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On March 22 2012 03:13 xUnSeEnx wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2012 18:36 bigbeau wrote:On March 08 2012 18:25 Defacer wrote:
I think that a lot of higher level players (diamond to GM) have a gross misconception of the skill level of players in lower leagues. A gold player now is definitely not the same as a gold player a year ago.
I'm not very good, and stuck in Gold. But since the season 6 maps have come out, I'm absolutely crushing Terran and Protoss with Zerg. I used to lose to a lot of coin-flip builds and all-ins that T and P do at my level, but Cloud Kingdom and Korhal finally gave me a chance to win when I play "the right way".
There's plenty of decent players in the lower leagues that aren't bad, but struggle against cheese, playing for fun or just trying to learn to play 'right'. I'm sorry but this is simply not true, and it is a big reason lower league players remain in those leagues. I'm a low master league player. I don't really play much anymore, but I considered myself pretty bad. My mechanics are bad, my speed is bad, my micro is bad, I just understand what to do. However, against any gold player I could win with any race making any unit that can hit both air and ground. The whole idea of struggling against cheese is a crutch. Struggling against cheese is a sign of a bad player. There's no such thing as playing 'the right way'. The goal is to win, and if you can't beat the other person, you're bad at playing, simple as that. How is this not true? There are definitely cheeses out there that you nor I even know about. Bad players are hard to read. I beat masters/diamond players because they can be read and I know what to do against them. Plat/Gold players seemingly have the weirdest builds I have seen in my life and when I analyze my replays I honestly have no idea "wtf" they are doing. Day 9 also said that. Bad players cannot be read. (I forget the daily but it was in the last recent months of his casting). \ If you cannot win you are bad? Lol. Get out please. With this logic that means Pros are bad. EDIT: BTW I play all races at a Gold Korean level and Platinum NA level.
When you say you beat them do you mean that you beat them consistently or that you "have at one point in your life beat them". Diamond/Masters players CAN lose, but they USUALLY do not.
And bad players are not difficult to read at all. The read just needs to be different than reading a good player.
For example, Toss player goes gas before gateway and has not expanded before 6 minutes. I would read this as an extremely heavy tech all-in. The WRONG way to read this as a high-level player would be to assume a specific all-in like DTs or double stargate (assuming you're playing a bad player). But if you respond generally, ie spore in each base, cut drones once saturated on 2 bases, add queens and roaches until either he expands or attacks, then you're safe against whatever garbage he's going to throw at you.
He could be doing the most illogical or crazy cheese but GOOD players know how to react generally to cheese that they are not at least 80% sure of.
And don't straw-man the argument of not winning = bad. That's not what he meant. Not winning against bad players = you're bad. Everybody loses to random/stupid cheese from bad players, but the good players lose a lot less.
The argument "I could be Diamond if I learned how to deal with cheese" is baseless and a strong indicator that Dunning-Kruger applies to them. Skill in SC2 is not just measured by how many MULES you can throw down or injects you can hit on time, but your decision-making, scouting, reactions, etc. All of these are required to be Diamond/Masters otherwise you're bad.
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On March 22 2012 02:19 GloPikkle wrote:
Apparently some people are. My friend's an engineer from a top 50 school so it's not that he's unintelligent, he just does not process things mentally as quickly as he needs. He can handle probably 1-2 tasks in SC2 at a time and if you push him beyond that, he quickly gets overwhelmed.
I mentioned this before, but there's some research that suggests that people with unusually strong analytical problem-solving skills often exhibit an intense, single-minded focus on mental tasks that can interfere with multitasking. This by itself explains why otherwise intelligent people might have significant trouble with Starcraft despite practice.
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On March 22 2012 03:13 TacticalBadger wrote:Sooooo... Can anyone actually provide a recent replay of a silver/high bronze playing terribly (not badly, but TERRIBLY as in: what the hell is this guy doing)? Here's a completely random example of bronze versus bronze I dug up. The players are indeed bad (the protoss had 40 workers on 1 mine at some point), but it's a far cry from "has 5 zealots at 15 minute mark" or whatever bronzers are supposed to be doing.
I saw the replay; Im currently stuck in bronze, and it looks really similar to what I see every day... that's the bronze standard. In other words, what you see (most of the time, allthough not in that particular replay): some basic build order (one rax expand or banshee opening for terran) that goes to hell if early agression or anything unexpected happens; the build order is chosen without to much scouting, and the micro actually hurts the units (like on the last battle of the replay for the terran. That looked a lot like some of my battles). And we (bronze players) have a really hard time getting third expansions and keeping up with upgrades, and usually cut SCVs after (or sometimes even before) the natural is saturated.
I know a lot of people think that bronze-silver-gold are absolutely the same crap, but for people who are trying to get out, every little step counts. I think, in comparison with bronze players, silver and gold dont cut SCVs that early,they usually have more production facilities and dont get suplied blocked that much, and they plan a little ahead how to get that third. Thats about it. I dont think here micro matters at this point (except for the players who hurts the units with their micro; at bronze level, most of the time is better to let the AI do its work), and scouting really hard is also not that important! (please dont kill me, I dont mean to say that scouting is not important, just saying that, at this level, you can get away - as a terran -with an ocassional scan, no need to float a barrak, do a drop or put a reaper in his main just to scout).
But what do I know, Im in bronze. I posted a couple of recent replays a while ago (page 20 of this thread); again I ask for help.
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I guess people don't consider talent when saying it's impossible to play as much as you say while watching day9 and reviewing your gameplay. Everyone has a skill ceiling, for some it's pro level for others it's in bronze. Once you recognize your potential you will enjoy the game more.
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On March 22 2012 03:32 DarK[A] wrote:
From getting feedback from higher level players on my replays, the only issue with my game seems to be lack of consistent scouting. I'll initially poke around a little bit, but then fail to keep coming back.
It's just hard for me to process that lack of consistent scouting is keeping me Forever Bronze. I rarely get scouted more than once at the beginning of the game on ladder. Sometimes not even that.
I guarantee that scouting is not your only problem if you're Forever Bronze. What race do you play?
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On March 22 2012 02:36 GloPikkle wrote:
Time is indirectly a physical limitation because less practice means less precision, speed and consistency.
By that argument, not playing Starcraft at all is a physical limitation. The post I quoted was talking about bodily physical deficiencies, not any happening in the physical world that somehow impacts performance.
Not structuring their play around hotkeys is either due to stubbornness, ignorance or stupidity. The first two can be easily remedied and should not be a good reason for staying in Bronze, the last is a mental limit.
Stubbornness and ignorance are not, in and of themselves, mental deficiencies.
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On March 22 2012 03:44 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 02:19 GloPikkle wrote:
Apparently some people are. My friend's an engineer from a top 50 school so it's not that he's unintelligent, he just does not process things mentally as quickly as he needs. He can handle probably 1-2 tasks in SC2 at a time and if you push him beyond that, he quickly gets overwhelmed. I mentioned this before, but there's some research that suggests that people with unusually strong analytical problem-solving skills often exhibit an intense, single-minded focus on mental tasks that can interfere with multitasking. This by itself explains why otherwise intelligent people might have significant trouble with Starcraft despite practice.
I would say that it describes him pretty well. He's really good at one thing and he's able to recognize and attempt to emulate good play. But he cannot do multiple things at once and when he pushes himself to do it, he gets completely exhausted mentally.
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On March 22 2012 03:49 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 02:36 GloPikkle wrote:
Time is indirectly a physical limitation because less practice means less precision, speed and consistency. By that argument, not playing Starcraft at all is a physical limitation. The post I quoted was talking about bodily physical deficiencies, not any happening in the physical world that somehow impacts performance. Show nested quote +Not structuring their play around hotkeys is either due to stubbornness, ignorance or stupidity. The first two can be easily remedied and should not be a good reason for staying in Bronze, the last is a mental limit. Stubbornness and ignorance are not, in and of themselves, mental deficiencies.
Well various physical limits dictate a person's ability to do things. For example I played piano for 15 years and my fingers are just naturally a bit quicker and stronger than the average person. There are more synaptic connections that have been made in my brain to help trigger the muscle twitches to do things like hit a button. Someone who has never done anything related to finger exercise will naturally start off at a lower baseline ability. This can be built up of course over time. My APM is only around 150 in-game and there are thousands of people faster.
I would also just delineate limits vs deficiencies. Stubbornness may not be a deficiency but it certainly limits one's ability to improve. I can attest to this with my Forever Bronze friend who plays more than me. He insists on making Immortals every game. He will open 2-gate 3-robo on 1 base and be damned if you try to tell him that what he's doing is wrong/stupid/retarded.
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On March 22 2012 02:19 GloPikkle wrote:Show nested quote +I can agree with the stuff said in 1), but not in 2). It seems weird to me that so many people (in bronze and maybe even silver) would get mentally exhausted after 1-3 games. Are people really that weak? It just seems like another way for higher level players to patronize the lower levels. "Poor things, don't have the same mental capacity as us higher beings".  Apparently some people are. My friend's an engineer from a top 50 school so it's not that he's unintelligent, he just does not process things mentally as quickly as he needs. He can handle probably 1-2 tasks in SC2 at a time and if you push him beyond that, he quickly gets overwhelmed. Mental limits can also be things like pride (don't tell me how to play), shame (I can't handle looking noob), stubbornness (I'm going to make this work despite the fact that it clearly doesn't). I don't really feel like my generalization needs to be defended too much. How many posts do we see in the Strategy forum from low-level players saying "omfg I don't know why I lost" and when the replay is viewed, there are tens of things that they did wrong that are glaringly obvious to anyone who's watched high-level play. Show nested quote +I would recommend that you look into the lifestyle of professional gamers. The thing that they got in common is that they spend extreme amounts of time on getting better. Some of them even move to Korea!! This is not something they share with most bronze and silver players. I can fully believe that professionals have a little extra talent, but most of the master and diamond players are better than bronze players simply because they put in more time, not because they are superior mentally. I saw a guy in Bronze with 2000+ games won in season 4 which means he's probably played twice that roughly. Looking at his match history, he's not worker rushing or 6 pooling every game but actually playing them out. I can't even fathom how much time he has put into playing. There is something wrong here. However, for people who are playing 5-6 games a week and play SC2 just like they would play Mario, meaning no strategy, thought, or effort, of course they'll be forever Bronze. My point is merely that if they are actually trying to improve, it's either a physical or mental block somewhere. Show nested quote +Anyways, this entire post goes a little against my sentiments in regards to making general statements of heterogeneous groups. We want to talk about true bronze players that probably won't make it out of bronze even with their best efforts, but how do we isolate these from all the others in the bronze league? The pool's goals might be heterogenous but the reasons why they're in Bronze are probably not. I don't see an easy way to differentiate them nor the need to besides just asking if they want to improve.
Well, you are only talking about one friend - hardly a lot of data. I'm also curious about what you classify as a "task in SC2" and how many you think you can perform. It just seems a little bit difficult to measure.
The text I originally quoted you on does mention the "mental limits", but it is not until now that I understand that you include a lot of things into that concept. You should have communicated that better, because that text gives the impression that "mental limits" strictly have to do with our analytical and multitasking abilities.
We will just have to disagree on the reasons people are in bronze. Your two main categories of explanations does not cover it in my opinion. I think a lot of hardcore gamers have difficulties with seeing how casual players end up in bronze because they are casual gamers, not because they are mentally retarded or other things..
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On March 22 2012 03:47 GloPikkle wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 03:32 DarK[A] wrote:
From getting feedback from higher level players on my replays, the only issue with my game seems to be lack of consistent scouting. I'll initially poke around a little bit, but then fail to keep coming back.
It's just hard for me to process that lack of consistent scouting is keeping me Forever Bronze. I rarely get scouted more than once at the beginning of the game on ladder. Sometimes not even that. I guarantee that scouting is not your only problem if you're Forever Bronze. What race do you play?
I play Zerg and my typical opening is 14/14 with speed, typically into broaches.
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On March 22 2012 04:45 DarK[A] wrote:
broaches.
I think I may have found your problem.
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On March 22 2012 04:48 Lysenko wrote:I think I may have found your problem.
Watching too much of Destiny's stream? :D
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On March 22 2012 03:47 Mrvoodoochild1 wrote:
I guess people don't consider talent when saying it's impossible to play as much as you say while watching day9 and reviewing your gameplay. Everyone has a skill ceiling, for some it's pro level for others it's in bronze. Once you recognize your potential you will enjoy the game more.
There is no such thing, that's ridiculous. Anyone could technically be a pro, it just requires time and a lot of determination, you can't possibly mean a person can get to the point where they literally can't improve, especially not in bronze etc where it's so easy to find improvements.
Talent is a term made up to be used as an excuse. People may or may not have an affinity for something based on their experience and preferences, but there's no magical skill you were born with which makes you better than anyone else.
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Honestly I think this hole thread just shows how retarded all this ranking bullshit in modern games has made people. As long as you enjoy what you do, who cares what fucking league you are in? If you play to get better/become as good as you can you will automatically rise up, not at the same pace for everyone, but if you are truly passionate about becoming good at this game and put in the time you will. If not and you just play for fun w/e then you won't, but thats fine as well. Way too many people playing this game are totally concerned about their rank and shit. Your rank doesn't indicate your skill, it doesn't tell how good you are, at the end of the day it doesn't mean shit. Also there is a such thing as talent, but practicing hard will overcome any way that might make you not as naturally good at starcraft then others. And I may pull a quote here : "practice beats talent if talent doesn't practice".
Also from "coaching" quiet a lot of bronze players I have come to the realization that teaching them how to play correctly will only make it harder as they lack game knowledge and mechanics to do so properly. Just play the game, watch replays, think of ways to improve and you'll get there, if not than thats also fine. Plus bronze has become sooooo much better, when I was bronze league it was only cloacked banshee/void ray/6 pool etc. pp., nowadays they actually expand, sometimes even more then once. Shit has become pretty serious in bronze.
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On March 22 2012 19:22 Tobberoth wrote:
Talent is a term made up to be used as an excuse.
This is simply not the case. Some people find certain types of problem solving inherently easier. Certainly, having less talent than someone else shouldn't be a barrier to making the effort to improve, but there's no doubt that improvement comes much more easily to some people than others.
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On March 22 2012 19:26 Lorch wrote:
Your rank doesn't indicate your skill, it doesn't tell how good you are, at the end of the day it doesn't mean shit.
Your rank is highly correlated with your chance of beating someone else of a different rank. That's the entire point of the system. So yeah, it does mean something.
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On March 22 2012 19:36 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 19:22 Tobberoth wrote:
Talent is a term made up to be used as an excuse. This is simply not the case. Some people find certain types of problem solving inherently easier. Certainly, having less talent than someone else shouldn't be a barrier to making the effort to improve, but there's no doubt that improvement comes much more easily to some people than others.
Yeah, if I've played RTS games since I was 10, obviously I'll improve faster at SC2, that's a given. Calling it "talent" is just a way to create a blackbox so you can say "Well, I'd be good if I had talent", when in fact, it's just experience.
When I play coop games with some friends, they suck. This is because I have "talent" when it comes to games since I got my first console when I was 6, they haven't had consoles in their whole lives. Calling that talent is just BS, it's just much more time invested.
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On March 22 2012 19:22 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 03:47 Mrvoodoochild1 wrote:
I guess people don't consider talent when saying it's impossible to play as much as you say while watching day9 and reviewing your gameplay. Everyone has a skill ceiling, for some it's pro level for others it's in bronze. Once you recognize your potential you will enjoy the game more. Talent is a term made up to be used as an excuse. People may or may not have an affinity for something based on their experience and preferences, but there's no magical skill you were born with which makes you better than anyone else.
That is just a belief.
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Of course we can say that there are some sort of relevant talents for playing RTS games (not just SC2 or BW). It just depends on how we define "talents".
I think that multitasking and inductive/deductive reasoning are important skills - not talents. These skills may be derived from having certain "talents", but everyone can practice these skills. In my opinion the most important factors are experience with SC2 and personal commitment to improve. Unless we somehow prove that pro gamers are significantly more intelligent and gifted it stands as the most valid explanation.
Wax on, wax off! Simple as that.
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On March 22 2012 19:38 Tobberoth wrote:
Yeah, if I've played RTS games since I was 10, obviously I'll improve faster at SC2, that's a given. Calling it "talent" is just a way to create a blackbox so you can say "Well, I'd be good if I had talent", when in fact, it's just experience.
That's not what I'm saying, at all. I'm saying that two different people, making the same effort, starting from 0 in terms of RTS experience, will wind up at different places in terms of Starcraft skill.
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EPT
