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On September 21 2010 13:30 happyness wrote:
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.
This is an incredibly misleading statement which has to be rectified. Let's look at the rest of his wiki
In high school, his IQ was determined to be 125: high, but "merely respectable" according to biographer Gleick.[11] Feynman later scoffed at psychometric testing. By 15, he had learned differential and integral calculus.
in his last year in high school, Feynman won the New York University Math Championship; the large difference between his score and those of his closest competitors shocked the judges.[14]
Self-taught in mathematics as in everything else, in his senior college year he won the nation's most difficult and prestigious mathematics competition -- the Putnam -- by a score so far ahead of the next four finishers as to astound the scorers. In many years, more than half the entrants fail to complete a single problem in the allotted time: Feynman left early.
Yeah, he obviously so well because of "hard work", and not because he had genius level intelligence far surpassing most people who score 160 or higher. The only thing you can take from his "125 iq score" is that he didn't do particularly well on iq test style (probably verbal) problems. Don't compare pure intellectual activities like theoretical physics or math to mechanical ones.
Understanding starcraft scenarios requires no abstract knowledge that hundreds to thousands of games will fail to drill into you. If you don't like to think, maybe it will take longer to sink in.
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no physical effort ? Tell your friend to try to maintain avarege APM 300+ for 10 hours a day... My hand get tired after 5 games with 100 APM... And yes you need to be smart, you can't just mechanicaly do anything... Its not I will do 1,2,3,4,5,6 and win. Its more like I will do this but then game start and you constantly think what will be best. So someone who is not smart enought won't be able to do anything becouse even the smallest things will put him off balance.
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On September 21 2010 16:41 AcOrP wrote:
no physical effort ? Tell your friend to try to maintain avarege APM 300+ for 10 hours a day... My hand get tired after 5 games with 100 APM... And yes you need to be smart, you can't just mechanicaly do anything... Its not I will do 1,2,3,4,5,6 and win. Its more like I will do this but then game start and you constantly think what will be best. So someone who is not smart enought won't be able to do anything becouse even the smallest things will put him off balance.
So you have to be smart to play pretty much any sport/game?
In every sport you have to think about what the next best move is, and you have to know what your opponent is going to do, starcraft isnt much different.
So yea, you have to be just as smart to play starcraft as you have to play basketball.
The only reason that some people think that you have to be smart to play starcraft is because alot of smart people play starcraft.
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Being smart helps you to solve many problems, but I don't think it is absolutely mandatory to be good at RTS. You can learn through habit and conditioning. I think there is some sorta natural skill that some players have though, I wouldn't equate it with intelligence, but some players just have a strong knack for the tempo of the game and a good feel at all times for what is going on.
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On September 21 2010 09:47 Zelniq wrote:
"..Idra who nearly completely rely on mechanics alone.."
common misconception with idra, people just think he plays like a robot without thinking, but i think his quick decision making is one of his strong points
Agreed, but good decision is a different matter.
To OP: best example i could think of is WhiteRa. 110 average APM spikes to 200...that's basic good diamond. What makes him great is the insight of the game he has.
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Idra's decision making stems from conditioned playstyle. Any player can learn that and can make "quick" decisions that have been programmed into them through hundreds if not thousands of games. There is a difference between being conditioned and reacting a way that you have reacted countless times vs similar scenarios before, and getting into a completely unorthodox situation and using your analytical skills and critical thinking to work your way out. Keep in mind a robot can be programmed to make quick choices based on certain parameters.
If idra was more of a thinker like some believe, and less of a robot, you would see his playstyle being a bit more varied. As it stands now he is very set in his ways, like a robot.
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Those that say "No, it does not take intelligence , being the best can be achieved through repetition and memorization" are obviously contradicting themselves as it has been proven that memorization or learning from experience is one of the basic traits of human intelligence. So yes, ppl that are good at starcraft are intelligent ppl.
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On September 21 2010 17:04 SpaceAnt wrote:
Those that say "No, it does not take intelligence , being the best can be achieved through repetition and memorization" are obviously contradicting themselves as it has been proven that memorization or learning from experience is one of the basic traits of human intelligence. So yes, ppl that are good at starcraft are intelligent ppl.
He asked if you had to be smart to be good at starcraft2, not "do you have to possess a basic trait of human intelligence".
You do not need to be exceptionally smart to memorize things.
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Yes, you need to be smart. What's the main reason you can bash your gold level friends 1v2? Because they make bad decisions that's why! :D
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Imho you need to be smart to get good fast, especially in these early stages of the game. If you only copy things from other people blindly, it will only get you so far. Furthermore, to be exceptionally good, good enough to win the GSL or something, you also need to be smart. If you only play the same shit over and over again and espcially if you play without knowing what exactly you're doing and why you're doing it, a smarter player will just rip you apart in a series, even if his mechanics are worse.
Conclusion?
Do you need to be smart to be 'good'? No.
Do you need to be smart to be exceptionally good? Yes.
Do you need to be smart to win series and tournaments? Absolutely.
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You definitely need to have good decision making to excel at a strategy game but I wouldn't say theres clear casuality between intelligence and good decision making.
A good example would be Bobby Fischer, who's arguably the best chess player of all time but a complete retard really :S
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On September 21 2010 17:17 Mylin wrote:
You definitely need to have good decision making to excel at a strategy game but I wouldn't say theres clear casuality between intelligence and good decision making.
A good example would be Bobby Fischer, who's arguably the best chess player of all time but a complete retard really :S
Decisions can also be conditioned. For example when you have harass on your economy and you don't have any units in the immediate area. Do you sit there and go through a decision making process on pulling your workers, or has it become a conditioned response that in that situation you pull your workers so that enemy units don't get full UP-time on them.
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On September 21 2010 09:42 Mastermind wrote:
Mechanics will only bring you so far. If you cant make good decisions, then you cant compete with the best.
Strategy will only bring you so far. If you can't keep up in mechanics, then you can't compete with the best.
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If you define "smart" by your average member of society, then yeah, you probably have to be pretty smart to play starcraft well. But in terms of playing any competitive game at a high level, I'd say you might need only slightly above average intelligence, even if only to manage your mechanics and strategies at the same time.
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To answer this topic - definitely.
But there are tons of people who are quite good but ain't that smart. The smartest ones are the best so far.
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I'm dumb as shit and got to 1k with Zerg.
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i have a feeling when asking this youre asking whether a person playing starcraft will have above average ability to learn conventional subjects which is a rather narrow outlook on the "intelligence"
It's not uncommon for people to just succeed in one particular subject while having the hardest times with everything else.
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at the very top, u need to have a certain intelligence to compete. but for anything else, it largely depends on the age of the game and how figured out it is. when a game is new, like e.g. sc2 atm, nobody knows the best tactics and buildorders, so creative and intelligent players got an edge. when a game is figured out very well, like bw, these features play a smaller role compared to mechanics. even a really stupid guy can copy some superior buildorders like 3 hatch spire into 5 hatch hydra and be decent if he has good mechanics.
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You have to be just as smart as it takes to play any video game or sport. There are tons of nuances but practice makes perfect and intelligence has very little to do with it unless you statistically create special build orders like the pros.
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You can be a top player without being intelligent. People tend to romanticize the strategy involved in RTS games, especially Starcraft. It's very mechanical and the strategy is based on choices you are both aware of through practice and experience rather than through some bout of intelligence. Being an intelligent player will help you, but it is far from required to have consistent tournament placings. Solid mechanics and a lot of experience are required, though.
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My favorite moment in SC:BW was when a terran player got proxy gated and lifted off his base and ran all his scvs in to the protoss' base, walled it off, and went on to win by killing all his stuff while the zealots were stuck outside. At some point the guy had to have done this (or seen someone who did) against a proxy, but I doubt it's something he practiced.
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EPT
