleans up. I still think the OP's use of ultralisks shows promise.
I felt his arguments were particularly weak, and didn't want tl readers to be misinformed, so I replied back (notice how big the wall-of-text arguments are getting):
+ Show Spoiler +On January 27 2011 02:30 BlasiuS wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 08:26 Toxigen wrote:tanks do bonus damage vs armored, ultras are armored, broodlings are not. You're actually lowering a marine/tank army's overall damage if you use broodlords over ultras Actually, this is false. Tank damage is so high because of splash and almost nothing else. Their single target damage to armored targets in siege mode is actually less than their unsieged DPS. Ultralisks, when hit by tanks, are so large they absorb ALL splash. A tank shot hitting an ultralisk will result in 0 zergling or baneling deaths. A tank shot hitting a broodling will probably spill over onto zerglings and banelings. How is a tank shot hitting a broodling going to do splash damage to zerglings & banelings? Broodlings spawn right next to their target in melee range; do you pull back your broodlings and group them with your other units? rofl, of course not. Tank shots hitting broodlings will only splash other broodlings (and tanks, and marines). Who cares if splash damage is hitting free units? Every point of damage that broodlings take, is wasted terran damage. I maintain that tanks will do less damage to your army overall if you're using broodlords over ultras. Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 08:26 Toxigen wrote:ultras require upgrades to be effective, broodlords don't, however that leads to my next reason... The downside is that broodlords are slower. A greater spire takes 100 seconds to morph. An ultralisk cavern takes only 65 seconds. Granted, the upgrade does take 110 seconds to finish. However, if you start the upgrade once the cavern completes, that means that your first round of ultras will have the upgrade within 40 seconds after spawning. If you add the build time of a corruptor to the time it takes to morph a broodlord, it's actually 4 seconds longer than the build time of an ultralisk (74 seconds). Something for your consideration: Cavern+armor upgrade= 175 seconds (ultralisks are out by 135 seconds) Greater spire+corruptor build time+morph time= 184 seconds Your math is wrong. You can build your corruptors while the greater spire is building, so that they're ready to morph as soon as the greater spire completes. So actually it's just greater spire + morph time = 134, which makes them about even if you don't wait for the armor upgrade, and makes ultras significantly slower if you do. Either way, that doesn't change the fact that ultras require upgrades to be effective, broodlords don't. Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 08:26 Toxigen wrote:broodlords benefit from melee/carapace AND air upgrades, whereas ultras only benefit from melee/carapace upgrades. Thus, when you go muta/ling/bane mid-game, your upgrades match up, and as a result late-game broodlords actually synergize better with muta/ling/bane than ultras do. Broodlords don't synergize better, they just synergize. Ultralisks share all the same upgrades too. If you don't go mutalisk heavy, spending money on air upgrades isn't necessary, which offsets (imo) the cost of the ultralisk armor upgrade. Why spend 100/100 or more on air attack upgrades if you'll only build 8-12 mutalisks all game long? it's debatable, but I believe even without air upgrades, broodlords benefit more from melee/carapace upgrades than ultras do. So even if you don't get air upgrades, broodlords scale better. besides, anything more than 10 mutas, and you should be getting level 1 air attack anyway. Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 08:26 Toxigen wrote:The only drawback is that broodlords are more vulnerable to vikings, however if you are ahead in bases and don't throw away your muta ball in the mid-game, you can use your mutas to defend your broodlords. This isn't always the case. Often, vikings are parked on top of thors next to tanks. A broodlord will take damage from vikings and if mutalisks intervene, they'll eat thor missile damage. Corruptors are a slightly better response, due to being armored and have 2 base armor. If he doesn't have any thors, then yes, you're correct... but can you really remember any times you've come up against a late-game Terran without thor support? Uh, throwing away your mutas is a big mistake. You can always avoid such a mistake. So yes, it is always the case. Muta + a few corruptors can handle vikings long enough for your broodlords to do their damage. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, are you saying because of 1-3 thors on the field, that the drawbacks of broodlord outweigh the drawbacks of ultras? Let me remind you of some of the commonly-mentioned ultra drawbacks, NONE of which broodlords have: -can't fly; very slow off creep -requires at least 2-2 in melee/carapace to be cost-effective -melee only -too big, gets stuck on units and runs around dealing no damage. -as a result of the above two, ultras are completely useless in a choke. This one deserves special mention, it means that unless you're fighting in an open area, ultras' effectiveness are severely reduced; broodlords don't have this problem at all. Compared to the drawbacks of broodlords: -slower than on-creep ultras -vulnerable to vikings These points have been made over and over again, by ladder & tournament players alike. Another thing that favors broodlords: ultras don't force the terran to get a different unit, whereas brood lords force terran to get vikings, which are basically useful only for countering the brood lords. Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 08:26 Toxigen wrote:
Personally, I think it might be better to give switching the tech a shot. Start with a couple ultralisks and then switch into broodlords to help unsiege tanks and then swarm in with a couple ultralisks to take shots while the ling/baneling cleans up. I still think the OP's use of ultralisks shows promise. ultras can certainly be useful, but never as good as broodlords as a first hive tech choice. There's a reason why zerg will almost always opt for broodlords over ultras when they get hive. Actually, there's many reasons, they've all been known for the longest time, I just reiterated them in my post to remind our readers. Because of all of those reasons, the advantages of choosing broodlords first greatly outweigh the advantages of choosing ultras first. But I do think that switching to ultras when terran starts getting a huge fleet of vikings is a good idea. That was quite a long post, but I wanted to address the each of the points that were made.
but of course this is the internet, we all have to get the last word in, so he reponds AGAIN to each & every one of my points. His post is now a horrifying grotesque wall-of-text monster:
+ Show Spoiler +On January 27 2011 03:29 Toxigen wrote:Show nested quote +How is a tank shot hitting a broodling going to do splash damage to zerglings & banelings? Broodlings spawn right next to their target in melee range; do you pull back your broodlings and group them with your other units? rofl, of course not. Tank shots hitting broodlings will only splash other broodlings (and tanks, and marines). Who cares if splash damage is hitting free units? Every point of damage that broodlings take, is wasted terran damage. I maintain that tanks will do less damage to your army overall if you're using broodlords over ultras. This is true if you're not engaging with the rest of your army. However, once (if?) you actually engage, you're still getting splashed. 35+ damage splashed around a ball of lings (or targeting a broodling and splashing onto a ling trying to get in range) is way more damage (and DPS lost) overall than a 500 hit point ultralisk losing a 10% of his life. The fact of the matter is, ultralisks help mitigate splash which is the number one (if not only) reason why Terrans even use siege tanks. Mitigating splash does more to keep your actual units alive than spawning "free" ones. That's my point. Show nested quote +Your math is wrong. You can build your corruptors while the greater spire is building, so that they're ready to morph as soon as the greater spire completes. So actually it's just greater spire + morph time = 134, which makes them about even if you don't wait for the armor upgrade, and makes ultras significantly slower if you do. Okay, I'll concede this. However, it's still interesting to note that to make the times competitive, you'll have to spawn corruptors beforehand and they'll be useless supply until the other tech kicks in, which if you're going the ultralisk route, you could actually max on useful units, including ultralisks, while waiting for ultralisk armor tech to finish. Either way, we're talking a negligible amount of supply and mere seconds, so I won't go into this any further. Show nested quote +Either way, that doesn't change the fact that ultras require upgrades to be effective, broodlords don't. Every unit requires upgrades to be effective. Ultralisks require one 150/150 upgrade and no spire upgrades. Spire attack upgrades (remember your point about synergy earlier) require at LEAST 100/100. I don't see ultralisks requiring any more upgrades than broodlords do. Show nested quote +it's debatable, but I believe even without air upgrades, broodlords benefit more from melee/carapace upgrades than ultras do. So even if you don't get air upgrades, broodlords scale better. I'm not sure what you mean by "benefit more," in this situation. If you're talking about broodlings, tanks 1 shot them, so armor doesn't really help them there. Attack definitely would, because there's more of them attacking and at a faster rate than the ultralisk. Then again, the ultralisk has splash and gets a lot of damage vs. armored from upgrades. I guess it's situational. I wouldn't agree broodlords scale better without more proof. Ultralisks do shrug off marine fire like nobody's business (at least when compared to zerglings). Marines are decent against low numbers of broodlords if they can get close enough. Show nested quote +besides, anything more than 10 mutas, and you should be getting level 1 air attack anyway. I currently overdo it on mutalisks but feel like my army is far too flimsy for most of the mid-game. I'm starting to wonder if there's a better answer out there that provides a bit more security/stability. Eating one bad splash hit from a thor while harassing really hurts when your first line of defense is mutalisks. Show nested quote +Uh, throwing away your mutas is a big mistake. You can always avoid such a mistake. So yes, it is always the case. Muta + a few corruptors can handle vikings long enough for your broodlords to do their damage. I never advised throwing away mutalisks. You've still not explained how I'm magically able to hit and run engage these vikings within range of thor AA without losing mutalisks. That was my point. Mutalisk range is too short. To get into range of the vikings, you'll eat thor missiles. You'll lose more than the Terran. Show nested quote +I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, are you saying because of 1-3 thors on the field, that the drawbacks of broodlord outweigh the drawbacks of ultras? Actually, this would be the opposite of the point you're construing that I'm making. I'm saying that: 1. You shouldn't use ultralisks as a re-max unit. 2. You should transition to ultralisks without throwing away your army to re-max. 3. Opening ultralisks as hive-tech and then switching to corruptors/BL hasn't been explored, and maybe it should be. 4. You don't need to have an army comprised of all ultralisks for ultralisks to be effective -- in fact, more than 3 probably hurts more than helps. 5. Saying that mutalisks can protect your broodlords from vikings is unrealistic if the Terran has thors supporting the vikings. You'll lose the broodlords and maybe mutalisks (again, please don't somehow misinterpret this as me advocating through mutalisks away [?]). Are these really drawbacks? Fair enough -- ultralisks can't fly. But they're the same speed as speed banelings off creep. Would you disqualify the use of banelings against Terran by virtue of their speed? Why the double standard against ultralisks? So does the rest of your ling/bling army. You should have these upgrades anyway. This isn't a drawback. These are actual drawbacks (as opposed to saying that "ultralisks can't fly," while most of the rest of your army can't either). They can be lessened by simply making less of them: Show nested quote +-melee only
-too big, gets stuck on units and runs around dealing no damage.
-as a result of the above two, ultras are completely useless in a choke. This one deserves special mention, it means that unless you're fighting in an open area, ultras' effectiveness are severely reduced; broodlords don't have this problem at all. Show nested quote +Compared to the drawbacks of broodlords:
-slower than on-creep ultras
-vulnerable to vikings They're also slower than off-creep ultralisks. In fact, off-creep ultralisks are TWICE AS FAST. Off-creep. Show nested quote +Another thing that favors broodlords: ultras don't force the terran to get a different unit, whereas brood lords force terran to get vikings, which are basically useful only for countering the brood lords. This might be true. The current thinking is: BLs force vikings, Z switches to ultralisks, vikings are useless. However, going ultralisks first means he's not going to have the vikings for a BL switch later, perhaps improving the effectiveness of those BLs. How come the logic doesn't work both ways? It just seems like blind BL bias. Show nested quote +ultras can certainly be useful, but never as good as broodlords as a first hive tech choice. There's a reason why zerg will almost always opt for broodlords over ultras when they get hive. Actually, there's many reasons, they've all been known for the longest time, I just reiterated them in my post to remind our readers. Because of all of those reasons, the advantages of choosing broodlords first greatly outweigh the advantages of choosing ultras first. But I do think that switching to ultras when terran starts getting a huge fleet of vikings is a good idea. I think the one of the points of the OP is that ultralisks are a shitty standalone unit, yet that's how everybody uses them (a re-max after broodlords of like 10 ultralisks). I think he's arguing for using ultralisks like how people use broodlords, which I honestly rarely (never?) see: 3-4 total as a supplement to your current army. Nobody would suggest that you sacrifice an army and re-max with broodlords. They're easy to kill unsupported and they take too long. Yet people do it with ultralisks even though ultralisks are similar in both regards? Show nested quote +That was quite a long post, but I wanted to address the each of the points that were made. I appreciate it.
I'm fairly confident if I hadn't suggested taking this to PM, that it would have gone on forever, each of us arguing just for the sake of arguing.
Btw I did continue the argument via PM, and of course I didn't get a response. I should have provided some replays though. Although I get the feeling that even if I did, it wouldn't have settled anything =/
The same thing started to crop up in this thread, regarding whether hydras are a viable way of holding off initial 2-base phoenix harass in the mid-game. I didn't even bother to keep up the argument very long, it became apparent that he wasn't going to accept that they are viable, and I wasn't going to accept that they aren't viable (of course not, I have seen numerous top replays of zergs using hydras to fend off phoenix until corruptors are out). Although I haven't really seen any high-level replays of protoss continuing making phoenix past the initial 4-5 harass, so this argument will have to remain in the realm of theorycraft for now.
So don't make the same mistake I did TL, if you argue strategy with reasoning, make sure to provide replays, if not tournament replays, then at least mid- or high-masters replays.
|
There's a few ways I'd suggest of making the cream rise to the top.
Voting system. Good comments and or threads get voted up. Bad comments/threads get voted down.
You could also link this vote system to the profile system. People who post quality have higher rank. Higher the rank the more 'trust worthy' the profile making the comments would be.
Not sure if my comments are of any use. I've been a reader of this forum for a long time but was never really brave enough to comment for the reason of this topic... seems a bit aggressive here.
|
I think too much focus is put on rankings to be honest.
People act like the fact they're a 2200 Diamond or something truly means they're a skilled player, when in reality they could just be four gating or cannon rushing each time.
|
I wasn't suggesting ladder rankings as a guide... I mean forum rankings based upon how good your writing / input is.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
