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On October 29 2011 19:40 blug wrote:
I can't remember who said it, but someone raised a good point saying that how often did you see a foreigner beat a Korean back in BW? Very rarely... In SC2 however, you actually see it quite often. Perhaps you can say that foreigners have just gotten better an have been practicing a lot more then they used to, you may be able to say that, but perhaps it could be said that the skill ceiling isn't that high.
While South Korean culture and its infatuation with StarCraft is inevitably going to yield more real-time strategy talent than the Western scene and its infatuation with first-person shooters, I believe that (and anyone can correct me if I'm wrong) KeSPA required some rather obscene requirements for the mere privilege of getting the pro-gaming license that would allow you to compete against the best players in Korea. This meant that any foreigner worth a damn had to make a huge investment if he even wanted a chance to have a shot at getting into the apparatus that was the best StarCraft training facilities in the world. He had to go overseas (to an unfamiliar country) and compete against highly-trained players just to get a chance to earn the training that could offer him the chance to stand with the best. The segregation played a huge part in it.
As it stands right now, you have Korean dominance of StarCraft II that's roughly on-par with what people saw in Warcraft III, where Koreans routinely claim the top of the standings but Western players (mostly Europeans) can give any player a run for their money at any time. However, that may very-well change if the KeSPA teams make a permanent switch. At which point, it will probably have more in common with the American dominance of basketball during the period prior to the mid-to-late nineties: Few standout "foreigners" and utter domination by a single country...roughly what you had during the Brood War days.
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On October 30 2011 08:14 Dahlian wrote:
Hey, the Thread is titled with a question, so why not make a poll with said question?
Because people just vote on it and not discuss it. It makes for bad threads.
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On October 30 2011 08:18 Glon wrote:
well in Heart of the Swarm blizzard has decided to lower the skill level EVEN MORE to gain viewers. So if anything, you should be enjoying SC2 while it lasts
how does adding more casters and harass units lowering the skill level. That's counter-intuitive.
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Smart casting allows for much more forgiving caster control, but we'll see. People who argue that BW pros who have much more APM can now allocate APM that used to be reserved for mechanics toward multitasking and micro need to consider that game design changes may limit this advantage. Really though, until we see someone approach this sort of level, it's not really relevant.
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On October 30 2011 05:25 Achilles306 wrote:
Have you seen a 15 minute game where zerg doesn't miss an injection?
What about Terran never losing a marine to banelings?
How about Protoss never going above 50 chronoboost on any nexus?
I think the skill ceiling is still a far way off. Playing perfect (hitting the ceiling) is extremely difficult.
This is so dumb. A zerg player can miss an injection or two without it having a severe impact. Chronoboost just shifts timing windows for upgrades a bit that aren't too important as long as your opponent doesn't hit at that exact time etc. You're just naming things that have some benefit, but that don't really disprove the notion that past a certain point pretty much everyone is playing the same skill-wise. For instance, in your world macro and scouting could disappear and you'd still say: "skillcap not reached! you can still use micro!", which pretty much means that either the word skillcap or skillceiling is useless or that you're trying to deliberately misinterpret it.
To put it another way: back during the PvP 4gate era there were still players that could win consistently through better micro. Yet there was still a low 'skillceiling' on that type of play.
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Are you forgetting that the great macro players still have those macro mechanics as well?
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MVP was on the A-team, but Nestea was definately on B-team
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On October 30 2011 08:18 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2011 06:23 Akta wrote:On October 30 2011 06:10 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
The skill ceiling is seeming a level or two lower than in BW. My concern is that it actually too low and people can become only negligibly better past a certain point. How would you rank the "skill ceiling" in sc2 compared to games like quake or cs 1.6? It's very difficult to compare FPS and RTS because they have quite different skill sets. To say the least though, I have played all of these games (including Quake games, but I will assume by Quake, you mean Quake 3 which was dedicated multiplayer), and I'd have to go with SC2 easily as having a higher skill ceiling. I mean, Fatal1ty practicing like an average SC2 pro was consistently one of the top players in something like 7 FPS games. You get to a point in shooter games where you know the maps and strategies and movements like the back of your hand and you can aim and shoot anything that moves. If you really work at it, it's not hard to get to this level. That's where the game of chance comes into play. Power weapons, positioning at some given time, weapon/item respawns, where the opponent is, etc. There's also just human errors, like moving the mouse a half a cm too far and missing a shot. This is the determining factor, and the players who are more consistent with getting the power weapons and with their hand movements are the ones who are going to win. Another big thing is the difficulty of getting kills or achieving objectives. It's not anywhere near as easy to nab a kill in Quake 3 or CS as it is in CoD, where you can smoke noobs while half drunk and watching a movie at the same time just running and gunning, especially with akimbo shotties or the set of overpowered rifles and perks. High-skill team FPS games like CS are a bit different in that the strategies and movements relate to more than 1 character, but otherwise it's generally the same in the other regards. Meanwhile, in any RTS, you just have a thousand more things you have to manage all at once and you have to be great at all of them in order to do well. That's just mechanics. Strategy, scouting, micro, adaptation, and many other skills just make the mountain larger and larger, and it's very difficult to get good. It takes a good amount of time, effort, and serious focus to be even a decent amateur at SC2. At the pro level, a lot of the Korean players are practicing 10 hours a day and in the same manner as the BW teams, which is ridiculously hardcore. Despite this, you still see overwhelming gaps in skill among these players. I could go on for a couple hours, but yes, I really do think SC2 has a higher skill ceiling than CS or Quake 3, as much I as love and played those games. Just my take on it. I have to agree with most of what you wrote but what comes to mind is how bad the skill ceiling term is for things like this. The most logical meaning is probably that a non specific skill ceiling means solved in all aspects which will never happen in any of these games. Discussing it like it's a realistic problem from that perspective wont exactly be on a high intellectual level to put it nicely.
So people should probably try explain what they mean(I don't even understand what the OP is possibly worried about personally) so there is something to actually discuss.
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On October 30 2011 08:52 MildSeven wrote:
MVP was on the A-team, but Nestea was definately on B-team
Wrong, Nestea was put into a 2v2 team and trained 2v2 exclusively.
STILL managed to go through qualifiers which, according to many sources, is nothing short of
mind-blowingly amazing.
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On October 30 2011 08:23 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2011 08:18 Glon wrote:
well in Heart of the Swarm blizzard has decided to lower the skill level EVEN MORE to gain viewers. So if anything, you should be enjoying SC2 while it lasts
how does adding more casters and harass units lowering the skill level. That's counter-intuitive.
You can argue that not forcing players to use their standard units efficiently and flexibly, rather than spamming specialized units, takes away from skill.
Lot easier to just spam storm on stuff than control large zealot/goon armies (or zealot/stalker for sc2) effectively.
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Yep, basically the easy stuff is rewarded more than the difficult stuff.
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i just wanted to say 1 thing... you say that the only micro tricks worth focusing on are marine/tank vs. zerglings + the 2 or whatever other things you listed... but are those honestly the ONLY tricks worth doing?
your logic is quite flawed... let me break this down:
1. If you are doing ANY micro trick at all while your opponent isn't, it's giving you an edge, No? Yes.
2. ANY edge on your opponent is worth it, No? Yes.
3. During the course of a match, if you are doing little things here and there to gain an edge, you GAIN AN EDGE, NO? Yes.
4. Unless you CONSTANTLY macro/micro in EVERY given situation, you have room for improvement, No? Yes.
If you aren't doing 1-4 ALL THE TIME then you haven't reached the skill ceiling. There are a few people right now who seem to just be the best players on the planet. Yes, some of these people are quite good at using these tricks as much as possible, but there is NOBODY who is doing it so close to flawlessly that the BW pro's have had 11 years to master.
What I'm saying is... it takes A LONG TIME before ANY ONE PERSON in the WORLD will be anywhere NEAR this level of gameplay, and when they do, they will be long standing SuperStars. These will be the Flash / Bisu / Jaedong of the SC2 era. There won't be many true bonjwa's...
This is where I will draw my conclusion. Even in BW, there are so few people who can be considered at this level of gameplay.... Do you really think that in SC2 after 1 year, we need to worry about a skill ceiling? I really don't think so. If you do, that's your prerogative... but be realistic with your claims and don't sensationalize the skill ceiling for SC2 like it's already reaching it's peak, because TRUST ME when I say we have a LONG road ahead of us.
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Until nobody uses banelings in ZvZ because they can outmicro with zerglings... the ceiling has not been reached!
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Because you are the best at one thing doesn't mean you will be the best at everything.
Although there are similarities in the game genres and team, the metagame is much more different in SC2 and the match ups are so volatile it can shift at any time.
- Huk won MLG and Dreamhack as protoss which is the race listed as the lowest odds of winning.
- MMA defeated MVP
- Tails defeated Nestea
I see people say terran and zerg mechanics still have room to develop but I disagree. WHen I see terrans and zergs geams, pretty much all games will end in smilar fashion and they will use all of their units most of the time. I feel like it is protoss that needs some groundbreaking advancement right now. It is easy to that with the 1.4.2 patch coming, the protoss will most likely have the upgrade advantage and with the improved immortals and underused warp prism, I think something good will come out.
In my opinion, the martest move for the BW progamers looking to switch will be to wait for HotS since they will not have to learn 2 different game mechanics since it is easy to see HotS will add different playstyles to the game!
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give MVP more credit...he was at least low A level in his peak in BW
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No, not very concerned. I still believe that it's a different game, and that even high level bw talent won't be as dominant as people think they will be.
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On October 29 2011 18:12 firehand101 wrote:
Unfortunately, it is good on one end and bad on another. Lower skill cap? of course, we have automine and boxes with more than 12 workers for @#$ sake!
Is it better.......................i say yes.
Why? look at us. Look at all of these people on TL, 2000 logged in atm, all revolving around this game because, even Jimmy in bronze league can make the build that MVP did and feel a little like him. The ease of starcraft 2 (relative to BW) allows for lesser skilled players to enjoy builds and strats popularised by the pros, so it is good on that side, something we would never change because we would never have this mainstream audience again
Jimmy is now in silver league as of season 4.
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On October 30 2011 09:03 Dfgj wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2011 08:23 iky43210 wrote:On October 30 2011 08:18 Glon wrote:
well in Heart of the Swarm blizzard has decided to lower the skill level EVEN MORE to gain viewers. So if anything, you should be enjoying SC2 while it lasts
how does adding more casters and harass units lowering the skill level. That's counter-intuitive. You can argue that not forcing players to use their standard units efficiently and flexibly, rather than spamming specialized units, takes away from skill. Lot easier to just spam storm on stuff than control large zealot/goon armies (or zealot/stalker for sc2) effectively.
Controlling your army while casting storm at the right spots is a lot harder than you make it sound. Bring in ghosts in the mix and it becomes incredibly hard.
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I definitely think the skill ceiling should be made higher with more intense macro mechanics.
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However, I will guarantee that once players like Flash, Leta, Bisu, Jaedong, etc comes into SC2, within 2-4 months they will clean out existing top SC2 players such as Nestea, MMA, etc.
With the game doing everything for the player I bet players like Flash end up having their strengths given to others and its a MUCH more even playing ground. smart cast, MBS, automine are things he can do in SC1. But those are things the game does in SC2 hence Flash and others will not maintain 80% W:L. Infact I imagine they will underperform since the requirement about of mechanics for sc2 is much much lower than sc1 and the community will be confused and angry
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EPT
