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Is SC skill natural or trained? - Page 19

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Leargle
Profile Joined October 2010
United States173 Posts
October 07 2011 18:08 GMT
#361
Some people have a natural sense/speed about them that make it easier to start ahead, but that doesn't mean they will stay ahead. Being a natural can only get you so far.
Maphack supply depot overlord
JimmyJRaynor
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Canada16695 Posts
October 07 2011 18:11 GMT
#362
On October 08 2011 02:41 VPCursed wrote:
just like how nestea got older and stopped winning tounaments.
oh wait.
dont reference SC and baseball.


the reply was made to the generalized comment applying to all sports activities not just SC.
Ray Kassar To David Crane : "you're no more important to Atari than the factory workers assembling the cartridges"
secretary bird
Profile Joined September 2011
447 Posts
October 07 2011 18:18 GMT
#363
Working hard is the most important part and can get you very far but the very best in the world have a combination of hard work/ talent / luck. By luck I mean the opportunities that you need.

Take Flash for example if he was born in another country where progaming wasnt as big or he would have had parents that dont accept his choice to play for hours every day and eventually quit school for progaming he wouldnt have a chance to get training in the best possible environment.

Also realistically I could probably train like crazy for 10 years and still wouldnt be as good as he was at a very young age. That is assuming I could mentally and physically handle to train that much in the first place which is a talent in its own right I think.
.Sic.
Profile Joined February 2011
Korea (South)497 Posts
October 07 2011 18:18 GMT
#364
I think it really has to do with your mindset. For example, when I was frustrated with my life and really immature last year, I was mid masters with 50% win ratio. After I stopped playing for 5 months and became more mature, took me 1 month to get from Diamond to high masters.
Clan MvP Member | http://sc2ranks.com/kr/3273340/SicMvP
Hybris
Profile Joined August 2010
United States185 Posts
October 07 2011 18:19 GMT
#365
Why did someone necro this thread.....
justin.tv/hybriss
unit
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States2621 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-07 18:32:54
October 07 2011 18:23 GMT
#366
On October 08 2011 02:16 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 08 2011 01:33 unit wrote:
to me, talent is a illusion created by hard work behind the scenes and proper practice

do you know how many hard core alcoholics and substance abusers have the natural ability to hit a 99 mile an hour fastball with no practise at all ?

I'll give you 1 very well documented example: former Yankee, Blue Jay, Astro, Cub, Indian CLIFF JOHNSON.

every hitter has an "upper limit" in the speed of pitch they can hit. once u go beyond that speed the player is guessing...
i was one of the best players on my baseball team ( keep in mind i'm in canada where baseball is not taken seriously)
and i simply can not hit a ball that goes over 90 MPH...
for many of my friends who were extremely competitive and practised hitting a lot their maximum speed was much lower... like 86 MPH .. or 82 MPH... and i watched my friends drop out of baseball 1 by 1 as pitchers threw harder and harder and their ability to make contact diminished regardless of how much they practised.

and of course by the time i was 18 ... any pitcher able to crank it up over 90 MPH was simply unhittable for me.

MLB is filled with lazy guys who happen to be the 1 out of 10,000 that can hit a 99 MPH fast ball.

Go to a batting cage and try for urself.


thats a physical trait, with talent being defined as mostly mental in my wall of letters, however ill still answer to it

what you are speaking of is an inability to react fast enough, to hit the pitch after identifying its speed, people are not born equal. what im saying is that hard work crushes those inequalities which are mostly found in thought and physical makeup, cliff johnson obviously had a very good reaction time and the body composition to match it, there are however far more examples of athletes who worked constantly at their craft...enigmas do exist, and you never disproved that cliff practiced when he was younger


edit:

On October 08 2011 03:11 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 08 2011 02:41 VPCursed wrote:
just like how nestea got older and stopped winning tounaments.
oh wait.
dont reference SC and baseball.


the reply was made to the generalized comment applying to all sports activities not just SC.

i included music and chess, baseball is free game...direct comparisons however arent the best idea due to the differences

also the vanessa-mae documentary is rather interesting :D from a personal standpoint being "gifted" in music (through hard work/practice) yet also being half deaf its quite interesting to see
jinorazi
Profile Joined October 2004
Korea (South)4948 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-07 18:31:19
October 07 2011 18:31 GMT
#367
some people are just better gamers. people with "talent" will pick up and learn things quickly but its only practice that will push them further and at that point, talent becomes less of a factor.

its rather naive to think everyone is equal and anyone has a chance to become anything. there are limitations, physically and mentally, and everyone is different.

i'm sure there are platinum/diamond players that play muuuuch more than some master/gm players, including the difference in total games played that would differ in the three digits.
age: 84 | location: california | sex: 잘함
Maxtor
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom273 Posts
October 07 2011 18:33 GMT
#368
Well the phrase (im paraphrasing here) "you can overcome talent with hard work but you cannot overcome hard work with talent" Stands. Not everyone can be the best through hard work due to individiual difference but quite a large number can be at the top of their respective field through hard work. Several psychological studies show that people achieve their success through training rather than an actual natural talent. The talent helps at the start but talent alone can only get people so far, with the right training starting at the right time i believe you could produce stars in sports and e-sports equally. Sports stars usually get into their sport very early pointing towards nurture more than nature.
zeek0us
Profile Joined October 2010
United States67 Posts
October 07 2011 18:37 GMT
#369
People are mixing up the arguments here.

First off, natural attributes are distributed among the population in more-or-less of a bell curve. That's not open to argument. Some innate, genetic characteristics offer an advantage performing certain tasks. As the tasks get more complex, a more specific mix of characteristics (balancing genetic and learned or practiced) is required to succeed.

Take sprinting, where the job is to run as fast as possible in a straight line. With nobody training, there's a natural distribution of, say, 100m times based on innate characteristics. If some people in the 50th percentile of this "natural" distribution train their asses off, they'll be able to jump to the 99th percentile. But if the guy in the 99th "natural" percentile also trains his ass off, he'll still be the fastest. He had a head start in that endeavor because his genetic makeup made him well suited to the task in question.

Now take something like basketball. If you're tall, coordinated, fast, and strong, you're likely in the top of the distribution of "naturally" good basketball players. But if you never play, you'll get leapfrogged by a short, awkward dude who busts his ass in the gym every day. And to take it even further, say the first guy is physically well-suited to excel at basketball, but isn't very creative or aggressive and has terrible spatial awareness. Now a guy who might not be as quick or tall or can't jump as high, trains enough to leapfrog from the 50th "physical" percentile to the 90th, and has 99th percentile mental makeup for basketball, will likely be the superior basketball player. IOW, there have been plenty of guys as good or better than Michael Jordan physically, but none who also had the ideal brain for basketball.

All of that being said, Starcraft has none of the physical limits that athletic sports do. There's no barrier to jumping from any "natural" percentile to the very top of the game. You can train your reaction time and reflexes enough to be the best (unlike sprinting, where you can't "train" more fast-twitch muscle, or basketball where you can't "train" longer arms), no matter where you started. Or, you can build your game around winning in other ways and exceed your opponent elsewhere and negate his reaction-time advantage. And since SC2 is a complicated, mostly mental competition, there are various mixtures of attributes that can be associated with success.

You might have a good mind for RTS games and a quick mouse hand, so you're in the 90th "natural" distribution. But there's nothing that's going to give you a lasting advantage over a guy who has to figure it out over time and build up is hand speed. In the end, the spread of possible characteristics to be a top player is wide enough that you can't stay ahead just because it came easier in the first place.
nojok
Profile Joined May 2011
France15845 Posts
October 07 2011 18:55 GMT
#370
SC2 is brain relative, brain is plastic. You should all know of blind people with improved senses. Then the mindset when hardtraining/playing is the difference between the best players.
"Back then teams that won were credited, now it's called throw. I think it's sad." - Kuroky - Flap Flap Wings!
OhMyGawd
Profile Joined February 2011
United States264 Posts
October 07 2011 18:55 GMT
#371
Flash started winning at 15...that seems pretty natural talent made .
zomg
tutsicockroach
Profile Joined March 2011
United States57 Posts
October 07 2011 18:57 GMT
#372
Like anything in life, natural talent gives certain people greater potential than others. That being said, less talented people can achieve great things in SC2. I believe that even the best players at the moment are performing far under their true skill level, the game is still new and there is a lot to perfect and learn. At this very time, I truly believe anyone with enough practice can become one of the best players in the world at this time. However, this is likely to change in the future. When I refer to talent in SC2 I'm talking about the innate ability to be strategic and analyse situations very quickly and decisively, being able to make good decisions in a very short amount of time while under great pressure. The truth is, anyone can micro and macro well simultaneously if given enough practice, you cannot however teach someone to automatically have good judgement. There are too many possibilities and scenarios in the game to teach somebody the proper thing to do in every theoretically possible situation. I'm not necessarily saying that you have to be a genius in order to be the best player ever, but like a chess player you have to make the right moves under the pressure of time. This is where SC2 becomes a game of wit. Mechanics only allow players to put what they plan to do into action effectively and efficiently.

ownage
jphj012
Profile Joined September 2011
United States10 Posts
October 07 2011 19:12 GMT
#373
On March 21 2011 22:18 JeLLe04 wrote:
Hey, guys.

My friend and I were talking about this last night after watching Destiny answer some questions on Reddit (I wanna be a pro, how much do you make, how do I join ROOT, etc. etc.) and it got me to wondering - how much of a given person's success in SC2 can be attributed to a natural affinity for the game or for video games in general?

I say none, my friend says a lot. His argument is that SC2 is just like any other sport. Nearly all of the players in the NHL, NFL, MLB, etc., got to that league through a combination of favorable circumstances, loads of practice, and natural skill. However, SC2 is different in that one's physical qualities have almost no bearing on gameplay - the exception would be hand speed and reflexes, which, in my opinion, can be trained.

My stance (and Destiny's, from what I could tell) is that even the lowliest Bronze player could theoretically make it to the GSL one day, with a metric fuckton of work and a lot of dedication. Look at Koreans, for instance. Koreans are typically better at SC2 for one of two possible reasons. The first is that Koreans are just born with a Gauss rifle in their hands and are veritable SC gods from the moment they exit the womb; the other is that Korean family values tend to stress hard work and dedication much more than the typical American family does, and Koreans therefore just work much harder at the game.

What do you guys think? If you're high Diamond or Masters, do you think you've worked enough to deserve it, or do you think you were just "born that way"?


I'm not diamond or masters but its true about koreans. 1. South korea is a small country thats overpopulated and its much more difficult to survive than in the US. 2. Koreans are very very competitive with a hungry mindset. You need to be hungry in a ultra competitive atmosphere to survive. So therefore koreans pretty much go all in when they are dedicated to do achieve their goals. 3. Koreans are very intelligent people. They rank 3rd in math & other academics behind India and China. 4. Koreans LOVEEEEEE video games. Alot of them become very addicted to it and there has been some death rates because of this. I'm not saying koreans are the shit or anything but this is a fact because I am a korean as well.
No risk, No reward
ChApFoU
Profile Blog Joined July 2004
France2982 Posts
October 07 2011 19:14 GMT
#374
I feel a lot of ppl in this thread are mistaking knowledge for talent. Sure talent has to play a role somewhere but let's take an example : When I started playing the beta I got into platinium in 4 days when it was the top league.
*
Does it mean that I'm more gifted than a guy who has played the game for 1 year and is still in silver ? Not necessarily. What quickly got me to that level was simply the fact that being a former BW player I already had in mind a bunch of basic SC concepts that transferred to SC2. If ppl still in bronze after 500 games really cared about being better and more efficient at the game, analyzing their losses and watching pro replays they would quickly get at least into platinum in a month or two.

Overall I feel the sincere desire to dedicate yourself at something is a much much greater force than what we call "talent" and which is btw pretty vague.
"I honestly think that whoever invented toilet paper in a genius" Kang Min
Holgerius
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Sweden16951 Posts
October 07 2011 19:15 GMT
#375
I'd say you can become world class at pretty much anything with enough practise, but in order to reach that extra level you need something special. Most people could become a Really, not everyone could become a Flash (sorry for using BW players as example ). We aren't born the same, and we do not have the same aptitudes. Tabula rasa is a dumb concept.

And you'll obviously need to combine the talent with hard work, or people with a lower skill ceiling will achieve more simply by putting in more hours.
I believe in the almighty Grötslev! -- I am never serious and you should never believe a thing I say. Including the previous sentence.
Shaok
Profile Joined October 2010
297 Posts
October 07 2011 19:21 GMT
#376
There is no height, strength, or weight requirement to be good at sc2 like other sports. The natural skill everyone is attempting to talk about is really just the knowledge people have gained over time playing competitive titles. The thing about the top pros that give them the edge, and I've learned this through playing many competitive titles, is the communication between top players and this "circle of pros" that greatly increases their advancement and evolution within sc2.
Tal0n
Profile Joined April 2010
United States175 Posts
October 07 2011 19:24 GMT
#377
to answer your question: i am masters and i worked, what ibelieve to be, slightly less than i should have to get there, but i think that will iron out as the game gets older. ladder will in general just get more stacked with good players.

so, it is mostly hard work, whereas talent can help you get there quicker.
Offhand
Profile Joined June 2010
United States1869 Posts
October 07 2011 19:29 GMT
#378
On October 08 2011 04:15 Holgerius wrote:
We aren't born the same, and we do not have the same aptitudes. Tabula rasa is a dumb concept.


Without specifying what qualities are inherent, this is a pointless statement. What abilities does SC2 require that naturally vary between people? Reaction time and manual dexterity are the only two I can think of. Manual dexterity can be trained, no one starts out a grandmaster pianist the same way no one starts out being able to use a keyboard like Nada. Reaction time varies between people and age but the real differences in reaction time amount to less than a tenth of a second on average. This could certainly provide a benefit, especially when defending things like drops and harass. Realistically, a one tenth of a second difference can be corrected through proper scouting. Reaction time doesn't significantly drop off by age until you're 40-50, so even the oldest progamers should have comparable reaction times to the youngest (not many progamers in their 40's).
TriO
Profile Joined July 2011
United States421 Posts
October 07 2011 19:36 GMT
#379
Stay hungry, stay foolish.
My dream is to tear up your dream.
Gladiator6
Profile Joined June 2010
Sweden7024 Posts
October 07 2011 19:37 GMT
#380
On October 08 2011 04:36 TriO wrote:
Stay hungry, stay foolish.


- Steve Jobs



I think it's a mixture of both.
Flying, sOs, free, Light, Soulkey & ZerO
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