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Is SC skill natural or trained? - Page 12

Forum Index > SC2 General
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grats
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States184 Posts
March 21 2011 23:32 GMT
#221
trained no one is born knowing how to play sc2
SovSov
Profile Joined September 2010
United States755 Posts
March 22 2011 00:40 GMT
#222
Grandmaster Chess players have very high IQs, yet that is a game you can "purely learn through practice".
JerKy
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Korea (South)3013 Posts
March 22 2011 00:42 GMT
#223
In my opinion:

There are certain people who naturally have more potential in the game than others do. Afterall, it is a real time strategy game, and requires decision making, logic, mind-games, etc.

However, that does not mean that those who have more potential are necessarily better. While some players might have the potential to do better, those who have practiced more will have better mechanics and be able to win via solid mechanics.

You can type "StarCraft" with just your left hand.
Fiendish
Profile Joined April 2010
United States210 Posts
March 22 2011 00:48 GMT
#224
everything in this game can be analyzed and practiced
you don't have to be smart
just hard working
obviously you probably can't do it if your iq is 64
but talent is a meaningless term
PrinceVegeta
Profile Joined February 2011
United States118 Posts
March 22 2011 00:53 GMT
#225
I definitely think that it is practice and hard work. This was my first rts game and I started out knowing absolutely nothing about macro/micro. The only thing I knew was that zealots looked cool and I wanted to play protoss. I played all 50 practice leagues games and went 20-30 for my first 50 games in bronze league. I started watching youtube videos and talking strategy with people. Now I have played about 500 1v1's and I am a 3100+ master league toss with about 120 apm. I absolutely feel that one can be taught to play and become pro one day having no prior skill or knowledge of the game.
Junichi
Profile Joined January 2011
Germany1056 Posts
March 22 2011 00:54 GMT
#226
In my opinion it all comes down to training.

Training a lot!!! and training in a productive way. (as IdrA said)

Grinding builds and certain actions (eg. larva inject) has it's place, it is good to be able to execute some stuff while being braindead. On the other hand you need to be able to think about what you did wrong and most importantly what you could have done better. And then? Train thatt! and then train it a little (read: lot) more.

Oh and one thing a lot of people forget: professional training includes free time spent with something else. It is important to stay healthy and focused.
"Until the very, very top, in almost anything all that matters, is how much work you put in. The only problem is that most people can't work hard even at things they do enjoy, much less things they don't have a real passion for." - Greg "IdrA" Fields
Amui
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada10567 Posts
March 22 2011 00:54 GMT
#227
I would have to say mental strength plays a lot into how good you are at starcraft 2. At the highest level, most pro-gamers have very similar mechanics(Rain vs TOP is a good example of the difference the very best mechanics have.)

Once starcraft hits 100% balance, it's up to decision making and the ability to know everything that is going on at once, and respond to it. Some players have the mental AND physical ability to do 2-3 drops and keep up with macro at the same time while ensuring they cannot die to a counter. Only some of this comes through practice, eventually most people will hit a wall where they simply cannot handle everything that is going on at once. The ability to build units while microing iin multiple locations is something that cannot be taught.
Porouscloud - NA LoL
turdburgler
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
England6749 Posts
March 22 2011 00:55 GMT
#228
imo its atleast 90% practice, even if your new to sc2, you can translate many lessons from other games, rts or not. people are too quick to say that just because they havent played starcraft before they cant bring any learned techniques to the table.
anonymitylol
Profile Joined March 2011
Canada4477 Posts
March 22 2011 00:56 GMT
#229
I'd say it's mostly practice. Build orders and timing come through practice, you're not born knowing how long it takes to get your third marine, etc.

It's the same with any game or sport, there are ELEMENTS of it that you may be genetically superior at, but most of it is practice.

Example: In Hockey, wrist shot power/stick handling come through practice, as does skating speed.

Or: in FPS games, your twitch shots are based on muscle reflexes knowing how far your hand has to move to hit a certain area, which is learned through practice in the game.
gold on my wrist phone in my pocket
QueueQueue
Profile Joined July 2009
Canada1000 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-22 01:02:44
March 22 2011 01:02 GMT
#230
On March 22 2011 09:48 Fiendish wrote:
but talent is a meaningless term


Thank you!

While inherent advantages can be present, the end result of success can be achieved in almost any task through perseverance. Inherent talent, for the most part is a void concept. Obviously there are exceptions to this mindset but don't ever think you can't achieve something because you "weren't born with what it takes".

Having the proper training environment, proper people to train with, and the dedication to train will yield results for any player, regardless of who they are.
Mwentworth56
Profile Joined January 2011
146 Posts
March 22 2011 01:11 GMT
#231
I think it takes both, you get to a cetain level with natrual skill alone then progress past that with through training. Bascially it's easier to get better for some people.
lizzuma
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States301 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-22 01:26:03
March 22 2011 01:25 GMT
#232
what skill?

you basically flip a coin throughout various points of the game

i guess if you have a weighted coin it can impact it

until blizzard decides to take Sc2 back to it's roots and emphasize scouting, this is what it will be, and the rest of this discussion is moot.
Doomblaze
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States1292 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-22 01:34:52
March 22 2011 01:34 GMT
#233
I had 0 RTS experience before i played sc2 and i started in bronze. worked my way to diamond in 142 games, then up to top diamond in another 200 (because i dont have time to play consistently anymore). I got there because i care alot about sc2 and i want to get better. I have friends that placed into gold or plat because they used to play bw, and now im worlds ahead of them because theyre screwing around and im getting better.

I have been playing video games since i was three, competitive smash bros melee for a long tiem and competitive dota for a few years now, so i have the video game experience and passion.

Its about how much you care about the game and are willing to improve. Some people are naturally better than others, thats how the world works, but everyone can become good if they try


Lol @ lizzuma, is that really how you feel?
In Mushi we trust
drinking
Profile Joined December 2008
Philippines281 Posts
March 22 2011 01:39 GMT
#234
imo it's trained since you play mass games and your eye to hand coordination will get used to things like what to react to this or that, macro and micro etc.
Try not. Do or do not.
bronzeterran
Profile Joined September 2010
United States296 Posts
March 22 2011 01:46 GMT
#235
Both. Training is more important toward the middle ranks and into the high ones, while natural talent becomes more important toward the top. There is simply no way that many people will achieve the hand eye coordination and other brain related things to be the best.

Besides, if "anybody" could do it, everybody would be a lot better, the natural talent + work ethic guys will rise to the top, and we'll have this discussion all over again.
LilClinkin
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Australia667 Posts
March 22 2011 01:47 GMT
#236
It is a combination of natural predisposition and training which creates a good SC2 player. You cannot expect any one to be capable of training to reach a level of competency rivaling that of GSL players, just as you wouldn't expect any one to reach world-quality performance in any given sport.
obbob
Profile Joined February 2011
Canada72 Posts
March 22 2011 01:52 GMT
#237
I do not think intelligence has much to do with it.

I'm sure that there are pro gamers who did terrible in school or dropped out, and I'm also pretty sure that the vast majority of bronze players aren't chimpanzees in research labs.

I'm exaggerating obviously but you get the point.
Dyme
Profile Joined November 2010
Germany523 Posts
March 22 2011 01:58 GMT
#238
Just like in everything, training and dedication are most important. Everyone could study physics if dedicated and hardworking. Some would do it through talent. Some would have both and be really good. And very few could become Einstein.
mvpAKAenvyME
Profile Joined November 2010
Canada179 Posts
March 22 2011 02:04 GMT
#239
i know a player who is still in bronze league and has almost 1000 games played. i watch them play sometimes (at their house) and i give them ALL the information they need to suceed while they play, building probes, pylons, what composition to get, but still they almost always lose. they have almost no apm, around 40 apm at their VERY highest. use almost NO hotkeys even though i tell them they should, they want to get better apparently as they say all the time, but they never TRY to get better. i think it mostly depends on how badly you want to get better, not so much as born talent. although alot of people ARE born with talent. look at very young kids ~3 playing beethoven songs on the piano by ear.
emidanRKO
Profile Joined December 2010
United States137 Posts
March 22 2011 02:13 GMT
#240
im 3900 master terran atm

i started the game around late october, early november. It was my first RTS ever and I really enjoyed playing the game even though I was absolutely clueless as to what was going on. About 1 week after getting the game, i quit because it started getting boring playing alone. A week after, 2 of my friends bought the game so I decided to play again but with them this time. We basically started off with trying to teach each other the most normal fundamentals. Lucky for us, we had a friend who had tons of BW experience and played sc2 at a top 200 level, so he tagged along and helped us learn some important things. He wasn't ALL the help we could want really, he was just there to show us what it was like at a high level of play, and he would watch some of our 1v1 games between each other and tell us what we have to do.

A few days later, our top 200 friend didn't play as much anymore so it was just me and my 2 friends. We basically played a lot of team games where we would try out anything possible. We were pretty much the BOTTOM of the bronze league. We did nuke rushes, photo cannon rushes that were awful, fast expands, 6pools. In the end, failure was our ordinary thing. However, I feel that this failure helped us explore the game and get a sense of what units kill what best and helped us just start knowing if a certain army (from the way it looks) can beat another army(from the way it looks) without even looking at supply. There was more fundamental things like getting better at making workers/supply/units constantly.

Eventually, we got bored of losing a lot in team games so we decided to 1v1 each other or sometimes even have me 1v2 them (i was better because I was about 1 week worth of knowledge ahead of them, which is a LOT at the extremely low levels). Almost all the times I would win the 1v2, and that helped me a lot to get better at dealing with intense situations and multitasking. Ofc its not like my multitasking became god-like, but since this was my first RTS ever, I needed just to get a feel for those things. I think these 1v2s were HUGE in my success so far, personally.

It came to a point where we wanted to learn actual build orders. What's the most typical terran opener back at start of sc2? 3rax....I think I did this like 50 wins with maybe 5 losses to diamond. As soon as I hit diamond, I realized that this would not work anymore. I watched all the day9 dailies that came from when I started, so I learned there was a 1/1/1 build with siege tank push and vikings. I started doing that, and my first game I completely destroyed the other terran. I was so damn happy about that game because it was my first game trying something completely new and it worked so well, and it gave me great confidence.

From there on, I started doing all types of builds. I favored fast expands a LOT, because I hated short games and where people just rush you (which sounds dumb to fast expand then, but I was learning to hold it off). At this point, I still played some 1v1 with my friends who were also improving, but at a much slower rate, and eventually 1 of my friends went back to world of warcraft. My zerg friend still played, and we are still playing together now. I played a lot of ladder games, and I did like 1 build for tvt every game that I saw fenix do and it worked all the way to masters now. Ofc I don't do it anymore because its one of those gas before rax PROXY factory builds...rofl...My tvz was also so bad I wanted to nerdrage everytime I lost because I couldn't find out why.

By the start to end of january, my mechanics were pretty impressive for how long I played. I even did some practice game vs Fenix with him on zerg and he told me I play really amazing for playing this long. I started finding tons of practice partners on TL to just do random games with, and played a lot of customs, but rarely ladder because it intimidated me and I would get nervous sometimes. I also saved a LOT of my replays as time went on, all the good games and sometimes bad games. I still watch some of them now, to see how I've improved, and watch my own today to see what I need to improve on now.

At around February to March, my micro/macro mechanics were pretty solid. My average APM was 210 or so and it wasn't just spam. My TvZ all of a sudden became amazing and I was beating top zerg players. I used the transition from 2rax expo into double factory, and my micro on marine splitting was so good that I could start to actually do siege tank marine pushes all the time.

Today, I can play all the races at master level, with terran being my strongest.

All in all, I believe that a lot of this came from natural skill and game sense as a person who played World of Warcraft at a top level(MLG, blizzcon level), and a few important practices (1v2s, team games with friends, playing 1v1 with random practice partners on TL). I believe, specifically for all the terran players out there, if you want to get really good by playing literally ONLY macro games, it takes a ridiculous amounts of practice because it's by far the most difficult facing z and p because their macro mechanics are obviously much better. You also have to deal with all the all-ins that z and p have (which, probably contrary to popular belief, are ridiculously strong vs terran FE when they are even slightly greedy.)I also feel its easiest to get "good" as protoss, because it's pretty noob friendly and you can just follow a build order, sit on your ass and make an army then a-move to victory at high masters. I can say this a master player for all the races, with toss being my 2nd strongest.

If you wanna become a pro at sc2 relatively fast, and have 0 rts experience, the main thing I recommend is playing with FRIENDS. You should play all types of things with your friends. Custom games, 1v1, free-for-all, team games, 1v2s, anything you can to just explore sc2 and get your mechanics down FIRST. you DO NOT want to go on TL or something and research build orders asap. Without the mechanics, you cannot execute them properly, or even transition out of them. You'll get to a point where you will want to find solid practice partners if your friends aren't good enough just yet. Then join a clan, and participate in any tournaments that you're allowed into because chances are you might get matched up with someone REALLY good (which I did almost every tournament i played) and that helps you learn.

inb4 tldr
son
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