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Have been seeing this a bit lately and thought I could shed some light on it. I don't have proof that they can or can't yet. In short, the argument for each side seems to be.....
Pro-
Platinum players have established basic fundamental understandings of the game and can spot basic mistakes while watching replays. (and often more complex mistakes that are specific to their race) The pros they have added, will by far overcompensate for the few flaws they have incepted. (fun tacky ass word I know, but I know you can hear that silly inception bass hum in your head now)
Con-
Platinum players are in platinum because they don't have a near flawless game sense and build orders that come from hundreds and hundreds of hours of play. Their play has flaws and they will pass these flaws down. The flaws they pass down will hurt more than the pros that they have instilled.
So these both seem like pretty darn reasonable arguments, there are more for each side I'm sure, and perhaps even better ones. However, proof will ring true at the end, and who better to judge than you TL (love you guys, all a u).
This is what we need.
I am at the very beginning of platinum, I lost my placement match to a slightly delayed 4 gate, but was still promoted to Platinum. My win rate before was 50/50 with top 8 gold players.
I will teach three Protoss players who are in SIlver looking to place into gold. I will meet with them 4 times per week for 2 hours each. In three weeks all three of my "students" who I will refer to as my friends, will either be placed into Gold, or have a 1v1 win ration of 80% or higher. I will only accept silver player with a near 50/50 win ration. I will check personally (because my secretary is busy) .
Experiments like this work better with multiple test groups. 1 is nice but proves little. I may just be really good at coaching. I may have a slow internet connection that ruins perfect ff placement and hurts my split. So I also want to add 1 Platinum Zerg coach (who will teach 3 50/50 winning silver Zerg players) and 1 Terran Platinum coach who will do the same. All three of our goals will be the same and we will post videos of the players before and after. Not only of our students but of our own games. This way better players will be able to identify flaws that we have passed down.
The goal of a Platinum coach is to teach his gold or below student the basic understandings so that when they are coached from a Dia/master player, they have the basic understandings to not make them pull their hair out and cut off their...
connection from that student.
How you can help?
We need:
2 coaches,
-Platinum Zerg coach
-Platinum Terran coach
Each of these "coaches" (we'll be real coaches ofter we prove ourselves through the knowledge of our students) will need to be able to commit 2 hours, 4 times per week, to each of their students. ( Math time mutha Waaaah!!!) 2 hours x 3 students = 6 hours four times per week. Thats 24 hours a week. ( hope you were not planning a 24 marathon this week) So don't commit unless you can, if you fail you ruin it for all Platinum coaches reputation. (on TL at least and TL isn't that big on SC2 right? DOn't fail us bitch, lol)
We also need 9 players!!!!!!!
But you need to have a near 50/50 win ration in silver, or well, I guess Bronze to Silver is important too. Each Coach is now required to take 1 bronze ( to make silver) and 2 silvers ( to make gold, in three weeks).
Happy hunting. May this end the debate over what level it takes to coach well.
If you read this far I can do some shout outs for fun,
Geiko, you have pretty posts, thanks good sir.
Day(9), you know why I'm thanking you because you've already scouted me...bastard.
Plexa- Just a nice guy.
Sheth- Too nice of a guy. (when I play starcraft $2,000 is never given to the needy)
Toliveanddie- a silver player who hosts a fun tournament every fri-sun. He spends so much time to please the less fortunate (of the SC2 skill community)
Chill- For beating Combat X, may he smash him again with Day(9) nerd giggling and swearing in the back round.
Thanks guys lets do this.
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hmm if
platinum = TA
masters = Prof
so that means diamond = unemployed masters grad before giving up and coming back to school
edit: interesting experiment, looking forward to seeing the results
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I mean maybe but honestly anyone who is looking for coaching should go for masters minimum. There are lots of masters players who coach for free and others who don't charge very much like 10-15$ an hour. I mean I guess if that gold/silver/bronze player can't afford 10-15$ and the platinum is coaching at 5$ sure but otherwise I just don't see why someone would pick a platinum/diamond or below as a coach 
But goodluck!
although why do you only want a terran/zerg coach? why not a toss? :o
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On August 06 2011 11:32 blade55555 wrote:I mean maybe but honestly anyone who is looking for coaching should go for masters minimum. There are lots of masters players who coach for free and others who don't charge very much like 10-15$ an hour. I mean I guess if that gold/silver/bronze player can't afford 10-15$ and the platinum is coaching at 5$ sure but otherwise I just don't see why someone would pick a platinum/diamond or below as a coach But goodluck! although why do you only want a terran/zerg coach? why not a toss? :o
Yea but its basicly the same as u being bronze and asking ur friend thats slightly above you for help and teaching you things
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Good luck in your experiment.
Although I am highly doubtful teh players will improve significantly.
Also most of the hating on people wishing to coach is due to the fact that there are frankly so many better players willing to coach for free too.
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The reason why these gold/silver players might get better from platinum coaching has more to do with them just playing and increasing their mechanics than you actually coaching them/telling them strategy. You can win 99% of games from bronze-platinum if you can macro and defend cheese. The remaining 1% is just incase you play someone who tanked their mmr to be in lower leagues.
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Might consider this depending on the region and timeframe.. (Season 2 rank 9 plat with an MMR of a low diamond on the EU server)
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Depends on who you're coaching.. if it's a low bronze type of player who doesn't know what tech tree means then SURE
.. otherwise no. Go improve, hit masters, then come back and coach.
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I think I am one of the more active and definitely longest term coaches- and have had a lot of success. In theory The problem with platinums coaching is they might know a lot about the game in general. They do not know the standards of masters mechanics and can't offer much in terms of gamesense. Also experience comes into play. Also there are so many maps and different strategies aren't available on every map. So knowledge is half the battle in that aspect.
When I coach a player, bronze-even high masters. I am teaching them mechanics and strategies to not only bust out of their current rank, but standards that will be flat across every rank.
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Platinum players cannot coach, but they can certainly teach newer people how to play. Being anywhere below masters means that you don't have a full understanding of the game yet.
As for coaching for $, you don't pay for the coaching, you pay to get to meet a pro player and spend time with them. There's too many masters players that will coach for free, so you don't have to pay for coaching if you are just looking to improve.
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My big problem with people in lower leagues coaching isn't that they're going to teach wrong. Its that the people getting coached have much better options. there are many MANY people in higher leagues that coach for free so I don't see the point in a platinum player trying to coach until hes good enough to point out and fix his own flaws.
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1 thing to keep in mind, a lot of lower leaguers think their knowledge of thhe game greatly exceeds their skill but in my experience i notice them makng so many mistakes that they think are correct or they think its good to do. Beware..
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I really do not recommend coaching at the platinum level. Definitely not for money, and even for free it might be a waste of time both for you and the person getting coaches. The only people you really should and are able to coach is probably low bronze.
Having been in platinum myself, I realize my overall game sense was really not that great. I was playing macro games in platinum and winning most of them and I thought I had a pretty good sense of the game, but I really did not. Now in masters, I probably am capable of giving some legitimate coaching advice, but I probably still would not do it, as my grasp of the game is still not at the tip top pro level yet. Also, this takes a lot of time and it might not be worth it. Masters players can do free coaching, and GM players can do paid coaching, everyone below that really should not be coaching.
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I don't see why you wouldn't be able to coach someone who's less skilled than you. Obviously if you're not even in diamond, you probably aren't going to be giving the greatest advice, but at the same time it is probably more in line with what a lower league player would need to hear.
And as far as paying people to coach you. I just wanted to mention that throughout my time on bnet, I've never encountered a situation where somebody wasn't willing to offer advice after games. Some people make it sound like paying somebody to teach you something in a video game is becoming the norm. The truth is that if you're paying someone to teach you, it's because you are some rich kid and don't have enough time to actually learn the game on your own (like 99% of people) or you are just lonely and enjoy having 1on1 attention.
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Your sample size is too small, and your method is flawed. Say someone gets promoted from silver to gold, what possible reason's could there be for their promotion?
-Coach trained them well
-The player was dedicated and practiced hard
-The player was already close to promotion and luckily blizzards system decided to promote him
Theres no real guarantee that the promotion would be due to the coaching.
Will a platinum player coaching a silver player help their play? Probably a little bit - but they could just as easily pass on bad habbits (hey, just use this 4 gate build every game! then it stops working at high diamond and the player has to relearn everything about the game).
At the end of the day, the requirment for a good coach is knowledge about the game, and understanding what you need to be a master player (which is simply, 1 good, safe build for each matchup practiced over and over, and excellent macro). Unfortunately most platinum players don't understand this, which is why they are in platinum - and most masters players DO understand this, which is why they are in masters.
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Sorry guys, guess it was a dumb idea, when a mod see's this feel free to close it. Thanks guys.
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Can a high school biology student treat patients effectively?
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They really don't. I look at myself, being in masters, and even I'm not at all good enough to coach. I know nothing about the metagame, ideal build orders, unit compositions etc. A platinum player is still a bad player (as am I) and shouldn't offer advice.
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On August 06 2011 11:49 thepeonwhocould wrote:
Your sample size is too small, and your method is flawed. Say someone gets promoted from silver to gold, what possible reason's could there be for their promotion?
-Coach trained them well
-The player was dedicated and practiced hard
-The player was already close to promotion and luckily blizzards system decided to promote him
Theres no real guarantee that the promotion would be due to the coaching.
Will a platinum player coaching a silver player help their play? Probably a little bit - but they could just as easily pass on bad habbits (hey, just use this 4 gate build every game! then it stops working at high diamond and the player has to relearn everything about the game).
At the end of the day, the requirment for a good coach is knowledge about the game, and understanding what you need to be a master player (which is simply, 1 good, safe build for each matchup practiced over and over, and excellent macro). Unfortunately most platinum players don't understand this, which is why they are in platinum - and most masters players DO understand this, which is why they are in masters.
I think that your mindset is kind of silly and a reason that a lot of players are in master league that probably don't deserve to be there. I've got two accounts - one master league and the other diamond - and on my diamond (main account) I've got tons of games played - and my MMR is probably very well tuned to my abilities. Yet my master account - I'm constantly outplaying other master league players. Like there's a tier of master league players that are worse than diamond players. I don't know where I belong, but my main account gives me competitive games vs low master/high diamond players.
Anyway, I guess my point is that learning a solid build in every matchup is a farce and what a lot of coaches do to superficially promote their 'students'. If you learn a solid build order then yes you will probably win a fair amount of games vs better opponents simply because of your build order/timing when you attack. But you don't understand the fundamentals of the game like a master league player should. A master league player should understand different unit compositions, counters, etc. And just have a general game sense instead of just a-moving at 7 minutes because that's when his teacher taught him to .
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On August 06 2011 12:01 TortoiseCa wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2011 11:49 thepeonwhocould wrote:
Your sample size is too small, and your method is flawed. Say someone gets promoted from silver to gold, what possible reason's could there be for their promotion?
-Coach trained them well
-The player was dedicated and practiced hard
-The player was already close to promotion and luckily blizzards system decided to promote him
Theres no real guarantee that the promotion would be due to the coaching.
Will a platinum player coaching a silver player help their play? Probably a little bit - but they could just as easily pass on bad habbits (hey, just use this 4 gate build every game! then it stops working at high diamond and the player has to relearn everything about the game).
At the end of the day, the requirment for a good coach is knowledge about the game, and understanding what you need to be a master player (which is simply, 1 good, safe build for each matchup practiced over and over, and excellent macro). Unfortunately most platinum players don't understand this, which is why they are in platinum - and most masters players DO understand this, which is why they are in masters. I think that your mindset is kind of silly and a reason that a lot of players are in master league that probably don't deserve to be there. I've got two accounts - one master league and the other diamond - and on my diamond (main account) I've got tons of games played - and my MMR is probably very well tuned to my abilities. Yet my master account - I'm constantly outplaying other master league players. Like there's a tier of master league players that are worse than diamond players. I don't know where I belong, but my main account gives me competitive games vs low master/high diamond players. Anyway, I guess my point is that learning a solid build in every matchup is a farce and what a lot of coaches do to superficially promote their 'students'. If you learn a solid build order then yes you will probably win a fair amount of games vs better opponents simply because of your build order/timing when you attack. But you don't understand the fundamentals of the game like a master league player should. A master league player should understand different unit compositions, counters, etc. And just have a general game sense instead of just a-moving at 7 minutes because that's when his teacher taught him to .
This guy is spot on, what thepeonwhocould said is right in a certain sense; getting a specific build down pat and knowing the respective timings and counters associated with said build may enable one to get promoted through Diamond and into low Masters, but this sort of progression is hardly the stuff of a truly proficient and thorough learning of the game. To be entirely honest, I myself fell victim to the sort of thinking thepeonwhocould espouses, and over time, my constant losing to the truly creative players in mid-low masters eventually locked me into a hard plateau, and that account simply hasn't budged since.
This was a solid 5 months ago, and in the meantime, I've worked hard on analyzing hundreds of casted games and replays, I've played all three races and played all match ups exhaustively in an attempt to better understand the possible choices my opponents are going to make in addition to my own, and the results are undeniable. I've won 7 games straight on my second account against a wide variety of Masters players, and although this still may be fluke, my reactions and game sense have improved tremendously thanks to game analysis from the likes of Artosis, Tasteless, Day 9, and Wolf, in addition to the simple value of approaching the game from a wide, holistic perspective, rather than a narrow one. For the first time ever, the possibility of putting the time in and trying for GM next season seems remotely feasible, and I think every student of the game can appreciate that.
Anyways, this experiment sounds like a great idea, I wish you the best of luck, and if theres anything I can do to help let me know. Cheers :D
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EPT
