The Rhino in the Room - Page 13

On July 13 2011 14:08 aimless wrote:
Do you really think Flash would still be Flash and Jaedong would still be Jaedong?

On July 13 2011 21:17 Kazius wrote:

Yes. Yes I do. Those two specifically are NOT normal. Any other player, you could legitimately ask that question. But these are the two greatest RTS players of all times, and the best gamers, by a HUGE margin. Those guys are unbelievable.

On July 13 2011 14:57 Primadog wrote:
If I am interested in testing this "skill ceiling" hypothesis, one way I will go about it is to collate the Elo data from TLPD BW and compare that to TLPD SC2 by graphing its frequencies. A "skill ceiling" can been seen if rather than having a bell-shaped curve with a long tail, there'll be a sharp cut-off where much higher porportion of players at the same "maximum Elo level" on the top, comparing to TLPD BW.

Preliminary glance at the datasets don't give me that vibe, both sets of Elos seem to approximate the same bell curve, because of this I see no reason to spend anymore time in this poor "skill ceiling" hypothesis. At least, at this moment, sc2 is not hampered by an imaginary skill ceiling.

Subsequent statistical tests have shown that chess performance is almost certainly not normally distributed. Weaker players have significantly greater winning chances than Elo's model predicts. Therefore, both the USCF and FIDE have switched to formulas based on the logistic distribution. However, in deference to Elo's contribution, both organizations are still commonly said to use "the Elo system".

On July 13 2011 15:09 Primadog wrote:

Starting threads making a serious claim, then fall back to this is my opinion and I am just trying to strike a conversation are probably the worst way to get your start on TL... I even point out ways on how you CAN back up your arguments with data back in page 3. I am willing to wait for you to do that work. You can even pm me the graphs if this topic end up getting locked.

On July 13 2011 19:17 Sbrubbles wrote:
Wait, I'm confused.
Less mechanical skills needed = lower quality play?

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

On July 13 2011 21:18 kingchipo wrote:
as some stated above.. Brood war took years to become as refined as it is. Give SC a few before judging it so harshly... ( you might also consider theirs still 2 expansions to come )

On July 13 2011 21:34 mbr2321 wrote:
Can we please reserve judgment until the game has been out for more than 1 year?

On July 13 2011 21:34 mbr2321 wrote:
Additionally, BW and SC2 are completely different games. FlaSh, Jaedong, and Bisu would all be awful at SC2 if they switched today. They would be terrible until they played for a couple months. Look at Moon-- he was the worst player in Korea for like 3 months before he started performing well. It takes people a long time to perfect their SC2 play to the point where it's as good as their BW play. SC2 pros right now have had the entire life-span of the game to improve their play. That intrinsically puts BW pros behind.

Thirdly, micro in SC2 is difficult in a different way than BW. In BW, micro is difficult because the AI is awful. It's really cool to see pros make idiotic units do intelligent things. In SC2, micro is easier with better AI and pathing, but it's also so much more important. In TvP, when both armies are maxed, unit movement and points of engagement are the most important part of the game. Hitting good EMPs on Sentries/HT and kiting Zealots while vikings focus Colossi down is paramount. BW micro is cooler to watch, but macro is more important in deciding the game at high levels.

Finally, macro in SC2 is still difficult. BW may be harder, but the cyclical natures of macro in both games are inherently different. In BW, you have to be able to manage a lot of unit production structures with limited hotkeys. In SC2, the cycles of macro is easier to manage, but it's also a lot bigger. There's straight up more to do. In BW, all you have to do is make units, supply, and upgrade. In addition to all of those, in SC2 you have to manage MULEs, chrono, or larva injects/creep spread. Macro is easier at lower levels, but at top levels of play, missing one cycle of production is much more unforgiving than in BW.

On July 13 2011 21:47 tree.hugger wrote:
This damn argument... will never... die...


Alright, so in two weeks, we can start talking again? Seriously?

On July 13 2011 21:09 karpo wrote:


I should have been more clear that i was talking about the refinement/strategy part.

You named new BW tactics to counteract the guys point about SC2 being less refined with more new strategies compared to BW. Why not admit the fact that SC2 is just way less explored than BW? You listed some strategies yet you didn't touch on the fact that SC2 doesn't really have a base yet for how to optimally play the game.

On July 13 2011 20:46 Alzadar wrote:


How can lurkers be controlled better to improve efficiency? No matter how good you are, a lurker's spines can be dodged by your opponent. I think you have things completely backwards. The zerg can't really micro beyond how he places the lurkers, it's all in the terran's court. Marines vs banelings depends on both players.

Comparing banelings on creep vs marines with no tanks is silly. That's like a marine army walking directly on top of hold lurkers: no matter what, a ton are going to die.

On July 13 2011 15:19 Kurosuke wrote:
Real Conclusion - To say that SC2 will not be as entertaining as BW had come to be at this stage in SC2's life is a bit premature. As far as i can tell, most pros came into the game competent thanks to BW. we didnt have to go through the OMG you can bind hotkeys stage.

On July 13 2011 22:11 aimless wrote:

I'm wasn't trying to dusicuss entertainment value, just player skill. And I don't think it's possible to compare BW skill development to SC2 skill development, since SC2 is happening after BW and people have already learned a lot from BW going into SC2. Also, the binding hotkeys is kind of a new thing.

In general, though, is there really any harm in having a premature opinion about the direction SC2 is heading? I just wanted to guess at where SC2 will end up based on what we've seen after a year of game play. Am I right? Maybe. Am I wrong? Also maybe. Obviously next year, we'll have a better picture of the game, and then another year later an even better picture. But I wanted to guess now.

On July 13 2011 22:18 Maghetti wrote:
I was quite disappointed by this post. You take a good and true concept, that sc2 is mechanically easier than scbw, and you take this concept way to far. SC2 is of course much easier mechanically than scbw, but not to the degree you argue. To this day, even a tip top 12 hour per day practicing korean pro will not have perfect macro. Better macro sure, but not perfect. No pro has even close close to constantly building workers and units, building the right tech, taking their gas at the right times, expanding at the right times, constantly building supply buildings, etc. I was recently watching a flash replay in bw and saw that even he did not have perfect macro, His money did sometimes get over 1k, and there were noticable delays at times in the production of troops. If he played sc2 instead, this macro would get better for sure, but not even he could achieve perfect macro all the time is sc2.

The degree in which the mechanics of the game are simplier is less than you argue. The skill cap of sc2 is much higher than you argue. Higher than 99.9% of games I feel safe saying. There is so many things you need to be doing all at one in sc2. All forms of macroing and microing and decision making. Even in bw, no one has come close to maxing out on skill because the skil cap is unreachable. SC2 may have a lower skill cap than bw, but not to the extent you seem to think.

Also, you overestimate the varying degree of success in sc2. The skill level of players in sc2 today has greatly increased from the beta, and it will continue to increase. Fruitdealer today would crush fruitdealer from season 1 despite the fact that he has fallen behind from where he was before. Right now in sc2, you have a far higher number of players playing to be good than bw had, in a game that is not anywhere near as figured out as bw is.

Also, as far as top bw pros goes, they would certainly become the top players of the game within months, but would not be as dominate as in bw because the game isn't as figured out yet, so it is still too easy to lose to meta game changes and other unexplored maneuvers. So within those limits, Flash would be the best hands down in my opinion.

On July 13 2011 21:54 karpo wrote:


What's wrong with the first argument? Alot of the tactics and crazy stuff like Muta micro didn't show up in BW until years after release.

For the second quote you're stupid if you don't understand that he more or less means "Give it time".

think everyone should stop pretending that BW is anything like SC2. It's not good for either game.

On July 13 2011 22:27 Jibba wrote:

Because most of the tactics and strategy carried over to SC2. Specific unit tricks (like muta micro) didn't, but a lot of the thinking behind the game did.

It took probably over two or three years for fast expansions to have any type of presence in SC/BW, yet we saw them almost immediately by players like IdrA.

Our entire understanding of SC2 is shaped by the way we understood BW, and dismissing them and treating them as equals is a huge mistake. WC1/2 did not lend themselves to SC the way BW did to SC2. You can read Ver's BW Guide right now and it is still completely applicable to SC2.

Say BW is a coupe roadster and SC2 is a hot hatchback. You're not building a hot hatch from scratch because almost all of the engineering that the roadster utilized is still present in the hot hatch.

On July 13 2011 14:14 rift wrote:
I completely agree and have been thinking this since the beta began and we saw competitive play.

If Flash Jaedong Bisu et cetera switched they would immediately be among the best, but weaker players could take games from them more often than expected.

We may never see a true bonjwa in StarCraft 2. Can anyone honestly see a player completely dominating for over a year?

On July 13 2011 22:31 MrCon wrote:

That's true, but still sc2 is evolving at an impressive pace. Watch games from today's GSL, compare them to 2 GSL ago, then compare to 2 GSL ago, to 2 GSL ago. You'll see that the "it's a young game" argument is making a lot of sense. If sc2 was stale, I could agree with your post. But it's not. There is still no such thing as a standard build. There is a monthly standard, yes.