EPTDo You Have to be Smart to Play Starcraft? - Page 6
| Forum Index > SC2 General |
|
KCrazy
United States278 Posts
| ||
|
csfield
United States206 Posts
On September 21 2010 09:45 Half wrote: Well, you certainly need to be somewhat intelligent (not retarded I guess), but I think by the way your posting you should be fine lol. It isn't like chess, and ultimately, intellect is not going to bar your progress. I'd say above average intellect, but everyone on the internet in complete and coherent sentences should be fine because average intellect is really low lol. A lot of the intellectual skills in SC2 are learned. Its about thinking in terms of the structure of game, in terms of timing windows, positions, map awareness, etc. Not much of it relies on "hard" mental skills that can't really be improved beyond a certain point. At the same time your friends pretty wrong in the sense that Starcraft doesn't require intellect. But hes true in the sense that it doesn't require too much innate intellect that can't be improved. And people who characterize Idra as a mechanical player in the sense that he wins because his he has higher effective apm then his opponents don't really have a great understanding of the game, at least no in Starcraft 2. It is like chess. IQ doesn't really correspond to chess ability either. Being clever or talented helps but it's a learned skill. | ||
|
happyness
United States2400 Posts
On September 21 2010 12:59 iEchoic wrote: See above reply - basketball is much different than starcraft. And no, I didn't play Halo Wars 6-8 hours a day - and the people who played mass games never really were top players. That's because the game's mechanics ceiling was very low and you couldn't differentiate yourself from others by getting good mechanically (which takes massing games). I disliked it at the time but I'm starting to like the idea of it more and more when I see the way Starcraft players exploit their lack of real-life commitments for an edge. Well, yes, I was just using basketball as an example that when it comes to being good at almost anything you need to both put in the time and have the talent. But did you read the rest of my post? If the game is mostly mechanically based, wouldn't it be possible to create an unbeatable AI? I will agree that playing 10 or more hours a day is pretty excessive. But why do you think natural talent should trump practice? When it comes to mastery in most anything, whether it be music or sports or science etc., you can't rely on pure talent/smarts alone. Richard Feynman, a nobel-award winning physicist, was said to have an IQ of 125, which is much lower than the average nobel award winning scientist. So how was he so successful? Hard work. And you bring up WhiteRa who is very intelligent and a very good player but doesn't quite have the time to have an edge. As I said earlier though the same is true for anything like a pro golfer or a concert pianist. You need to put in the time if you want to be among the best. Also, how big is the Halo Wars scene compared to SC? If it were as big maybe to be among the best players you would have to mass a lot of games just for experience's sake. | ||
|
Buddhist
United States658 Posts
TLO's use of nukes are very good, but they are not genius. He simply uses them for zone control, which is the most obvious use of them. I think some very high level players are also very smart; being smart lends itself to self improvement. However, many other top players probably aren't very smart, and rely upon endless practice. Yes, you actually can just rely on mechanics to carry you to the top. There's nothing genius about, "build an army and attack at an appropriate(timing attack? don't walk into a line of tanks?) time, perhaps getting a surround", or "harass while also attacking". Even an average person who has never played the game before could figure out those tactics, and yet they are the tactics used in the highest levels of play. There is innovation and creativity, but not genius, in SC play. | ||
|
billyX333
United States1360 Posts
On September 21 2010 12:21 iEchoic wrote: I guess I'm on the other side of the fence, I think the reliance on mechanics makes a game less about strategy and more about repetitive muscle memory techniques that require nothing but time. To take it to the logical extreme, if BW had literally no AI at all, and a worker would grab minerals, stop, wait for a command, return to the CC, stop, wait for a command, and you had to manually micro all of your workers, the game would reach a point where it eventually becomes literally 100% mechanics and 0% thinking as the importance of mechanics elevates above everything else. Starcraft 2 takes less mechanics than BW, but it's still at such a level that it prevents it from being a talent-based game. Otherwise WhiteRa would still be one of the best Protoss players. why dont you just play a turn based strategy game instead? ive read at least 10-15++ posts of yours over the past couple of months complaining about real time strategy mechanics and how its just practice and nothing else if you hate mechanics so much, play chess? | ||
|
Half
United States2554 Posts
See above reply - basketball is much different than starcraft. And no, I didn't play Halo Wars 6-8 hours a day - and the people who played mass games never really were top players. That's because the game's mechanics ceiling was very low and you couldn't differentiate yourself from others by getting good mechanically (which takes massing games). I disliked it at the time but I'm starting to like the idea of it more and more when I see the way Starcraft players exploit their lack of real-life commitments for an edge. Go play chess and see how far your naturally smart self gets you. Get over yourself kid. Saying you were good at Halo wars is like saying how you won your elementary school special Olympics :p. The games strategy mechanic was so low you couldn't differentiate yourself either. why dont you just play a turn based strategy game instead? ive read at least 10-15++ posts of yours over the past couple of months complaining about real time strategy mechanics and how its just practice and nothing else if you hate mechanics so much, play chess. Nah, terrible suggestion. People like him can't really excel at anything, all they do is whine about how broken the system is while parade how naturally gifted they are. I guess some people prefer delusion to despair. TLO's use of nukes are very good, but they are not genius. He simply uses them for zone control, which is the most obvious use of them. I think some very high level players are also very smart; being smart lends itself to self improvement. However, many other top players probably aren't very smart, and rely upon endless practice. Yes, you actually can just rely on mechanics to carry you to the top. There's nothing genius about, "build an army and attack at an appropriate(timing attack? don't walk into a line of tanks?) time, perhaps getting a surround", or "harass while also attacking". Even an average person who has never played the game before could figure out those tactics, and yet they are the tactics used in the highest levels of play. There is innovation and creativity, but not genius, in SC play. Mechanics alone will not get you to SC2 prodom, and in fact, Mechanics in SC2 are less useful then strategy. I don't think I've ever seen a play in BW or SC2 where I went, "wow, I never would have thought of that!". You wouldn't have ever thought of that given the imperfect information the player had available at the time, and a multitude of other considerations that had to be made in less then a second. | ||
|
iEchoic
United States1776 Posts
On September 21 2010 14:02 Half wrote: People like him can't really excel at anything, all they do is whine about how broken the system is while parade how naturally gifted they are. I guess some people prefer delusion to despair. Why don't you learn how to read instead of attacking me. I'm just offering an opinion relevant to the thread. If you don't like it, troll somewhere else. The example I gave was WhiteRa, who was the motivation for my post. I think it's sad that WhiteRa doesn't compete in many tournaments anymore because I used to really like watching him play. I don't like watching mechanics-centric players like IdrA play. I love TLO's creativity but aside from him, not much creativity goes on. Almost all players of the same races do the same builds and people just try to out-mechanics eachother. It hurts the watchability of the game. And I would love to play a turn based strategy game, unfortunately not many good ones exist. | ||
|
Leeoku
1617 Posts
| ||
|
Half
United States2554 Posts
Why don't you learn how to read instead of attacking me. I don't think I'm naturally gifted, I'm just offering an opinion relevant to the thread. If you don't like it, troll somewhere else. The example I gave was actually WhiteRa, not myself. This was referring to Whitera? Before this game, I played a game called Halo Wars, which was a really simple RTS with a low mechanics-ceiling. But while at the time I thought it was a bit lame how 'easy' the game was, it was sort of a blessing in disguise. Because the APM/Mechanics part of the game was basically out of the window, the entire differentiating factor between players became purely strategy and mental processes. As a result, the game did not reward you for playing 12 hours a day because you did not improve your mechanics, and the game was a game entirely of thinking - pure talent/intelligence. Really? What the hell are you talking about? How did Whitera come into this? And the implication of that, is indeed, that you are just smarter then everyone else except you don't have the time to practice your mechanics to be competitive because you have a life, but given a game where mechanics "don't matter", you naturally excel. Which is really a load of self-serving bullshit. And I would love to play a turn based strategy game, unfortunately not many good ones exist. Chess. In video game format, yes, very few pure strategy games exist because pure strategy is really not as pure as you would think. Without mechanics the metagame developers at an absurd rate. The end result is that the metagame just self-terminates because the game is "imbalanced", or the other end result is Chess, a game of thousands of complex calculations. Creativity does exist in chess, but if you think Idra lacks creativity then you probably wouldn't appreciate the kind of "Creativity" found in high level chess. The kind of Strategy you talk about is intuition. Games like Starcraft and Poker are driven by Intuition. Intuition is something almost every single one of us here is very good at. Sampling bias, so to speak. Intuition however, is only applicable, in an underdeveloped metagame before structures are allowed to form. The only kind of games this can occur is in games limited by mechanics (SC1 and to a lesser extent SC2), or games nobody fucking gives a shit about and plays (Halo Wars). I don't like watching mechanics-centric players like IdrA play. I love TLO's creativity but aside from him, not much creativity goes on If this is how you feel you would never appreciate the "creativity" of pure strategy games like chess. Idra is no less creative then TLO, but rather, he is less willing to gamble. | ||
Harem
United States11390 Posts
On September 21 2010 13:40 Buddhist wrote: I don't think I've ever seen a play in BW or SC2 where I went, "wow, I never would have thought of that!". TLO's use of nukes are very good, but they are not genius. He simply uses them for zone control, which is the most obvious use of them. I think some very high level players are also very smart; being smart lends itself to self improvement. However, many other top players probably aren't very smart, and rely upon endless practice. Yes, you actually can just rely on mechanics to carry you to the top. There's nothing genius about, "build an army and attack at an appropriate(timing attack? don't walk into a line of tanks?) time, perhaps getting a surround", or "harass while also attacking". Even an average person who has never played the game before could figure out those tactics, and yet they are the tactics used in the highest levels of play. There is innovation and creativity, but not genius, in SC play. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=81288 Please read this. | ||
|
aelynir
United States26 Posts
Right now at least. Just look at brood war play. Any moderate skill commentator can tell just how one player is going to react to the other player's strategy. Every once in a while, they deviate from this play, but it's still a strategy that has been seen before. Everyone remembers Bisu for his revolutionary Bisu build. But in all honesty, what are really the chances that Bisu came up with that strategy himself? Didn't Idra win a key game in the IEM tourney because he learned about the magic box trick? My point is, at some point, mechanics will dominate the field. After playing so many games, the choices that the opponent has are limited. Every effective timing push will be accounted for, and there will be no in game decision making. Then, once every long while, a new strategy will surface from most likely the dregs of the ladder system, and then players will have to practice to account for this. Though I do like being a causal player and beating my opponent through mid/late game strategies and tactics | ||
|
iEchoic
United States1776 Posts
I don't feel like arguing with people who have nothing better to do than flame on TL and take my quotes out of context (because if you actually read I was talking about WhiteRa earlier), so if you don't have something to contribute, I'm just going to ignore you. But I'll respond to this, at least: If this is how you feel you would never appreciate the "creativity" of pure strategy games like chess. Idra is no less creative then TLO, but rather, he is less willing to gamble. How can you support this? What exactly does he do, reflected in his gameplay, that's creative? He does the same builds every game. He's a very good player, but I don't see how he's creative. On September 21 2010 14:28 aelynir wrote: My point is, at some point, mechanics will dominate the field. After playing so many games, the choices that the opponent has are limited. Every effective timing push will be accounted for, and there will be no in game decision making. Good post, I agree with this. This is what I'm really concerned about, and you expressed this much better than I did. The differentiating factor in a game like SC2 inevitably becomes mechanics for the reasons you stated. | ||
|
Half
United States2554 Posts
On September 21 2010 14:29 iEchoic wrote: I don't feel like arguing with people who have nothing better to do than flame on TL and take my quotes out of context (because if you actually read I was talking about WhiteRa earlier), so if you don't have something to contribute, I'm just going to ignore you. But I'll respond to this, at least: How can you support this? What exactly does he do, reflected in his gameplay, that's creative? He does the same builds every game. He's a very good player, but I don't see how he's creative. He is able to quickly create strategies or tactics best adapted to his situation which maximize his chance of winning and minimize his chances of losing. He does not gamble. TLOs strategies are not hard to formulate. But most of them are gambles. They rely on catching the opponent unaware. Chess is a game where the metagame has developed to a point where catching an opponent unaware with a general, overarching strategy (Im gonna build nukes, or I'm going to build BCS), and hoping he simply does not know how to respond is an impossibility. Chess is what ever turn based game becomes. In this framework, only the kind of logical creativity Idra displays is useful, and to appreciate chess you have to appreciate that kind of creativity. TLOs creativity no longer exists, and in fact, can only exist in competitive games with heavy emphasis on mechanics. ----- In find people with your viewpoints incredibly annoying lol. Its incredibly hypocritical and arrogant. You yourself are in all likelihood, an intuitive thinker. You excel at making judgments from imperfect information based on trends and perceived relationships. Welcome to the club. That describes probably 99% of Teamliquid and most people who enjoy Starcraft 2. You aren't special. Now the problem with intuitive thinking is that it only operates as a baseline. Once intuitive thinking creates a basis, logical thinking takes over. Chess is a primary example. Nobody takes "chances" in chess. Chess is a game of logic, taken to the extreme. It is something that requires a lot of talent and intelligence, and the average person, who can probably train themselves to think intuitively, will never really be able to become a top chess player. Top chess players brains literally function differently then ours, ours are simply not optimized to predict exponentially branch possibilities forty or fifty turns in advance. In game design terms, Chess has experienced incredible amounts of meta-game growth. Mechanics is a way a game can artificially hinder strategic (or meta-game) development. Mechanics are the inevitable result of a game operating in real time. By slowing the development of the metagame (strategy), intuition remains a useful skill. But theres a flip side to that. Mechanics. Learn them, or go play a game whos metagame is intensely shallow because nobody gives a crap. Your core argument seems to be "omg I suck at starcraft cuz im like good with strategy but suck at mechanics". Aren't we all. The particular kind of strategy you "are good at" can only exist when the mechanics are prevalent as well. Because everyone is "good at" that kind of strategy, and without mechanical barriers, the meta game simply overdevelops and becomes chess, a game of pure rationale and prediction. (Or I guess, alternatively, a really complicated version of rock paper scissors) | ||
|
Jyxz
United States117 Posts
| ||
|
iEchoic
United States1776 Posts
On September 21 2010 14:35 Half wrote: Mechanics are the inevitable result of a game operating in real time. Intuition remains a useful skill. I don't think this statement is necessarily true. I actually think games like Starcraft can approach higher strategic levels by removing some mechanical requirements and only forcing the user to make decisions that have strategic merit. Case in point: the queen spawn larva. Most people disagree with me on this point, but I really think that spawn larva should be automatable. Remembering to vomit every 40 seconds only serves to shift the focus on skill to mechanics. This is just one small step. Make a bunch of them and we see big changes. Look, I know you think I brought up HW because I played it, but I actually brought it up for this reason. It's just an example of a game for me that showed that you can have a strategic real-time game where mechanics aren't the defining skill factor. A better example is probably Ruse (the new Ubisoft game). Ruse is very badly balanced for competitive play, so don't respond and go "OMG RUSE IS TERRIBLE LOL!", but I think it's an interesting game for the same reason. In Ruse, the mechanical skill required is very low. If it was well-balanced, it might be a very competitive strategic game. As a side note: In find people with your viewpoints incredibly annoying lol. Its incredibly hypocritical and arrogant. Wtf man? I haven't talked about myself for like 4 posts and you just keep talking about me. It's actually starting to get creepy/obsessive. I've just been ignoring it but it's getting weird. Respond to my arguments, I don't care what you think about me. | ||
|
happyness
United States2400 Posts
On September 21 2010 14:10 iEchoic wrote: Why don't you learn how to read instead of attacking me. I'm just offering an opinion relevant to the thread. If you don't like it, troll somewhere else. The example I gave was WhiteRa, who was the motivation for my post. I think it's sad that WhiteRa doesn't compete in many tournaments anymore because I used to really like watching him play. I don't like watching mechanics-centric players like IdrA play. I love TLO's creativity but aside from him, not much creativity goes on. Almost all players of the same races do the same builds and people just try to out-mechanics eachother. It hurts the watchability of the game. And I would love to play a turn based strategy game, unfortunately not many good ones exist. Half, calm down buddy. iEchoic: it takes creativity to respond to TLO's play. I'm tired of this attitude that "IdrA is a mechanics-centric player therefore he isn't as smart as players like TLO" Just because TLO is unconventional doesn't automatically make him smarter than IdrA. IdrA knows how to respond to almost anything and has a game sense that neither of us could ever understand. I've already made this point many times: IF ALL IT TOOK TO GET GOOD AT SC2 WAS SPEED AND MULTITASKING (i.e. mechanics), THEN A COMPUTER COULD PLAY BETTER THAN ANYONE. But AI currently can't play creatively and can't respond well to certain things but the human brain can. As has already been said, it takes intelligence and well honed skill to be good at sc2. Even if the mechanic ceiling were much lower, the game would still be unwatchable to you, because people would still follow conventional ways of playing deviating every now and then like they do now. And even with the conventional builds and such that currently exist, no two players play exactly alike. If it was a game of pure mechanics, then every top player would play exactly the same. | ||
|
Nemesis
Canada2568 Posts
On September 21 2010 14:28 aelynir wrote: Right now at least. Just look at brood war play. Any moderate skill commentator can tell just how one player is going to react to the other player's strategy. Every once in a while, they deviate from this play, but it's still a strategy that has been seen before. Everyone remembers Bisu for his revolutionary Bisu build. But in all honesty, what are really the chances that Bisu came up with that strategy himself? Didn't Idra win a key game in the IEM tourney because he learned about the magic box trick? My point is, at some point, mechanics will dominate the field. After playing so many games, the choices that the opponent has are limited. Every effective timing push will be accounted for, and there will be no in game decision making. Then, once every long while, a new strategy will surface from most likely the dregs of the ladder system, and then players will have to practice to account for this. No, bisu didn't come up with the bisu build himself. I remember reading about how he combined 2 players build: Forge FE, sair/dt. What bisu did is he showed everyone its power and made it standard. To the OP, no you do not need to be very smart to be good at sc, you just need to practice a lot. But to differientiate the great from the good, you need to have talent. It helps to have natural talent. Just take a look at bw right now. Right now, there are 2 players who are obviously dominating: Flash and Jaedong. They have roughly around the same mechanics but one is dominating more than the other aka Flash who has better game sense overall. And I think that you are underestimating the amount of strategic play in bw. Most of it is very subtle though that the average player cannot understand and most of it I don't understand either, but of the ones I understand I just find it brilliant. For example, cutting marine production to get an earlier expansion since you know that your opponent is not gonna be pressuring you soon. Every little advantage at that high level of play is quite huge. Eventually, those little advantages stacks up and can win you the game outright. If you want a more obvious one of a mind game or strategical game or whatever you want to call it, just look at MSL finals on PR. PR is a map that is known for its huge T>Z mech imba so when JD saw goliaths(which you make when you go mech) he goes for 2 very fast expansion to have the advantage against mech. But Flash knew that JD was preparing for mech, and instead denied all scouting from the zerg and transitioned into bio which require a more tech heavy and less expansion type of play from the zerg which Jaedong was completely unprepared for. Tldr, mechanics and intelligence both matters. | ||
|
b_unnies
3579 Posts
When to expo, when to scout, when to build troops, when to attack are all intelligence | ||
|
Nemesis
Canada2568 Posts
I don't even know why I bother replying to you but I will anyways. That is just how a competitive scene works, everyone does what works best. That's just how it is with all things: if someone found a good strategy, it is copied and used repetitively by other people. But then, people started catching on to it and starts disecting the strategy and creates a new one that counters that strategy. Then everyone copies it. Repeat cycle, until we get something like 9 pool>overpool>12 hatch> 9 pool or something like that. And if you don't fucking like the mechanics-aspect of a REAL TIME Strategy game, then just stay away from RTS overall. That is what differientiates real time from turn based and imo what makes it a lot more exciting. From the sounds of it, you just like turn-based games better. If you like it better, that's your choice. But just go play that instead of bashing the premise of RTS in an RTS game forum. | ||
|
iEchoic
United States1776 Posts
On September 21 2010 14:51 happyness wrote: Half, calm down buddy. iEchoic: it takes creativity to respond to TLO's play. I'm tired of this attitude that "IdrA is a mechanics-centric player therefore he isn't as smart as players like TLO" Just because TLO is unconventional doesn't automatically make him smarter than IdrA. IdrA knows how to respond to almost anything and has a game sense that neither of us could ever understand. I've already made this point many times: IF ALL IT TOOK TO GET GOOD AT SC2 WAS SPEED AND MULTITASKING (i.e. mechanics), THEN A COMPUTER COULD PLAY BETTER THAN ANYONE. But AI currently can't play creatively and can't respond well to certain things but the human brain can. Fair enough, let me clear up that I don't think idrA is less intelligent or a worse player. But you can't deny that idrA has a very clear gameplay focus, and that is to have solid macro mechanics. His practice most likely focuses more on remembering macro mechanics and timings than exploring new builds. Do you disagree with that? If not, do you disagree that exploring new builds requires more creative processes than working on macro mechanics? I think the pinnacle of creativity on SC2 is creating new builds from scratch. It requires you to think about new things, requires you to create ideas using a non-standard thought process. There is no 'method' to create a new build. You can't follow step a, b, c and come out with a new build. On the other hand, if I want to refine my macro timings, I can follow a simple procedure. I can just test a bunch of them and compare. Scientific method. I see a lot of new builds from TLO, and I respect that creativity. Also, the AI question is a bit misleading because it's implying that I think the game has zero strategic merit. I definitely think the game has strategic merit. But some parts, like very efficient macro, yes, could be done better by an AI. An AI could be written that out-macros idrA (assuming it doesn't die) because it's a largely mechanical process. The things an AI couldn't do better are the game-theory-esque outsmarting-your-opponent kind of things. Two pronged attacks, stuff like that, I love, and it has a lot of strategic merit. Creating builds would be hard for an AI, etc. On September 21 2010 15:02 Nemesis wrote: And if you don't fucking like the mechanics-aspect of a REAL TIME Strategy game, then just stay away from RTS overall. That is what differientiates real time from turn based and imo what makes it a lot more exciting. From the sounds of it, you just like turn-based games better. If you like it better, that's your choice. But just go play that instead of bashing the premise of RTS in an RTS game forum. SC2 is a very good game, and a lot of people think I'm attacking it. I'm just taking a side that some changes (like the queen spawn larva change) would increase the quality of the game. No need to get offended. The thread is about what I'm talking about, if you're incapable of hearing that opinion, read a different thread. | ||
| ||
