Comparing Sc with chess is like compraring chess with football. Are 2 totally different disciplines.
Sc is a game of skill. You can indeed be more or less smart than your opponent, but almost always skill/excecution/speed-precision win it. There is no way Sc could be more decision based and at the same time still be Sc (don't get me wrong, I love strat based games). And notice that I'm not even talking about Sc2 or Bw, both are games where skill and speed are dominant over deep strategy.
And for the record, chess is a strategy game indeed, but again you need an insane "thoughts per seconds" to succeed besides the strategy (that with internet have become something widelly known, not like in old capa-fischer-karpov times when looking for "hidden books" was something important)
And I say this as a much more strategical/analytical person. I have slow average hands (gaming, writting, whatever), and with top strat-analysis, I can't get beyond high masters due the skill cap.
The two things aren't at odds. APM and attention are finite resources that must be divided across the board. Micro-able unit interactions - for example where Stalkers can endlessly kite stimless marines around - are a tactical consideration not all that different from, say, "+damage to light", only more dynamic and situational. The other player can do things to divide the player's attention whereas a damage bonus would be non-interactive. And there's often an element of decision making in micro, especially as the game becomes more complex. You see this a lot in robust matchups like SC2 TvT and any BW non-mirror where each player's attention is being spread all over and games appear "sloppy". The choice to put attention at this place at this moment rather than the X other places that could make use of it isn't just mechanics, it's strategy. Letting resources pile up as you micro your army, or letting your army get into a bad un-micro'd engagement as you harass, all strategy. Nobody has infinite APM to spend.
You might say that this only the case when the two player's APM is relatively equal, and yes that's partly true, but the less skilled player can still favor easier compositions and employ strategies which offset the disadvantage. How to best minimize your own shortcomings is very much a strategic question.
On December 30 2012 09:36 bankobauss wrote: IMO, "bw>sc2" threads about mechanics are kinda stupid because as weve seen Sc2 already is capable of absorbing 100% of the best top pro's mechanics/APM and still its not close to the ceiling. This means the pros with superior mechanics will always have massive advantages over people with inferior mechanics
im starting to think more and more that what made bisu/flash so great wasnt even their mechanics in BW, it was strategy and their mechanics of their mind not mechanics of their hands. which is why bisu in SC2 isnt completely dominating everyone with his mechanics like some thought, IMO thats because the truth is bisu was never really dominating people with his mechanics in BW it was something else entirely. It was about the mind, not the hands, all his peers had equally powerful hands.
So now in SC2 bisu is at the same equal level playing field with his competition when it comes to mechanics, but when it comes to strategy bisu has not cracked the code yet (and maybe he never will. maybe SC2 just has less strategic depth than BW) and bisu doesnt have the strategy advantage over his peers that he once had in BW so thats why bisu isnt completely destroying as predicted.
SC2 has vastly diminishing returns on effectiveness of mechanics compared to BW or WC3, period. People who have been arguing that a change raises the skill floor but doesn't affect the skill ceiling are ignorant imho, you can't change one without changing the other. In BW the difference between good macro and bad macro is insane to the extent that top tier foreigners couldn't beat top tier Koreans when they did retarded builds like mass firebats (basically the equivalent of mass reapers in sc2). In Warcraft 3 the difference in micro ability between top tier pros and mid tier pros let them win games with next to no units from huge disadvantages because the few units they did make were simply that cost efficient (idk a SC2 equivalent, maybe making 8 Blink Stalkers beat 20-30+ roaches?). In SC2 those kinds of things don't exist, because 12 roaches will always beat 8 Blink Stalkers with decent control, and it isn't nearly as hard to macro so the vast majority of experienced RTS players can do a '12 min roach max out' with maybe a days worth of practice.
From my experience, WC3 is much less mechanically demanding than SC2 mechanically. Even Grubby said this. The pace of it is so slow and that's what made it micro war game. To this day I have never seen SC2 pro that can keep up and does everything perfectly.
That's the point-- you don't need to.
As aforementioned, even diamond players can do a 12 min roach max. And going from the diamond mechanics that let you max at 12 mins, to Stephano mechanics that get you there at 11:30 simply isn't a very big return rate for the apm investment.
The biggest evidence of this can be seen with protoss. Near perfect macro takes around 100 epm. Some of the slowest pro players play Protoss, and an insanely fast protoss player really doesn't gain that big of an advantage over a slow one like Elfi, Grubby, or hasuobs. PvP is by far the worst matchup in the game in regards to the favored, aka mechanically superior, player's winrate-- look at playhem statistics to support this.
People talk about the Korean-foreign gap closing, but Koreans don't dominate (they are dominating now of course but not nearly like in BW) but the truth is foreigners are only able to compete with Koreans because of how the game is made. Very little reward for perfect macro or micro. Scarlett turtling to 62 infestors gives a much higher rate of return for much less skill than the insane multitasking and unit control Gumiho showed vs Life.
Life is still better than Scarlett anyway? So, what's the point? The reason korean dominated more in BW not only comes from the fact that BW is mechanically harder but the foriegner scene back then were not as serious as today.
On December 30 2012 09:45 Wildmoon wrote: Both are important. I think you can be the best SC2 player ever with just "good" mechanic. Mvp doesn't have outstanding mechanic but his strength lies in his planning,strategies,decision making. That's what defines RTS for me. Oh and mechanic is not somthing you can just carry over from BW to SC2 too. You practice spefic game to be mechanically good at it. Mechanic is muscle memory. It works differently in each game. Bisu is pretty bad in SC2 compare to his fellow progamers and don't say something like "because it's SC2 that made him bad,the game just doesn't let him use his skill." It's not that the game doesn't let him use his skill. He just doesn't have that much of skill in SC2 whether it's mechanic or anything.
That is a big myth. When Mvp was dominating, he had the best mechanics as well as decision making.
MKP's micro might have been looked better but that was in expense of his macro. Bomber's macro might have been better but that was in expense of his micro. Mvp was top 3 in micro AND macro which meant he had the best overall 'mechcanics'.
I would rather have a really difficulty game that I suck at if I can watch people master the game. That way I can be in awe of them. In SC2 there is far fewer events in a game that I haven't been able to pull off or rarely seen.
In BW, you could find players that would strive of great macro against another player with great micro and it's like watching the movie 300. Even if the player has a lesser army they still scrap through and have a chance to win. But the game also allows for strategy where a player can get behind in the game early but if the risk pays off they will explode late game and gain a significant lead.
As far as SC2, I prefer the game be much harder mechanically. Sometimes strategy is about making mechanics that are difficult for you easier by careful planning on how you intend to battle your opponent.
On December 30 2012 09:45 Wildmoon wrote: Both are important. I think you can be the best SC2 player ever with just "good" mechanic. Mvp doesn't have outstanding mechanic but his strength lies in his planning,strategies,decision making. That's what defines RTS for me. Oh and mechanic is not somthing you can just carry over from BW to SC2 too. You practice spefic game to be mechanically good at it. Mechanic is muscle memory. It works differently in each game. Bisu is pretty bad in SC2 compare to his fellow progamers and don't say something like "because it's SC2 that made him bad,the game just doesn't let him use his skill." It's not that the game doesn't let him use his skill. He just doesn't have that much of skill in SC2 whether it's mechanic or anything.
That is a big myth. When Mvp was dominating, he had the best mechanics as well as decision making.
MKP's micro might have been looked better but that was in expense of his macro. Bomber's macro might have been better but that was in expense of his micro. Mvp was top 3 in micro AND macro which meant he had the best overall 'mechcanics'.
That's why I said he had good mechanic and he also proved that only Strategy works too. Mvp's real strength still lie in his strategy as you can see how hood his defensive play and timing is.
On December 30 2012 09:45 Wildmoon wrote: Both are important. I think you can be the best SC2 player ever with just "good" mechanic. Mvp doesn't have outstanding mechanic but his strength lies in his planning,strategies,decision making. That's what defines RTS for me. Oh and mechanic is not somthing you can just carry over from BW to SC2 too. You practice spefic game to be mechanically good at it. Mechanic is muscle memory. It works differently in each game. Bisu is pretty bad in SC2 compare to his fellow progamers and don't say something like "because it's SC2 that made him bad,the game just doesn't let him use his skill." It's not that the game doesn't let him use his skill. He just doesn't have that much of skill in SC2 whether it's mechanic or anything.
That is a big myth. When Mvp was dominating, he had the best mechanics as well as decision making.
MKP's micro might have been looked better but that was in expense of his macro. Bomber's macro might have been better but that was in expense of his micro. Mvp was top 3 in micro AND macro which meant he had the best overall 'mechcanics'.
That's why I said he had good mechanic and he also proved that only Strategy works too. Mvp's real strength still lie in his strategy as you can see how hood his defensive play and timing is.
Uhm... when he had the best mechanics he was the best player in the world. Now he's not even a top 15 player...
I think SC2 needs more difficulty in mechanics/APM so we can see play that varies more from player to player. Pros right now rarely miss production enough that it matters even after the early game and battles seem too mathematical.
I'd like to see the BW comebacks and players that specialize in micro vs macro again. In sc2 we don't quite have that yet.
On December 30 2012 09:36 bankobauss wrote: IMO, "bw>sc2" threads about mechanics are kinda stupid because as weve seen Sc2 already is capable of absorbing 100% of the best top pro's mechanics/APM and still its not close to the ceiling. This means the pros with superior mechanics will always have massive advantages over people with inferior mechanics
im starting to think more and more that what made bisu/flash so great wasnt even their mechanics in BW, it was strategy and their mechanics of their mind not mechanics of their hands. which is why bisu in SC2 isnt completely dominating everyone with his mechanics like some thought, IMO thats because the truth is bisu was never really dominating people with his mechanics in BW it was something else entirely. It was about the mind, not the hands, all his peers had equally powerful hands.
So now in SC2 bisu is at the same equal level playing field with his competition when it comes to mechanics, but when it comes to strategy bisu has not cracked the code yet (and maybe he never will. maybe SC2 just has less strategic depth than BW) and bisu doesnt have the strategy advantage over his peers that he once had in BW so thats why bisu isnt completely destroying as predicted.
SC2 has vastly diminishing returns on effectiveness of mechanics compared to BW or WC3, period. People who have been arguing that a change raises the skill floor but doesn't affect the skill ceiling are ignorant imho, you can't change one without changing the other. In BW the difference between good macro and bad macro is insane to the extent that top tier foreigners couldn't beat top tier Koreans when they did retarded builds like mass firebats (basically the equivalent of mass reapers in sc2). In Warcraft 3 the difference in micro ability between top tier pros and mid tier pros let them win games with next to no units from huge disadvantages because the few units they did make were simply that cost efficient (idk a SC2 equivalent, maybe making 8 Blink Stalkers beat 20-30+ roaches?). In SC2 those kinds of things don't exist, because 12 roaches will always beat 8 Blink Stalkers with decent control, and it isn't nearly as hard to macro so the vast majority of experienced RTS players can do a '12 min roach max out' with maybe a days worth of practice.
From my experience, WC3 is much less mechanically demanding than SC2 mechanically. Even Grubby said this. The pace of it is so slow and that's what made it micro war game. To this day I have never seen SC2 pro that can keep up and does everything perfectly.
I agree, except in the case that mechanics in WC3 had exponential returns while mechanics in SC2 have diminishing returns. "Excellent" mechanics in SC2 don't make nearly as big of a difference as they did in BW or WC3.
There are exceptions of course, but they only occur in momentary specific scenarios (like marine splitting and tank target firing vs ling flanks and bling spreading / targeting on marines while trying to pick off tanks with muta, stalker (immortal) sentry vs roach ling from protoss side only, ect), whereas in WC3 it was basically all throughout the game that good control could make the same levels of difference. While it didn't take as much multitasking, even very subtle things from the best WC3 pro let them get landslide advantages over their opponents even when the macro aspect (from an outsiders perspective anyway) looked exactly the same.
Edit: If every single engagement in SC2 could have a vast of a range of outcomes as marine tank vs ling bling muta based purely on how well the units are controlled from both sides, who wouldn't enjoy the game more? BW had this is in Vulture micro, cute Barracks / Depot / Marine vs Zealot sim city, Mutalisk micro, Reaver drops, ect. WC3 had this in far more basic looking ways (4 unit surrounds, pulling back hurt units or denying kills, good use of abilities, ect), but WC3 also had constant action to the extent that Hu would build a Farm (depot) in Ne's base to get scouting information because if Ne took the time to kill it in the early game it would put them behind.
On December 30 2012 09:45 Wildmoon wrote: Both are important. I think you can be the best SC2 player ever with just "good" mechanic. Mvp doesn't have outstanding mechanic but his strength lies in his planning,strategies,decision making. That's what defines RTS for me. Oh and mechanic is not somthing you can just carry over from BW to SC2 too. You practice spefic game to be mechanically good at it. Mechanic is muscle memory. It works differently in each game. Bisu is pretty bad in SC2 compare to his fellow progamers and don't say something like "because it's SC2 that made him bad,the game just doesn't let him use his skill." It's not that the game doesn't let him use his skill. He just doesn't have that much of skill in SC2 whether it's mechanic or anything.
That is a big myth. When Mvp was dominating, he had the best mechanics as well as decision making.
MKP's micro might have been looked better but that was in expense of his macro. Bomber's macro might have been better but that was in expense of his micro. Mvp was top 3 in micro AND macro which meant he had the best overall 'mechcanics'.
That's why I said he had good mechanic and he also proved that only Strategy works too. Mvp's real strength still lie in his strategy as you can see how hood his defensive play and timing is.
Uhm... when he had the best mechanics he was the best player in the world. Now he's not even a top 15 player...
When he didn't have the best mechanic he reached GSL final 2 timesand won IEM.
I prefer "mechanic" in the sense of "dynamic" unit control. Which often is extremely apm intensive but doesn't have to be (ma jae yoon).
I don't care if a sc2 protoss has the best smartest build ever in terms of expansion timings/staying safe if the end result is massing colossi or just having good upgrade timings for chargelot/archon, since there is nothing dynamic about colossi and there isn't a lot of dynamic stuff about chargelot/archon. Nor do I care about a well timed roach max attack.
On December 30 2012 10:58 N.geNuity wrote: I prefer "mechanic" in the sense of "dynamic" unit control. Which often is extremely apm intensive but doesn't have to be (ma jae yoon).
I don't care if a sc2 protoss has the best smartest build ever in terms of expansion timings/staying safe if the end result is massing colossi or just having good upgrade timings for chargelot/archon, since there is nothing dynamic about colossi and there isn't a lot of dynamic stuff about chargelot/archon. Nor do I care about a well timed roach max attack.
Yeah, this is pretty much my thoughts as well. "Strategy" takes a back seat to dynamic, interesting battles that can have a vast range of outcomes based on the control of both sides.
On December 30 2012 09:36 bankobauss wrote: IMO, "bw>sc2" threads about mechanics are kinda stupid because as weve seen Sc2 already is capable of absorbing 100% of the best top pro's mechanics/APM and still its not close to the ceiling. This means the pros with superior mechanics will always have massive advantages over people with inferior mechanics
im starting to think more and more that what made bisu/flash so great wasnt even their mechanics in BW, it was strategy and their mechanics of their mind not mechanics of their hands. which is why bisu in SC2 isnt completely dominating everyone with his mechanics like some thought, IMO thats because the truth is bisu was never really dominating people with his mechanics in BW it was something else entirely. It was about the mind, not the hands, all his peers had equally powerful hands.
So now in SC2 bisu is at the same equal level playing field with his competition when it comes to mechanics, but when it comes to strategy bisu has not cracked the code yet (and maybe he never will. maybe SC2 just has less strategic depth than BW) and bisu doesnt have the strategy advantage over his peers that he once had in BW so thats why bisu isnt completely destroying as predicted.
SC2 has vastly diminishing returns on effectiveness of mechanics compared to BW or WC3, period. People who have been arguing that a change raises the skill floor but doesn't affect the skill ceiling are ignorant imho, you can't change one without changing the other. In BW the difference between good macro and bad macro is insane to the extent that top tier foreigners couldn't beat top tier Koreans when they did retarded builds like mass firebats (basically the equivalent of mass reapers in sc2). In Warcraft 3 the difference in micro ability between top tier pros and mid tier pros let them win games with next to no units from huge disadvantages because the few units they did make were simply that cost efficient (idk a SC2 equivalent, maybe making 8 Blink Stalkers beat 20-30+ roaches?). In SC2 those kinds of things don't exist, because 12 roaches will always beat 8 Blink Stalkers with decent control, and it isn't nearly as hard to macro so the vast majority of experienced RTS players can do a '12 min roach max out' with maybe a days worth of practice.
From my experience, WC3 is much less mechanically demanding than SC2 mechanically. Even Grubby said this. The pace of it is so slow and that's what made it micro war game. To this day I have never seen SC2 pro that can keep up and does everything perfectly.
That's the point-- you don't need to.
As aforementioned, even diamond players can do a 12 min roach max. And going from the diamond mechanics that let you max at 12 mins, to Stephano mechanics that get you there at 11:30 simply isn't a very big return rate for the apm investment.
The biggest evidence of this can be seen with protoss. Near perfect macro takes around 100 epm. Some of the slowest pro players play Protoss, and an insanely fast protoss player really doesn't gain that big of an advantage over a slow one like Elfi, Grubby, or hasuobs. PvP is by far the worst matchup in the game in regards to the favored, aka mechanically superior, player's winrate-- look at playhem statistics to support this.
People talk about the Korean-foreign gap closing, but Koreans don't dominate (they are dominating now of course but not nearly like in BW) but the truth is foreigners are only able to compete with Koreans because of how the game is made. Very little reward for perfect macro or micro. Scarlett turtling to 62 infestors gives a much higher rate of return for much less skill than the insane multitasking and unit control Gumiho showed vs Life.
Life is still better than Scarlett anyway? So, what's the point? The reason korean dominated more in BW not only comes from the fact that BW is mechanically harder but the foriegner scene back then were not as serious as today.
um the foreign scene wasn't serious because they were so bad, not the other way around
On December 30 2012 09:36 bankobauss wrote: IMO, "bw>sc2" threads about mechanics are kinda stupid because as weve seen Sc2 already is capable of absorbing 100% of the best top pro's mechanics/APM and still its not close to the ceiling. This means the pros with superior mechanics will always have massive advantages over people with inferior mechanics
im starting to think more and more that what made bisu/flash so great wasnt even their mechanics in BW, it was strategy and their mechanics of their mind not mechanics of their hands. which is why bisu in SC2 isnt completely dominating everyone with his mechanics like some thought, IMO thats because the truth is bisu was never really dominating people with his mechanics in BW it was something else entirely. It was about the mind, not the hands, all his peers had equally powerful hands.
So now in SC2 bisu is at the same equal level playing field with his competition when it comes to mechanics, but when it comes to strategy bisu has not cracked the code yet (and maybe he never will. maybe SC2 just has less strategic depth than BW) and bisu doesnt have the strategy advantage over his peers that he once had in BW so thats why bisu isnt completely destroying as predicted.
SC2 has vastly diminishing returns on effectiveness of mechanics compared to BW or WC3, period. People who have been arguing that a change raises the skill floor but doesn't affect the skill ceiling are ignorant imho, you can't change one without changing the other. In BW the difference between good macro and bad macro is insane to the extent that top tier foreigners couldn't beat top tier Koreans when they did retarded builds like mass firebats (basically the equivalent of mass reapers in sc2). In Warcraft 3 the difference in micro ability between top tier pros and mid tier pros let them win games with next to no units from huge disadvantages because the few units they did make were simply that cost efficient (idk a SC2 equivalent, maybe making 8 Blink Stalkers beat 20-30+ roaches?). In SC2 those kinds of things don't exist, because 12 roaches will always beat 8 Blink Stalkers with decent control, and it isn't nearly as hard to macro so the vast majority of experienced RTS players can do a '12 min roach max out' with maybe a days worth of practice.
From my experience, WC3 is much less mechanically demanding than SC2 mechanically. Even Grubby said this. The pace of it is so slow and that's what made it micro war game. To this day I have never seen SC2 pro that can keep up and does everything perfectly.
That's the point-- you don't need to.
As aforementioned, even diamond players can do a 12 min roach max. And going from the diamond mechanics that let you max at 12 mins, to Stephano mechanics that get you there at 11:30 simply isn't a very big return rate for the apm investment.
The biggest evidence of this can be seen with protoss. Near perfect macro takes around 100 epm. Some of the slowest pro players play Protoss, and an insanely fast protoss player really doesn't gain that big of an advantage over a slow one like Elfi, Grubby, or hasuobs. PvP is by far the worst matchup in the game in regards to the favored, aka mechanically superior, player's winrate-- look at playhem statistics to support this.
People talk about the Korean-foreign gap closing, but Koreans don't dominate (they are dominating now of course but not nearly like in BW) but the truth is foreigners are only able to compete with Koreans because of how the game is made. Very little reward for perfect macro or micro. Scarlett turtling to 62 infestors gives a much higher rate of return for much less skill than the insane multitasking and unit control Gumiho showed vs Life.
Life is still better than Scarlett anyway? So, what's the point? The reason korean dominated more in BW not only comes from the fact that BW is mechanically harder but the foriegner scene back then were not as serious as today.
um the foreign scene wasn't serious because they were so bad, not the other way around
There weren't so many big tournaments like there are today. You could say that they had no motivation to practice in the first place. BW is harder was one of the reasons not the only reason.
I prefer mechanics.. Harder mechanics = game is more fun to watch. You can see some signature moves like jaedong's muta micro in BW, vulture micro and the zealot bomb.
most of the sc2 games don't excite people that much. "good fungals" and 1a battles are just so boring. specially those games that ends with one clash.
On December 30 2012 12:23 SamirDuran wrote: I prefer mechanics.. Harder mechanics = game is more fun to watch. You can see some signature moves like jaedong's muta micro in BW, vulture micro and the zealot bomb.
most of the sc2 games don't excite people that much. "good fungals" and 1a battles are just so boring. specially those games that ends with one clash.
Exactly. BW pros did so many things that I simply conceded I couldn't possibly do because I didn't possess their talent.
While in this game a mid masters player doesn't really have much more to improve in his macro. Not much more he can do to control his broodlord/infestor. Just learn timings, do things a bit faster, practice a ton and walah, any slouch can be a pro gamer.
EPT
