EPTAlso, I dont play myself anymore but I still watch some tournaments, lurk tl/reddit. I dont think that the community shrinks just cos the playerbase does.
The Foreigner Dilemma - Page 2
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johlar
Sweden165 Posts
Also, I dont play myself anymore but I still watch some tournaments, lurk tl/reddit. I dont think that the community shrinks just cos the playerbase does. | ||
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imPermanenCe
Netherlands595 Posts
On January 25 2012 19:16 xrapture wrote: Sc2 is just too hard. Why play SC2 when there is a myriad of easy games. New players play for a little and are put off. There's really no reason to play a game with such a steep learning curve and most players in the foreign scene probably don't know that pro SC players exist. I see the trend continuing. Even myself, a master's player, have found myself thinking, "eh fuck it. I'll just play MW3 or Skyrim isntead-- SC is too stressful." Video games are for entertainment, not stress. I haven't read the main point, but are we talking about pro-gaming numbers or casual numbers? :p You have a point that SC2 is harder than other games and isn't just played for fun. (I get that feeling a lot) Owning up people requires work, which isn't always fun. (That's why I play teamgames to relax.) But the reward is that you know you are really better than someone else, which can't always be seen in easier games such as MW3. If we're talking about pro-gamers, then some/most people say the game isn't hard enough. So the 2 kinda contradict themselves :< As for casual player numbers. I think they'll rise again with the release of HotS. I'm not sure how it'll affect pro-gamer numbers, though. | ||
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Imbu
United States903 Posts
On January 25 2012 19:16 xrapture wrote: Sc2 is just too hard. Why play SC2 when there is a myriad of easy games. New players play for a little and are put off. There's really no reason to play a game with such a steep learning curve and most players in the foreign scene probably don't know that pro SC players exist. I see the trend continuing. Even myself, a master's player, have found myself thinking, "eh fuck it. I'll just play MW3 or Skyrim isntead-- SC is too stressful." Video games are for entertainment, not stress. There's nothing wrong with that train of thought, but if we were to apply the same logic, we could say something like "There is no point in playing Football (America), I get injured too much. I should just go for a run or something. Sports aren't meant to be so intense." Personally for me finding a game with such a steep learning curve is what motivates me to play even more. Games such as Skyrim get tiring after a time because all I can feel is a system that tells me to repeat some overarching action that doesn't require too much input to get the same output as the guy next to me. StarCraft on the other hand is this game that I have practiced for a little over two years, and yet I'm still terrible in the grand scheme of things. On January 25 2012 19:20 johlar wrote: It will swing up after the expansion. Also, I dont play myself anymore but I still watch some tournaments, lurk tl/reddit. I dont think that the community shrinks just cos the playerbase does. I completely agree with this line of though. There are so many people that go to events such as MLG or watch GSL streams or even just enjoy the players that are always showcasing their skills. StarCraft is a unique thing where although there aren't as many people who play it at any given time, there are still a large number of people who watch it rigorously. Back in 2008, I never really played that much BW (getting killed on ICCUP was too depressing), but I would stay up constantly to watch games streamed live. | ||
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imre
France9263 Posts
On January 25 2012 19:13 aebriol wrote: The goal for foreigners is the daily cups. If I was 15 years younger (at least), my goal would be: - Bronze -> Masters. - Low masters to high masters (say top 500 in masters league in my region according to SC2Ranks). - High masters -> Daily cups tournaments etc while ... - Getting into GM - Participate in MLG if you are american, qualifiers for dreamhack, assembly, whatever, if you are not (I am not 100% sure). - Get into a team that promise you a chance to train in Korea if that is your goal. You can make a fair amount of money participating in daily cups I think. And if you make enough, and get known, you will get invited to local (relatively) tournaments. An example: Nerchio. Is it better to be Korean? Absolutely! But there's a clear and easy way to progress for foreigners too. The only way to be recognized is to make a big splash in your national scene first by qualifying for some sort of national event and getting far in it. And then do the same as a big tourney, and even with that it's not garanteed (Gatored) Daily cup are fun but means nothing, if you're consistent enough to do semi-finals you're already GM. And quite good because the bo1 is unforgiving and in Europe you'll have half empire roster at each one :D | ||
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Sated
England4983 Posts
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hitpoint
United States1511 Posts
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ReketSomething
United States6012 Posts
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Imbu
United States903 Posts
On January 25 2012 19:26 ReketSomething wrote: This is why TSL is so awesome. It actually fixes many of the problems you mentioned here. In TSL I pretty much learned about all the players. So true. TSL 2 was the first time that I started to get introduced to the Foreigner community and all its players. If it had been an open qualification system where anyone could sign up, I'm sure that there would have been many Koreans who would have won out and I would have been unable to appreciate the Foreigner scene. | ||
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Forbidden17
666 Posts
I pretty much stopped laddering (like less than 50 games a season right now, probably even less than that actually) shortly after I hit mid-masters on NA. There was just no motivation to practice or get better, the only reason I would play is with a couple of friends occasionally or to try out new builds/strategies/maps. I find it hard to even keep up with the metagame anymore. You have to be constantly looking for new strategies employed in the latest tournament, finding good replays to analyze and see how much you can take away from it, reading that occasional stellar guide that gets posted on TL, then executing said builds/strategies on every map you care to play on. Not doing these things can make the game completely unplayable past a certain level, and I find this especially true for mirrors, as those match-ups tend to thread on very thin lines. Not to mention if you don't play on a regular basis your mechanics slip pretty hardcore (but thankfully it doesn't take too long to get it back). Unlike the pro-scene, we can't commit our lives to this game. We have school, work, and a separate life to tend to. Unless there is a lot of generated motivation to keep playing, I doubt I would play another ladder game ever again. Ofc everything above is my 2-cents, don't read it the wrong way. | ||
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NET
United States703 Posts
On January 25 2012 19:20 johlar wrote: It will swing up after the expansion. Also, I dont play myself anymore but I still watch some tournaments, lurk tl/reddit. I dont think that the community shrinks just cos the playerbase does. Hypothetically speaking, yes sc2 will spike up once again when the expansions come out, so does that mean a similar trend will occur when the game has a been out for a while. A steady decline until it gets back to the 100,000 player mark. What do we do once the final expansion has already past it's peak point of existence. What can Blizzard do to make the game more entertaining for the other 500,000+ people. Make the game easier? Gear it towards the average joe. These are very tough decisions. Johlar, you've mentioned that you don't play any more. What would bring you back to this game, and what made you stop playing in the first place? Youtube and live streams help out alot, but definitly having more tourneys that are region locked is probably the best bet. Doomsey, you've definitly hit the nail on the head when it comes to the foriener scene dilema. | ||
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Defilez
Norway94 Posts
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Torte de Lini
Germany38463 Posts
and then from there talk about motivation, how it is hard to maintain a full schedule of practice and earnest to achieve when not only are all the tournament won by Koreans or qualified only by Koreans, but that without a team to financially support you, it's very hard to get to any of these tournaments (unlike in South Korea, where everything is, in comparison, a lot closer). I feel your approach to the whole thing is a lot less concrete and with validity as it just gives two anecdotal circumstances (though, set goals is a good point made). | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10687 Posts
No wonder people stop playing. | ||
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lambda-
Germany147 Posts
Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. I disagree, when you are going to invite 2 out of 32 players and the rest has to qualifiy, guess who's participating in the qualifiers. This leads to an even harder qualification for the less known ones. And only if the lesser known beat some of the big names they are going to get recognized. | ||
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Tppz!
Germany1449 Posts
We also have a lot of teams that recruit newer players like mouz does. I think its more a NA problem since you guys dont have a lot of cups and even then the skilllevel is lower than EU or Korea. (dont argue on this. its the opinion of me and like 99% of all sc2 fans/players). IF you want to compete with koreans you HAVE to do it early and with full heart. Go train 12 hours a day 7 days a week and you will see that you get results. But I dont see alot of pros in the foreign scence doing this compared to the korean scene Though a lot of ppl want a better sc2game and wait for HOTS. It will hit big if Blizzard does good - and the mostly do good. | ||
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NET
United States703 Posts
On January 25 2012 19:32 Defilez wrote: I think alot of player have turned to only watching tournaments/stream. I barely play anymore, (Friends stopped, so did I) but I keep up with the scene by visiting reddit/TL daylie. I didn't even think about that, but it definitly helps to have a core group of friends that continue to play the game. From my personal experience, I played sc since I was young, and its always been my go to game. It doesn't matter how many other games or sports or activities i've done, i've always gone back to sc. I think the main reason I come back is because the game is so hard that you can always get better, where as with most other games you can easily peak to a certain skill level, and then be done with it. But at the same time I also think that the skillcap is so high it scares people away from playing... Hm, just me rambling on I guess. On January 25 2012 19:39 Tppz! wrote: IF you want to compete with koreans you HAVE to do it early and with full heart. Go train 12 hours a day 7 days a week and you will see that you get results. But I dont see alot of pros in the foreign scence doing this compared to the korean scene Yeah basically, you can't argue with good old fashioned hard work and countless hours. | ||
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NightOfTheDead
Lithuania1711 Posts
Do fans want best of the best players competing? Do tournament organizers want such players to compete in their tournaments? Which tournament will have more viewers MMA vs Nestea or Vibe vs Gosu.Gatored? (no offense intended) Which players get sponsored the best or anyone below the best? Best way is to mixup things like it has been now. However, if foreigners cant beat Koreans, it is not the problem of Koreans. And artificial making tournament/entry barriers will certainly not increase the viewership, but most likely decrease it. I can see (and feel) foreigners being left behind. But what is Sports in general? Identifying best athletes. Self-defeating (artifical competetition) esports have no big future. Esports is a quite sensitive and fragile thing. Question: Is sc2 too hard for foreigners? When Warcraft 3 came out, and till the end of scene, there were Korean, Chinese, Europe, US stars. And nobody said Koreans dominate it. Is it because game was a less bit complex? At the begining of SC2 everyone was SURE, having all those MBS and other modern mechanics, foreigners will be on par with everyone else, and pointed out WC3 as an example. But also there is this mentality, practice thing, sacrificing a lot to be the best Is it early to tell? | ||
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Woizit
801 Posts
The NA scene however, does seem to lack any notable up-and-coming players. | ||
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MavivaM
1535 Posts
On January 25 2012 18:47 DoomsVille wrote: Let’s take GoSu.Gatored. He is an outstanding player. At IEM NYC he beat DRG, Top and went pretty damn far. How far can he get in MLG? Nowhere. His highest placing was 33rd and I doubt he’s had many (if any) streamed matches. How’d he do in IPL3? Can’t qualify. He is exactly the type of player that should be getting a ton more recognition than he currently is. Unless a player gets noticed he doesn’t provide any value to a team. But it is nearly impossible, in the game’s current state, to get noticed. See the dilemma? if you look at the Korean scene there are always new players popping up. There is much more turnover with new players developing, getting noticed and entering competitive. The motivation just isn’t there for foreigners because there is no clear way to get noticed. However there are ways to solve this though. Let’s start with event organizers. I’m sorry but this invitation system needs to end. We can’t have 95% of the players being invited and 5% qualifying through qualifiers. It has to be the other way around. I get the need to invite a few big name players to attract viewers. But instead of inviting 30 players and qualifying 2, do the opposite and invite a handful and have qualifiers for the rest. Of course that doesn’t solve the problem itself. Now what can the community do? Let’s stop focusing 100% of our attention on a few select players. There are tons of streamers that are as good as some of the popular guys. It does give you, the viewers, a chance to see some of the lesser known players that are almost, if not, as good as some of the current pros. Thanks, DoomsVille. I took some extracts from the OP because if you care I wrote something very similar about this issue two months ago. You can find it here if you are interested: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=288681 Nice to see that more people are realising this issue, if we want to have players that can compete with koreans we can't keep feeding some usual suspects unless they deserve it. Nothing makes me rage more than seeing 'pro'players that are training SINCE THE FUCKING BETA without producing any result being privileged instead of new guys who achieved more in the few months they started playing. | ||
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Maeldun
Australia169 Posts
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