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On August 25 2010 02:19 Saracen wrote:EDIT:+ Show Spoiler + It seems like a lot of you are missing the implications of this thread. First, regardless of points, there are two types of players. Players who want to win and players who want to better understand the game. I am saying that this exists even up to what many people consider to be "high diamond," while still existing in lower leagues. The problem comes when people with a certain number of points start using that as evidence for their advice, even though that says nothing about their understanding of the game. Second, people like Qxc, HuK, Sheth, pretty much all of the top players frequent TL. They actually visit it a lot. But they don't post a lot. You might be wondering why they don't provide insight and contribute to discussions. From an interview with Qxc: TL: Just curious, how much do you read TL?
qxc: I skim the forums occasionally, but tend not to post as most of the stuff actually regarding the game has a lot of … garbage? Dunno. Just a lot of people theorycrafting. Not actually very useful.
TL: Well, what do you think we could do to encourage more high level discussion that you might consider participating in?
qxc: Have invite only topics. For example, create a TvZ discussion thread and only allow top tier Terrans and Zergs to post in it. Assuming people actually participated, it could be pretty interesting. It’s tough to defend a point when I’ve got bronze players telling me what I’m saying is wrong every other line. It's all a matter of respect. I don't know, maybe you'd rather have wonderful theorycrafting sessions with random SC2 players, but I'd rather have mine with Qxc. Of course, the suggestion Qxc proposed is not going to happen because the administrators actually do care about how TL is perceived by the general public. They really want it to be accessible and friendly to players of every skill level. But that's not saying that as things are, we can't get people like Qxc to post a little more frequently by showing them a bit more respect.
I definitely believe there should be restricted forums. I've been in favor of that since day 1 of beta. I don't like "invite only" discussions since that can keep people out who have dissenting opinions or who aren't the "popular" players but might be very knowledgeable and skilled. What I think would work well is an application to post in "restricted" topics/forums. This means that you have to be approved to post in these kinds of topics, but they're not individually restrictive.
It's a little disappointing not to have more discussion between the best players, not just because its good guidance for worse players, but also because I think a lot of top players have their own disagreements. Nobody really knows that much still, and I think not only can they learn from each other, but it will evolve the game faster if there's public discussion.
There's really no reason to not implement some sort of restricted strategy forum. TL should do it.
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On September 13 2010 10:51 Wolfpox wrote:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=150440Nice original post, even though it just paraphrases what I said before and expands on it with "the truth about diamond league". Anyway, I'm glad people are talking about it. I've always said that being highly ranked does not mean you understand the game well, and that credentials are overrated.
Your thread :
Wolfpox Canada. September 05 2010 23:27
This thread :
Saracen United States. August 25 2010 02:19
Yep, definitely just expands on your thread.
Anyway, I partly agree that a lot of players have an undeserved sense of being awesome, but that doesn't mean a lower level player can't have a good idea. Sometimes you just aren't good enough to execute something you think would be good and I don't think it's bad to make a discussion thread about it asking other people's opinion. I'm aware that a lot of people forgo that step and just say "This strategy > all." without testing it or asking for opinions but that's what happens when your forum becomes more and more popular. Just like popular games like SC2 attract cheaters and BM people, popular forums attract people who think they are above the rules. This thread probably will/has been skipped by the very same people who make the majority of these type of posts.
And like a poster pointed out before me, top and/or pro players have not contributed much to strategy discussion in these forums, something entirely expected I suppose. At the end of the day, the players with the best mechanics and/or micro are not necessarily the players with the most creative minds so I think it would be a bad idea to eliminate an idea based solely on the person proposing it (although I know you already touched on this in your OP, I feel it needs to be re-said because I noticed a lot of people are taking your post much more literally as if you're saying you need to be a top player to have a valid opinion).
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GREAT POST!. Ive been waiting for someone else to spill the truth 
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I would definitely implement a restricted strategy forum.
It could have multiple levels, 1000-1199 / 1200-1399 / 1400+ Diamond, for example.
Even though those lower two levels don't have the skills of the top diamond players, their insights on strategy might be more relevant to those who don't have the mechanical skill to do what the top players do (nor are playing opponents with those skills.)
I can't say how many TLO copycats I've raped because they end up with a little of everything and no skills to know what to do / how to micro / any transitions. Regardless, a fancy strategy like that isn't even needed against me. BTW, I certainly wouldn't be able to post in any of those forums yet, as I just got bumped into diamond myself and haven't even played 100 games.
Also, this might take care of some of the balance discussions - a lot of the different 'balance issues' are based on what skill level people are on, and at least we'll have only the best people commenting on the real things.
EDIT: That's not to say the normal strategy forum would go away. New ideas are always welcome. There would just be a filtering up process into the higher-level forums as people chose to try it out.
That next interview response might be 'yeah, I do post more now that I can't get shouted down by bronze leaguers, but I also prowl the low-level strategy too for crackpot ideas'
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On September 13 2010 12:38 Snippa- wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2010 11:41 hdkhang wrote:On September 13 2010 10:20 Snippa- wrote:On September 13 2010 09:58 LinjaFlu wrote:
I agree with the OP. Myself a 600 - 800 diamond in 3 playlists and I feel like a bronze when I look at real pro playing. Really? o.O I'm 880 platinum (formerly rank 1 in my division, currently rank 2). When I watch the top players play, I don't feel like a bronze... I feel like I could actually beat some of their tactics. That might seem a bit cocky or may be too confident in my abilities, but I surely don't feel like a bronze. Oh wait... what playlists? 2v2, 3v3, 4v4? or is 1v1 included? Because if it's team games you're diamond in and not 1v1, then I can totally understand. The tactics used in team games are far different than the ones in 1v1. The game is totally different, you just can't play it the same. Being able to beat their tactics doesn't mean you are able to beat them... otherwise you wouldn't be in Platinum with 880 points. It's oh so easy to watch replays and casts/streams where you get to see the game progress and say, wow the opponent is doing X, why isn't that ProGamer doing Y to counter it? In game performance matters a lot, scouting information needs to be processed very quickly and suitable counter measures planned immediately since you don't have infinite resources and timing is crucial in a "real time" strategy game. That is the main point of this thread really, it's that people will beat their chests and tell others how to play based on what they would have done "IN HINDSIGHT". If you are a high level player playing against another high level player, you won't be able to just casually go about executing your game plan. The opponent will harass you thus offsetting the timings of your strategy, they will also play mind games, thus stuffing up your scouting information, they will wreak havoc on your crucial structures in order to throw off your build. Any monkey can say, ProGamer A went 5 X, 6 Y and 12 Z, so for ProGamer B to counter it he can just use 14 A and 6 B's since I tested it out in unit tester and 14 A's and 6 B's destroys the former composition. Don't be ignorant. You do not have enough information to make the assumptions about me that you are making. Do you do the same thing when you're playing SC2, assume your enemy is doing something and react accordingly, or do you gather the information you need before making your attack?
Why don't you try actually reading my post that you are responding to?
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Doesnt the score inflate after a while?
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On September 13 2010 13:37 AnxietE wrote:
Doesnt the score inflate after a while?
Yup. So the "rankings" in the OP are pretty much meaningless now 
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On September 13 2010 13:40 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2010 13:37 AnxietE wrote:
Doesnt the score inflate after a while? Yup. So the "rankings" in the OP are pretty much meaningless now
you could add about 80ish points to the scores in the OP every week since it's been posted to get the right amount or so.
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On September 13 2010 13:31 hdkhang wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2010 12:38 Snippa- wrote:On September 13 2010 11:41 hdkhang wrote:On September 13 2010 10:20 Snippa- wrote:On September 13 2010 09:58 LinjaFlu wrote:
I agree with the OP. Myself a 600 - 800 diamond in 3 playlists and I feel like a bronze when I look at real pro playing. Really? o.O I'm 880 platinum (formerly rank 1 in my division, currently rank 2). When I watch the top players play, I don't feel like a bronze... I feel like I could actually beat some of their tactics. That might seem a bit cocky or may be too confident in my abilities, but I surely don't feel like a bronze. Oh wait... what playlists? 2v2, 3v3, 4v4? or is 1v1 included? Because if it's team games you're diamond in and not 1v1, then I can totally understand. The tactics used in team games are far different than the ones in 1v1. The game is totally different, you just can't play it the same. Being able to beat their tactics doesn't mean you are able to beat them... otherwise you wouldn't be in Platinum with 880 points. It's oh so easy to watch replays and casts/streams where you get to see the game progress and say, wow the opponent is doing X, why isn't that ProGamer doing Y to counter it? In game performance matters a lot, scouting information needs to be processed very quickly and suitable counter measures planned immediately since you don't have infinite resources and timing is crucial in a "real time" strategy game. That is the main point of this thread really, it's that people will beat their chests and tell others how to play based on what they would have done "IN HINDSIGHT". If you are a high level player playing against another high level player, you won't be able to just casually go about executing your game plan. The opponent will harass you thus offsetting the timings of your strategy, they will also play mind games, thus stuffing up your scouting information, they will wreak havoc on your crucial structures in order to throw off your build. Any monkey can say, ProGamer A went 5 X, 6 Y and 12 Z, so for ProGamer B to counter it he can just use 14 A and 6 B's since I tested it out in unit tester and 14 A's and 6 B's destroys the former composition. Don't be ignorant. You do not have enough information to make the assumptions about me that you are making. Do you do the same thing when you're playing SC2, assume your enemy is doing something and react accordingly, or do you gather the information you need before making your attack? Why don't you try actually reading my post that you are responding to?
Making assumptions again, slightly amusing. I am done with your ignorance though.
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It really depends on what atmosphere the teamliquid creators want to create. There is already an elitist attitude to anyone who is not in diamond (bear in mind that diamond players only make up 7% of the population).
The thing is that half the players who are on this forum that say they're diamond are probably only gold players but don't want to say so simply because they will feel inadequate.
I have no problems admitting that I am a mid level gold player. That puts me at something like the 70th percentile of players out there. It's possible I could get higher (and during the beta I was because I was unemployed at the time and was able to play more) but life tends to get in the way of starcraft 2 for anyone not currently on school/university/college holidays.
That does not mean that lower level players cannot have very useful insights, particularly when commenting on pro replays, only that they may not have the mechanical skills to pull off some of the more advanced moves.
The final point I'd like to make is that segregating the community may in fact blow up in TL face. Not being able to contribute will have a lot of people annoyed and leave for another forum (seriously, if TL decided to become an elite-only forum a competitor would almost certainly take its place).
Oh, and it would have been funny to ban CathonLuck from the forums because he was only a platinum scrub for so long  .
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United States335 Posts
If anything Saracen you give too much credit to the lower rankings. I have a winning record in high platinum right now with less than 20 1v1 games played and no concrete build orders past about 13 supply. It's definitely not some kind of raw talent making up the difference either, I'm pretty lousy. I don't think having a top player strategy board would be too elitist; it would just be like the Liquipedia Q&A podcasts in thread form basically. I personally would very much enjoy reading threads where only serious tournament level players posted, assuming it actually got used. Maybe I'm just more elitist than elite though
I don't think it's really a matter of deferring to better players (though that is certainly a good idea). It's more that people shouldn't be too self assured of their opinions in the SCII strategy forum and offer suggestions more tentatively, in recognition of how little the majority of us know about the game. I personally don't post in the SCII strategy forum at all since I don't know anything about the game + Show Spoiler +and also kind of prefer BW anyways
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On September 13 2010 13:51 stormtemplar wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2010 13:43 smegged wrote:It really depends on what atmosphere the teamliquid creators want to create. There is already an elitist attitude to anyone who is not in diamond (bear in mind that diamond players only make up 7% of the population). The thing is that half the players who are on this forum that say they're diamond are probably only gold players but don't want to say so simply because they will feel inadequate. I have no problems admitting that I am a mid level gold player. That puts me at something like the 70th percentile of players out there. It's possible I could get higher (and during the beta I was because I was unemployed at the time and was able to play more) but life tends to get in the way of starcraft 2 for anyone not currently on school/university/college holidays. That does not mean that lower level players cannot have very useful insights, particularly when commenting on pro replays, only that they may not have the mechanical skills to pull off some of the more advanced moves. The final point I'd like to make is that segregating the community may in fact blow up in TL face. Not being able to contribute will have a lot of people annoyed and leave for another forum (seriously, if TL decided to become an elite-only forum a competitor would almost certainly take its place). Oh, and it would have been funny to ban CathonLuck from the forums because he was only a platinum scrub for so long . And for good reason. I'm a plat, and I could care less. Top diamond means little. However if a top tier player comes on, I'm gonna be pretty reverent.
I'm not sure whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with me :/
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A final thought - what happens when a player who uses a flavour of the day cheese to get their way to 1100 suddenly has the cheese nerfed and is sent back to 600. Do they lose their posting privileges? it's been shown in another thread here that most players under 1100 cannot stop 4-gate all-in, but that will likely change in the next patch. So all those cheesers are going to drop a few hundred points as the game balances itself.
Using ladder rankings is a stupid way to filter responses anyway.
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On September 13 2010 14:25 smegged wrote:
A final thought - what happens when a player who uses a flavour of the day cheese to get their way to 1100 suddenly has the cheese nerfed and is sent back to 600. Do they lose their posting privileges? it's been shown in another thread here that most players under 1100 cannot stop 4-gate all-in, but that will likely change in the next patch. So all those cheesers are going to drop a few hundred points as the game balances itself.
Using ladder rankings is a stupid way to filter responses anyway.
i highly doubt that 1000pt players are unable to stop 4gate all in. i know its pointless to say what level i am at currently, but as a toss player i have noticed that 4gate has become increasingly less effective and increasingly more all-inish as i go up in points. yes there are certain situations where 4 gate will win me the game, but all-in-all the players i play have become very good at stopping it or punishing me for doing it. or at the very least they know how to stop it and the game progresses beyond the initial push.
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i completely agree with you. most plat and diamond have just one strat and spamm that to boost their stats. iccup is a much better indicator of skill.
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Hey, man, I'm not trying to flame here or anything, but someone linked me this, and this is pretty offensive.
I played probably a total of around 20 games on SC1 and BW on low$ maps. I spent several years playing UMS. I didn't play BGH more than 5 times. I played Fastest Possible Map in public games until finding a league for it, played in that, was a pretty good Fastest Possible Map player when I tried real hard and worked at it. I learned timings, build orders, a variety of strategies, the importance of constantly spending all of my money, counters, money-grabbing, harassing, and mainly, macro skills. FPM macro is pretty intense. My micro wasn't very great, but I could do simple things such as run rines around to avoid zealot hits, storm very well, shoot-and-run with dragoons, was fairly good with reavers, could group together muta's, etc.
Now, would this make me a good SC1 low$ player? Not at all. I didn't care for it and didn't like the game.
I got bored of FPM, as well, and I haven't really played it at all for the last 2-3 years, or any other RTS game, for that matter.
I custom built a computer right as SC2 was released (no beta experience), and hopped into the campaign. I then played the campaign again getting all the achievements, and then went online. I used what I learned from fastest possible map and got to diamond with very few problems, and barely cheesed at all. I've probably done 3-4 reaper rushes and 2 bunker rushes so far.
I've been practicing various builds vs toss and zerg, and pretty much just one against terran, and started looking up a few once I got to diamond.
I'm now 100 games into ladder, and got right over 1000 points on the ladder.
Fastest Possible Map players are not total noobs (unless you mean the ones who only play public games). No, it didn't take as much skill as low$ did. But we had a different skill set, which actually is very favorable for SC2's fast gameplay. Everyone I know from my fastest possible map community is a pretty good SC2 player. No one I know from my FPM site is a "silver league player".
Also 2 big-name SC2 players played FPM extensively, which are Stalife and Hashe. Hashe has been one of the best FPM players around for several years now, although most of us believe that there are better players than him all-time. Stalife popularized the cheeserush on FPM for us. He was a low$ player who experimented with FPM for 3 or so years. He made a proxy gateway rush famous, viable, and effective on FPM, and even showed us that vultures could be useful early on if micro'd extremely well (although they still sucked later on in FPM). He used weird strats all the time, adapting them from low$ strats, and when he did some FPM conventional strats mixed with his high APM and micro skills, he was one of the scariest players in FPM history.
These guys have impressed in some tournaments on SC2 so far, and have made the top 200 lists every time (top 20's usually).
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The op's post is all nice and good and what we should aspire to and all that, but it seems to hate people for being people. The forum is a social experience and you're complaining that noobies are noobies. It's gonna happen. If you're not prepared to talk to them or inform them that their hair brained strategies do not work in pro tourneys, then disallow them/us from visiting otherwise address them in topic. I don't see making a boogyman out of mid-diamond players as an effective means of addressing that issue.
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On September 13 2010 14:25 smegged wrote:
A final thought - what happens when a player who uses a flavour of the day cheese to get their way to 1100 suddenly has the cheese nerfed and is sent back to 600. Do they lose their posting privileges? it's been shown in another thread here that most players under 1100 cannot stop 4-gate all-in, but that will likely change in the next patch. So all those cheesers are going to drop a few hundred points as the game balances itself.
Using ladder rankings is a stupid way to filter responses anyway.
I think there's a lot of unsubstantiated talk about players who abuse 4 gate or 3 rax to get into decently high diamond without having the skill to stay there using any other build. I bet that most players who do these builds would only lose 100-200 points adjusting to playing a new style and would quickly (within <50 games) get back to where they were.
Thinking that someone is going to drop 500 points doing a different build is just absurd.
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On September 13 2010 16:05 friendlybus wrote:
The op's post is all nice and good and what we should aspire to and all that, but it seems to hate people for being people. The forum is a social experience and you're complaining that noobies are noobies. It's gonna happen. If you're not prepared to talk to them or inform them that their hair brained strategies do not work in pro tourneys, then disallow them/us from visiting otherwise address them in topic. I don't see making a boogyman out of mid-diamond players as an effective means of addressing that issue.
I see what you are getting at but I have to side with the OP. There is just too much noise in the SC2 Strategy forum right now. I haven't bothered even looking at it for over a month. There are too many people claiming to be experts when they just don't have the experience to back it up.
It is so hard for an inexperienced player to get decent information/feedback when the people who give it get shot down by 10 randoms who post trashy 1 liner responses saying "no ur wrrong lol terran so op im diam 800 msg me 1v1".
It's barely a discussion when most threads are full of people trying to flex their epeens and pad their post counts while offering nothing of value.
As for a solution... I don't think having a seperate section of the forums will work because then we will miss out on the "Hi I'm Zerg and having trouble against xxx push in ZvT, here is a replay. Can anyone point me in the right direction?" type of discussions. I think these are most valuable and I can say from personal experience were the threads that helped me the most learning Brood War.
It's just very hard to find any information of worth in any Starcraft 2 section. Too much noise.
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EPT
