On August 27 2012 16:33 Evangelist wrote: Confirmation bias ITT.
In reality the only significant differences between Bronze to low Masters Koreans and US/EU players are that some of the mechanics from Brood War might have transitioned over and that the sample size will be smaller.
Other than that, the only significant difference is at the very highest end. No, Koreans are not more intelligent, smarter, or better at Starcraft than we are. They just have a ten year old infrastructure dedicated to producing top quality gamers. What's more, the so called "best players" are in almost constant flux and in the top 50, there are at least 15-20 players outside of Korea DESPITE the disadvantages.
You should seriously play on the korean server. Play a gold/plat/diamond korean player and then play an NA/EU gold/plat/diamond and you will see a huge difference in skill.
It is not people over exagerating when they say the korean players even at lower levels are skilled, especially compared to the same ranks on NA/EU.
Considering the difference between low Gold and high Gold/low Platinum can be on the order of several thousand resources of macro, I don't think you can even state that based off "personal experience."
I completely agree with MaNa on this. Before people question i am about 1600 Masters on NA with 150-200 Bonus pool, but my first game ever on the Korean server on a mates at the time Mid-Master account i hit a rank 1 diamond Terran who was easily as good as a Top Masters/Low GM NA terran and it freaked me out. I feel really confident in PvT and it was my favourite/strongest match up before playing on Korea and it still is on any other server. On Korea however it is so fucking hard, they exploit every little thing, throw in hyper aggressive play with sick macro play and always make me feel uncomfortable and i feel like i have no idea what i'm doing half the time. '"Foreign fans" tend to shrug off the difference, even when top, top foreign pro's continually say it but trying to pretend that any of the leagues on Korea are equal to anywhere else is stupid and ignorant.
Anyone in high Masters on Korea would be at least top 50 GM on either NA or EU, mid-high masters on Korea would also be GM level on NA for sure and in all honesty playing through Diamond --> Masters i found that maybe 60-70% of them were as good or almost as good as most of the people i match at the top of Masters/low GM on NA.
There is no magic to it. Koreans take Starcraft seriously, they play longer and harder plus the pool of players coming from BW is larger so the skill level is going to higher.
Foreigners really need to remove this "cheese is stupid" mentality from their brain. Its like they are still stuck in the age of when wars will be fought in a gentlemanly manner.
Fast forward to 4:50
But guess what, a thing called guerrilla warfare developed and this changed everything because in war, you use whatever tactic to win with minimal losses. Sure it would be considered silly to cheese every game even in Korea (eg: BitbyBit), but in a BO3, sneaking in one cheese can easily be the difference between winning and losing.
Terran requires more skill than the other races, so naturally players with much more skill like koreans can perform significantly better than their less skilled terran counterparts. Korean zerg/toss will only be a little better because their race doesn't allow for improved play with skill as much.
It's really because Korean players looked up to BoxeR's creativity in the early days of Brood War. That and the heavier focus on micro-intensive play than macro-intensive. The foreigner scene has been much more influenced by more macro-intensive players that are bent on strategy as opposed to cost effectiveness.
I notice alot of terran failing at the higher tier, even korean, is that they have a retarded amount of units queued in their production facilities late game. They have an abundant amount of money banked up, or misstep on the production cycle, so they spam a and d on barracks and a ton of resources a wasted whereas zerg and protoss will never have this kind of problems.
Bomber is probably the biggest offender in this regard.
I think this is one reason why taeja has been successful recently. Instead of spam queue up units he make production facilities when his macro failed, such as his last 2-3 cc build mid game. instead of let the resources go wasted in a queue. You never want to have a queue, especially for late game where an extra cc or two will always be more beneficial than having 10-20 units stuck in your 10 rax
On August 27 2012 19:36 iky43210 wrote: I notice alot of terran failing at the higher tier, even korean, is that they have a retarded amount of units queued in their production facilities late game. They have an abundant amount of money banked up, or misstep on the production cycle, so they spam a and d on barracks and a ton of resources a wasted whereas zerg and protoss will never have this kind of problems.
Bomber is probably the biggest offender in this regard.
I think this is one reason why taeja has been successful recently. Instead of spam queue up units he make production facilities when his macro failed, such as his last 2-3 cc build mid game. instead of let the resources go wasted in a queue. You never want to have a queue, especially for late game where an extra cc or two will always be more beneficial than having 10-20 units stuck in your 10 rax
I'm not sure if it is even a macro fail. I think it is rather planned that he stores the money for what he needs to do after a combat: --> if you are losing a fight/trading badly, go for more production facilities and try to end it --> if you are winning a fight/trading efficiently, build 2-3 CCs and make sure that your opponent can't catch up again
On August 27 2012 19:18 Incomplet wrote: Foreigners really need to remove this "cheese is stupid" mentality from their brain. Its like they are still stuck in the age of when wars will be fought in a gentlemanly manner.
But guess what, a thing called guerrilla warfare developed and this changed everything because in war, you use whatever tactic to win with minimal losses. Sure it would be considered silly to cheese every game even in Korea (eg: BitbyBit), but in a BO3, sneaking in one cheese can easily be the difference between winning and losing.
The dishonor card is always pulled in video games because people don't like to admit they got outplayed. It's easier to say the other guy was playing unfairly, and not acknowledge that dark and less predictable side of the game exists. Early on people lectured cheesers saying they'll never learn in the long term playing like that. Korean server post launch was considered the cheesiest server out of the 3. They seem to be doing alright in the long term. It's better to play to win, don't let honor hold you back.
I feel that Koreans are better in general because they are way more innovative with their play and develop their own styles while most of the world looks to them for tips/tricks.
It actually really comes down to the fact that the average Korean spends more time practicing, and on top of that has better practice partners because the people they are playing against spend just as much time practicing. This entire cycle leads to a much higher standard of play than either the NA or EU has.
On August 27 2012 19:18 Incomplet wrote: Foreigners really need to remove this "cheese is stupid" mentality from their brain. Its like they are still stuck in the age of when wars will be fought in a gentlemanly manner.
But guess what, a thing called guerrilla warfare developed and this changed everything because in war, you use whatever tactic to win with minimal losses. Sure it would be considered silly to cheese every game even in Korea (eg: BitbyBit), but in a BO3, sneaking in one cheese can easily be the difference between winning and losing.
Koreans aren't good because of cheese, they are good because they are more accustomed to games, especially rts. Doesn't matter how cheesy they are. BW was a popular game for a long time and also gaming is a norm in korea, so people grew up in an environment exposed to an RTS similar to sc2 and that obviously made contribution to what is now a scene dominated by koreans.
Has anyone else noticed that these arguments of Terran being the most difficult while Z and P are overpowered are the exact opposite that we saw when the game was first released? Not trying to take sides on this issue just making observations. Funny how these things change so easily
Diamond terrans on korea being as good as high master on NA is nowhere near accurate and a huge exaggeration. That argument is kinda ridiculous, but it is true that korea terran pros have an 'edge' over non-korean terrans.
Koreans practice more, don't play as many other games and grow up with starcraft on tv. Foreigners are lazy, play lots of other games and gaming isn't even 100% accepted in our culture, let alone pro gaming.
It's pretty simple. On one side you have 1 million Korean kids that used to play BW switched over to SC2 bring the BW mechanic with them. On the other side there's 5 million foreigner kids who either had never touched BW, switched over from FPS games, or Warcraft 3,......The result is that Korean ladder is full of kids with better mechanic than NA or EU ladder, even in lower leagues.
On August 27 2012 00:17 Bonneyi wrote: ofcourse its not practice... i mean look at kas's profile.
Me myself have been living like a progammer during the summer :D, i mean 8 hours of playing a day, (from 9-23) with brakes tranings etc etc, and the biggest improvement was from going top plat to going mid diamond :D i mean come on there is something im doing terribly wrong, im justr trying to understand, what is it that we Europeans and Americans do differently.
Dear god, I would shoot myself if all I could do is plat to diamond playing 8 hours a day for a summer. I play like 5 hours a week maybe for mid masters.
He might be playing on the KR server, who knows? KR Mid-Dia is like High Masters anywhere else, right?
A lot more people trying to get better and refining builds. On NA you see a lot of the same stuff, people doing the same set of all-ins every game, or the same exact "safe macro" build every game. People besides programers on NA/EU rarely try new things, and even if they are trying to develop a new build, they're doing it alone or maybe with one or two others. In one day of laddering on korea (roughly 30 games) I see a lot larger variety of build orders, and if I play the same person twice, and they do the same build order twice, they tend to have improved something from the last time I played them. If you get enough people all trying to develop and refine build orders you'll get a lot quicker paced and move influential metagame. People see really cool build orders and try them out, they tell their friends, they refine them. Within a day a build can go from something you rarely see to the one build that everyone is doing every game on ladder. Then someone figures out how to deal with it really well, and it disappears again (until MVP wins a few GSLs with it).
TL;DR: More people trying to develop and refine builds, they get bounced around the ladder really quickly. Terrans on NA/EU don't do the same sort of group based build order development.
On August 27 2012 00:17 Bonneyi wrote: ofcourse its not practice... i mean look at kas's profile.
Me myself have been living like a progammer during the summer :D, i mean 8 hours of playing a day, (from 9-23) with brakes tranings etc etc, and the biggest improvement was from going top plat to going mid diamond :D i mean come on there is something im doing terribly wrong, im justr trying to understand, what is it that we Europeans and Americans do differently.
Dear god, I would shoot myself if all I could do is plat to diamond playing 8 hours a day for a summer. I play like 5 hours a week maybe for mid masters.
He might be playing on the KR server, who knows? KR Mid-Dia is like High Masters anywhere else, right?
diamond on KR is not like high masters on NA/EU/SEA. Diamond on KR is like diamond on NA. High masters on NA is like GM on NA/EU, and mid masters on KR is like high masters on other servers. Low masters and below is about the same everywhere.
I disagree with MaNa when he said that diamond league in korea is like high master in Europe. I did manage to up to master in KR server while playing from EU and i'm only midmaster in EU. Of it's way more cheesy, but no way this harder.
EPT
