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The more I think about it, the more strange it seems that in individual competition that even the best players have near 50-60% win rates. Now, I know how the general scheme of the MMR system works and how a player is adjusted to play opponents of the same skill levels. But if I recall correctly, even in BW pro leagues (and sc2 ladder), it seems there is that range of win rates that players fall under and cannot break.
I am a fan of tennis and I like to draw comparisons to the pro players due to the individual nature of the sports. It's common among most people to say that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are perhaps the best tennis players in the history of tennis. This is evident in their persistent appearances in Grand Slam finals and championships. In the same way, I consider Flash and Jaedong the best players of the BW era. However, if I recall correctly, I believe Flash has had around 60-70% win rates throughout his career and likewise for Jaedong. I'm curious as hell why there isn't a "Federer" of SC who breaks that threshold of win-loss ratio.
I made the conclusion that there's some erratic element in SC (call it some arbitrary factor-- luck, skill cap due to parameters of the game, w/e). I'm assuming I'm wrong though but I was hoping someone had an understanding or an inclination of why the win rates or so similar in top players.
Sorry if this doesn't seem like a discussion worthy topic. I tried looking up the forums and I don't have IRC cuz I have a mac 
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What about Select's ratio? Although that's his NA account,
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The game's young. There hasn't been enough time for someone to become that consistent, confident, and talented.
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Because there are so many variables in this game compared to any other sport like Tennis
User was warned for this post
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One major factor is that luck plays a huge role in Starcraft I & II. Being good can limit the damage to how unlucky you can get, but it can only do so much.
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Or it could just be that there is no player who is objectively 30% better than every other player, whatever the objective parameters may be.
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1) Intense multitasking will inevitably lead to mistakes and large mental strain - you don't need to multitask when playing tennis
2) Luck plays a large role (mostly build order and scouting luck)
3) Players going for risky builds and/or trying to play mind games (boxer comes to mind)
4) Top players are not skilled enough to compensate for above reasons to win consistently over the next tier players
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I have a 75% win rate on ladder, and I suck balls. The trick of the game is to stay ahead of the metagame. If someone dooes the exact same thing everyone else does then it's a cointoss, and most people will copy the top players- so people will know how to deal with them when the time comes.
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On March 15 2011 14:13 Zeke50100 wrote:
Or it could just be that there is no player who is objectively 30% better than every other player, whatever the objective parameters may be.
If you were 30% better than another player you would probably beat them close to 100% of the time. Being only slightly better will yield a much larger win%.
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It is because there are many unknowns in an individual game of Starcraft. To use your tennis analogy, it would be like if there was a mirror (that magically let balls through) in the middle of the court. Yes good "tennis" players would distinguish themselves, because they could predict their opponent's shots based on what they are doing and what they have seen, but you cannot know for sure.
So Flash can do his double armory build THINKING it is correct, but if he missed something in the scout he could find JD in his base right after he "wasted" gas and minerals on upgrades, and just get rolled.
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I think it's the "limited information" aspect of the game... similar to blind chess. Imagine playing tennis with limited information. By the way, for anyone who's curious, a dominant player like Federer in tennis seems to have around an 80-90% win rate.
Edit: cLutZ puts it better than me.
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I would say that ladder ranks aren't a good way to look at skill in SC2. Tournament stats are definitely better. In ladder you are largely facing people you don't know how to counter. It's totally random, people all have different styles so you have to adapt to the situation at hand.
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Well if you're talking about ladder it's because the system is designed to do that. If you're winning all the time it's going to put you against higher skill people.
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@kazzabiss, and those factors would be...?
@complete, that's what I thought initially but some might say it could be lack of scouting or map vision.
(EDIT)
@exwOn+ Show Spoiler + sorry, my bad! like I said though, for people in MOST cases in top tier play, they seem to fall under
EDIT
@munchmunch and clutz: nicely put. makes sense.
If it is true that there is a factor of "luck" involved, doesn't it seem like the game should try and fix that? or is something like that irreparable since it's sorta incorporated into the dynamic of the game? (i.e. fog of war in clutz's/munchmunch's explanation)
I'm sure people who believe in competitive sports would agree luck has no bearing in competition but is this factor of ambiguity just a part of the game I should just adhere to then?
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At all but the highest levels of tennis, comparable people will have ~50% win rates against each other.
I'd guess that ~40 million people in the world play tennis, and today's greats have been practicing for 25+ years. SC and SC2 would need a long time to find their "greats" comparable to today's tennis stars.
Maybe a kid like Leenock will become that great, with another 10 years of practice. Then again, he probably didn't start young enough.
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Its worth pointing out that Federer plays the lowest seeds in every tourney for the first 3 or 4 rounds, while on the ladder the top 20 all play just each other for the majority of their matches. Also in SC2 one mistake at a certain point can put the game in an unwinnable position, while in a game like tennis each event is independent. I think mainly it is that one game can be completely lost in a moment.
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On March 15 2011 14:20 kamicom wrote:
@exwOn, no offense but your MMR is probably weak/you haven't been playing enough if you have a 75% (unless you're grand-masters level)
I do take offense. I was just above points and w:l of someone who made top 200 before I stopped laddering. I've played SeleCT, Masq, Destiny, and HuK on the ladders. I can guarantee you the reason they win or lose is because of the metagame and how the average gamer plays.
This is a game of limitations. The metagame will often be based off the top ladder players. People lower down will learn how to counter the builds, and the top players begin to lose because their opponents have been trained how to deal with it.
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win/loss ratio should be win over loss, not win divided by total game
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On March 15 2011 14:16 Gnial wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2011 14:13 Zeke50100 wrote:
Or it could just be that there is no player who is objectively 30% better than every other player, whatever the objective parameters may be. If you were 30% better than another player you would probably beat them close to 100% of the time. Being only slightly better will yield a much larger win%.
It was a random number >.<
Also, saying that you would win 100% of the time is a pretty big generalization, since you don't have any information about the sample at all.
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Top tennis players ALWAYS play much weaker opponents the first few rounds of a tournament.
SC tournaments weed out a lot of the weaker players in the qualifying tournaments (like MST in BW), and the top players are just seeded into the final tournament, so the top players face other strong players at a higher % of their total games played than the top tennis player counterparts, who maybe don't face a legitimate threat until the quarter-finals.
At least, maybe that is a factor.
EDIT: Should have refreshed before I posted, this was already mentioned a few posts up.
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EPT
