Ladder fear and The Korean Enigma explained. - Page 7

On September 07 2011 14:06 BeyondCtrL wrote:
Hmm, the initial paragraphs of the fixed mind set were pretty much describing my childhood-adolescence. However as it continued, especially where it comes to correlating this sort of mindset as an explanation to ladder fear, it did not make sense to me that it was the main cause. I've been thinking on the OP's post and would like to offer another argument, as I believe this mindset difference (and tbh oversimplified) is not the only problem for a declining player base.

************ I do not consider the contents below as the real facts or truth. I only want to present an argument from my perspective and experience. ************

1. TIME! It's so simple. I love SC2, I love playing 1v1 ladder. Mostly I love playing at my mid masters level where for me the games are extremely fun and challenging no matter win/loss. Sadly I just don't have the time to play. I haven't had the time to play at all the past month because of studies and other engagements. I re-qualified for masters this season, but I have only played five games. I come home too tired to sit down and ladder, instead I relax by watching GSL and other tournaments. I would love to play in GM league, or to strive for it, but I know I don't have the time. To actually be good at this game is almost like having a full time job. I don't resent this or blame it, in fact I revel in it only knowing that this makes the tournaments even better and more exiting to watch. Some people who bought the game will come back and play during the holidays (the ones who love this game), but you should consider that there are a lot of people who buy the game and only play the campaign (lots of casual players who simply aren't interested in competitive gaming and are only interested in playing a new game for a while then moving on to another game). Playing Starcraft 2 the way OP suggests is making it more than just a game. It is a hobby. Just because someone bought the game doesn't mean SC2 is their hobby or passion.

For example half my guild in WoW bought SC2 only to play through the campaign and some ladder games out of curiosity only to never log in again. They went back to WoW because that game is their hobby, not because they were scared of ladder or that the psychology was wrong, it was as simple as the fact that they weren't interested in this type of game. They liked to invest their free time leveling alts, doing dailies, improving their character and personal economies (whereas I don't even have a single alt, don't have any professions, or any money. Just a single max level char where I log in once a week for 4 hours to clear Firelands. It's relaxing and super fun to raid with 10 good friends, but outside of that the game is all boring crap to me). Different passions and interests. Honestly there are so many games out there that many gamers have their special game which they play the most. However, one thing that gamers have in common is that they buy many games and play them once or twice.

Ladder fear will cause some players to stop, but let's be honest here: you don't lose almost 50% of the player base to ladder fear. That is just stupid. It's like saying Oblivion lost 99% of its player base (there are the Oblivion hobbyists who spend most of the that time playing the game) because people were too scared to go in a dungeon. Even consider that there are people who didn't even finish the game and never went back to it.

1.1. The fact that SC2 has retained almost 50% of its player base after more than a year should be testament to how effin frikkin good this game is. Especially considering that it is a complex and deep RTS game centered around competitive play. I would bet that the biggest decline of active ladder players was during season one. Each consecutive season will lose less and less active members (and the later seasons primarily people with ladder fear, but I don't think most of them leave permanently). People who truly developed SC2 as their hobby will stay (some will play only on holidays, but always come back so one might expect a pattern of dipping during fall to spring), the people who leave permanently are just mainly people that lose interest in the game at different rates.

2. If you think that you are innately talented and intelligent and stuck in bronze because the game is so unbalanced I would think you are retarded. Sure any normal person can lie to themselves for a while (a few days) but the realization must hit them, it has to if they have a functional brain. To me the real fear in laddering is when you hit a certain point where the time you spend on the game reflects your skill level. You will plateau not because you hit your max skill ceiling but because you don't have the time to crunch in that extra time to raise it. At this point your win rate should be about 50%. No one likes to lose but is obvious that it is unavoidable. If you say that you feel not the slightest anxiety when you hit that "Find Game" button you are a liar.

Yet people who want to improve or just keep playing do keep laddering because the reward and the awesome feeling of the prospect of winning is stronger than the anxiety of losing the game. For those that stop laddering their anxiety and fear of losing is greater, they begin to doubt themselves and their ability and the feeling of actually just losing (not how or why, just the negative feeling of it). In their mind, I would imagine, they are experiencing the prospect of a permanent loss streak (and everyone has experienced a loss streak and knows how bad that sinking feeling is, and a lot of us still keep hope and still keep in mind the fact that you can win). Unless the person enjoys tormenting himself he will stop playing for a while or forever because his subconsciousness will correlate the game with more negative feelings than positive ones.

3. No intelligent person ever starts anything and thinks they are good - note difference between people who think they are intelligent and people that are actually intelligent. I have never raged at a 1v1 loss (only at some stupid random team games ). Everytime I lost I would watch the replay. In my mind blaming losses on something that you think is OP is retarded because by simply looking at how many people raged against me because they lost one would think every Protoss unit and strategy is OP and should be nerfed. Yes it would be easiest to blame their "OP" units and strat, but by just stepping back and analyzing your own thoughts and actions one should always logically come to the conclusion that one is over reacting. Even if their strategy or unit comp actually might be OP to a certain extent (what map it's on, spawn position, etc.) it is only logical to assume that even though your opponent might be at an advantage: his micro isn't perfect, his macro isn't perfect, his execution isn't perfect, his timing is not perfect, and his decisions aren't perfect.

If you are truly better than your opponent in every aspect of the aforementioned then you must be able to beat him because your superior skill would close the advantage he has, and if you aren't you should strive to be better. Any player that is between bronze-masters and are being matched by mmr can ALWAYS find a way to beat ANY strategy and unit comp if they analyze their. You are not playing against MC, MVP, or Nestea. I can guarantee you that your opponent who beat you with the 6 gate is not even close to, by light years, how well MC does it. Just because he had 6 gates at about the same time and attacks at about the same time he will not have the same macro behind it, he will not have the same decision making behind it (what unit comp he warps, what he reinforces with, etc.), nor will he have the same micro and execution.

Honestly there are so many holes in the quality of play from players bronze to masters that any strat can be picked apart if you dedicate to improve, especially in the scouting, decision making, and game awareness. I've beaten players who had better micro, macro, and apm than I did because they might scout my base and even see what tech I'm going AND STILL prepare wrong because they think, "Oh my probe revealed his base, OK good I scouted him". And likewise I have lost games in the same fashion.