[L/G]Using Pyschoanalysis in your games. - Page 6

On July 01 2011 03:17 JWD wrote:
I really can't believe you guys are taking this so seriously. Doesn't anyone else appreciate the whimsy here? Sheeeeeeesh.

Yes, like there is some risk that players who read this thread will stop scouting come ON guys.

OP, I enjoyed reading. More entertaining than 90% of purported guides posted in SC2 Strategy.

On July 02 2011 17:42 drryworrx wrote:
Just to clear the record, this wasn't intended to troll anybody and I apologize if it came off that way.

On June 30 2011 16:02 AmericanUmlaut wrote:
Is this a troll?

Psychoanalysis refers to a type of therapy that was made popular (and invented, if I'm not mistaken) by Freud. If OP described how the manner in which a Toss spread his units reflected upon his subconscious lust for his mother, you'd be more on track.

Also: 12-13% silent, 34-36% self assured, 9-13% criers, 70-80% standard. You've got a minimum of 125% there, buddy.

On July 02 2011 18:52 iTzAnglory wrote:
There is also the awkward of society, where I once joined a game and said "gl hf," and then the Zerg just told me to "stfu for thinking you have the rights to talk when you play Protoss. Then he kept making an insult every 4 minutes into the game, so I just got pissed and 6 gated him.

I do not know if that fits in crying, as that is not really complaining but more of just being a douchebag. Either way, nice analysis, people in the comments are pointing out small things that you could spend more time on, but overall you have a well thought out picture of the types of players. Obviously it is not 100% accurate as there are always people that are "special" in their own way.

On June 30 2011 14:59 o29 wrote:
No offense, but your use of the term psychoanalysis is completely wrong.

As for the rest of the post, it's completely ridiculous. Your illusory correlations are based only on anecdotal evidence.

On July 03 2011 09:01 drryworrx wrote:
I have one short answer to counter everything you just said, Duncan.




This was intended to be humorous, and therefore I purposefully misconstrued meanings and averages. I may not be great with math, but I know how to add and I was fully aware of it when I typed it out and it was done that way intentionally.

Wasn't meant as a troll topic, just a good humor one. I guess some of the best trolls are the people who do it accidentally, huh?

On July 03 2011 08:39 DuncanIdaho wrote:
Drrywarrx,

Well, as a quantitative psychologist (a statistician who knows a thing or two about psychology), and know that I have taught several undergraduate courses at a division one university here in the US over statisticis and psychology, here's my two cents.

First, I wish you would give your credentials, and as you did not, I bet at best you've taken a psychology class or two in college, if that, though who knows, maybe you were just sloppy not mentioning your own credentials. Second, as many have pointed out, "psychoanalysis" is improperly used, as it stems from Freudian theories, essentially classifying people as having problems later in life, personality-wise, due to experiences in stages of development (oral,anal,genital, etc.) Now, also keep in mind that classifying people into "cubby-hole" categories is about the only relationship to psychoanalysis you have, that and it's loosely based on your own psychological theories. Third, I'd like to point out that your percentages add up to over 100%. Given, you never mentioned mutual exclusivity, so perhaps overlap does exist, though I am concerned about the numbers. Furthermore, I'd like the numbers to be based upon true, objective counting of your games and communications, not just "willy-nilly" anecdotal experiences, as I fear your theory may be based upon. Forth, nit-picky again, but R.E.M. is indeed rapid eye momvement, but I hope you realize that it refers to a behavioral indicator of when the subject is dreaming, not scanning your field of view quickly while conscious, but I'll forgive you for that, as we can recoin words as long as we realize that is what we're doing, not simply out of ignorance, lol.

But in any case, despite my previous grievances, I'll critique your theory a tad. First, you can't truly know much about someone with little intel, such as gg; gl; fuck you I hope you die; God I hate race X, so OP; I love your handle, I love your portrait, can I have your babies? etc.

Perhaps your reads can be true, anecdotally, and those instances you read your opponent right (likely by luck), will stick out more than the times you were wrong, at least that's my guess, due to knowledge of cognitive psychological theories of memory formation and emotional encoding, etc.

Although, your tip about anger. Bullshit. I'm sorry for my harsh words, but to ignore your emotions is NOT good advice, and many people on TL seem to think the only way to win is to have the emotional control of a Vulcan. We Humans are emotional beings, and we evolved emotion for a reason: If you get angry or scared, there's probably a good reason, you're being threatened and you need to heighten your response times. Given, you need to learn to control this somewhat, so as not to be sloppy, but it can be benefitial to work with your emotions, not against them. Maybe being more robotic works for people with robotic personalities, but not everyone is wired the same.

Furthermore, as to your reads, they can be culturally specific. For instance, I hear Korean tourneys discourage any chatter, as it is "BM". Or so some casters believe, and not being lucky enough to go to Korea myself, I'll just take their word for it. So, imagine you're reading an opponent as, "Oh he's so quiet, must be a n00b" perhaps he's just from a culture believeing that chatter is bad mannered, perhaps you're right and he doesn't even know how to chat in game, much less use hotkeys. "oh, he said 'gl', must be self-assured and cheesing me". WTF? No. Just, no. Maybe they're genuinely wishing you good luck, and are playing a standard game. And what if they're not wishing you gl? Well, maybe they're superstitious and irrationally believe wishing you luck will increase their own odds of losing. Or, maybe they come from the Broadway philosophy of wishing luck by saying break a leg, for fear that gl will give someone bad luck, and thus by wishing you gl, they're actually improving your odds of having bad luck.

You know, my point is you can't squeeze blood from a turnip. And that's what chatter is, a turnip. I'm just not willing to buy this without more credible data, as it just doesn't make sense, and I can't buy your argument due to a lack of credibility on your part, as you've demonstrated already, your lack of credentials by missusing vocabulary, as many others have pointed out.

I apologize if this rant I had seems a bit scathing and cruel, but I'm just supplying my honest critique, despite whether it hurts your feelings, an unintentional side effect, I promise. But honestly, I think you're going down a blind alley here, and without any prior experience with the person you're up against, you just can't make any good reads like this, and you're best to just improve your mechanics and nothing beats good scouting. Perhaps at the pro level, and especially in best of 3 rounds in a tourney, etc, reads can be made, but on the ladder, you never know your opponent, and I think you're wasting your time attempting such reads.

I could be wrong, perhaps there is indeed something there, despite our abilities to come up with contradicting anecdotal evidence, but without good, objective data, I just can't buy this.
~Duncan Idaho

PS- As to your comment: "...but if you feel you have a hard time spotting what structures mean what when you scout your opponent, then this might give you a general idea if you need to play defensively or if you can play aggressively early game." I believe I can help you here. You dont just scout structures, that is important, but you scout for drone saturation, number and composition of units, positioning of units, what do they reaveal at their ramp vs. what are they trying to hide in the back of the base, current upgrades on units, are any buildings (tech labs, forge, pool, etc.) squirming/flickering, etc. How much energy does the nexus/caster units have? How much gas have they mined? In short, this may be part of your problem, that you simply don't know what to scout for. Sure, obviously you don't have to worry about dt's if they have no dt den (whatever its called, I'm not a Toss player, hehe), assuming they didnt proxy hide it somewhere. But learning how to make reads, and whether they're all-in (typically low worker saturation is your clue), throwing up defensive structures, etc. is what the real pros are scouting for, not just what buildings currently are in their repertoire.

Also, knowing your timings and what is possible to happen at what times, and how strong it can be, and what that implies as to what else they have the ability to do if they pulled off the timing perfectly (usually not much else unless they're just really sloppy and doing a lukewarm, little bit of everything build). Although, getting out of the low levels, I'd advise is less based on reads, and more based upon mechanics, e.g. larvae vomiting, muleing every 50 energy, chronoing efficiently, always making workers, never getting supply blocked (i.e., don't let the "you must construct additional pylons/olords/depots", be your cue to make one, until you get reminded again, always preemptively make them, such that more supply will be available right as you're able to afford/make more units.), etc. Big emphasis on the supply block part, it will help immensely. Knowing what unit counters what is nice, but it's so much easier to get out of the low leagues with brute force rather than finese (i.e., he has a single immortal? no worries, I don't need to switch out of roaches necessarily, cause I have 200 food worth of them.) True, finese can help, but as a caster in one of my tourneys for gold and under I participated back when I was still gold said (Ipp I think was his name? During the Rising Cup here on TL), "Micro can only get you so far, but good macro is what will get you out of the lower leagues." And I can't say how right he was. Learn your mechanics, and the rest will be worth learning later once you improve those first.