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How come SC2 results are so unpredictable? - Page 4

Forum Index > SC2 General
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StarStruck
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
25339 Posts
December 11 2013 14:51 GMT
#61
On December 11 2013 23:48 Plansix wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 11 2013 23:43 opterown wrote:
i find the thinly veiled BW elitism in some of these posts rather amusing

I love the totally flawed argument: results not predictable = skill level on the game must be to low.

Like people could predict Alliance being knocked out of MLG or Speed winning over DK, even with a stand in. Clearly Dota 2 is a low skill game because of these unpredictable outcomes.


ha ha ha. For me, Dota has so many moving pieces and try to watch what I can solemnly.
TheDougler
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada8320 Posts
December 11 2013 14:52 GMT
#62
My opinion is that Soulkey and Alive aren't actually bad. I mean, Alive won one of the most stacked tournaments of all time.
I root for Euro Zergs, NA Protoss* and Korean Terrans. (Any North American who has beat a Korean Pro as Protoss counts as NA Toss)
Seeker *
Profile Blog Joined April 2005
Where dat snitch at?37108 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-11 14:54:50
December 11 2013 14:54 GMT
#63
Praise KadaverBB for getting rid of that s in the title. <3

GO VOTE FOR HIM! http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=436997
ModeratorPeople ask me, "Seeker, what are you seeking?" My answer? "Sleep, damn it! Always sleep!"
TL+ Member
StarStruck
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
25339 Posts
December 11 2013 14:55 GMT
#64
On December 11 2013 23:52 TheDougler wrote:
My opinion is that Soulkey and Alive aren't actually bad. I mean, Alive won one of the most stacked tournaments of all time.


IGN most stacked? Maybe for it's time lol and who in the blue hell would call SoulKey bad? Terrible example to use especially considering he's one of the most consistent players in the scene today. He's what I call easy money to make off of.
grs
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Germany2339 Posts
December 11 2013 14:56 GMT
#65
On December 11 2013 23:54 Seeker wrote:
Praise KadaverBB for getting rid of that s in the title. <3

GO VOTE FOR HIM! http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=436997

He would get my vote if he closed this 1000th installment of the same bs thread.
GumBa
Profile Blog Joined July 2012
United Kingdom31935 Posts
December 11 2013 14:57 GMT
#66
We have had periods of consitency though take Life Mvp or Innovation as examplle of periods of dominance.
Hell JD Soulkey and Innovation have all been consistent all year long.
To all the haters: you deserve to witness many, many more Serral victories, worthy of the godlike player he is.
StarStruck
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
25339 Posts
December 11 2013 14:58 GMT
#67
On December 11 2013 23:57 GumBa wrote:
We have had periods of consitency though take Life Mvp or Innovation as examplle of periods of dominance.
Hell JD Soulkey and Innovation have all been consistent all year long.


I could list a lot more than that.
Plansix
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States60190 Posts
December 11 2013 15:00 GMT
#68
On December 11 2013 23:56 grs wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 11 2013 23:54 Seeker wrote:
Praise KadaverBB for getting rid of that s in the title. <3

GO VOTE FOR HIM! http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=436997

He would get my vote if he closed this 1000th installment of the same bs thread.

It's only value is people mocking the topic and showing how silly the idea that predictable outcomes somehow show that a game has a high skill cap. It's like the OP thinks that robots control the armies in SC2.
I have the Honor to be your Obedient Servant, P.6
TL+ Member
Squat
Profile Joined September 2013
Sweden7978 Posts
December 11 2013 15:07 GMT
#69
On December 11 2013 21:47 marvellosity wrote:
You'll probably get a load of different responses about the nature of the game, but in part it's simply because series are so short. BO3s and BO5s are really incredibly volatile things.

It's kinda like playing only one set in tennis.

In chess, you get tournaments where it's all play all (usually) so everyone has the whole tournament to perform. In FIDE's short knockout world championships in the 90s and 2000s, there were a lot of "random" chess 'world champions' - Khalifman, Ponamariov, Khazimdzhanov (spelling) - random, quite strong GMs, but not actually world class. These tournaments are a pretty good equivalent of how SC2 tournaments are structured tbh, and the outcome is STILL really unpredictable, even though chess is a game of perfect information/much less (if any) luck.

BW in general had shorter series than SC2, a Bo7 more or less never happened. SC2 just does not reward mechanical skill and multitasking in the same way, the game does not allow for the same separation of good players and great players.

All ins and timings are incredibly strong, a player who does not want to play macro vs a stronger opponent does not have to, look at the proliferation of protoss players who are known for doing nothing but all-ins and timings. MC for a long time built his entire career on that kind of playstyle. That would never have worked in BW.

People will retort that SC2 and BW are different games, and that's fine, but if we are going to accept that SC2 is never going to live up to BW in certain respects, we also have to accept that some good things from BW are never going to exist in SC2. Consistency is one of these things. Running battles and truly game-changing micro are some other things.

There will never be an SC2 Bonjwa, the closest we've ever come and are ever likely to come is MVP, and that was back when terran had an enormous toolbox to use in every match-up.

"Digital. They have digital. What is digital?" - Donald J Trump
Kasaraki
Profile Blog Joined May 2012
Denmark7115 Posts
December 11 2013 15:10 GMT
#70
On December 11 2013 23:43 opterown wrote:
i find the thinly veiled BW elitism in some of these posts rather amusing

"Thinly"?
grs
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Germany2339 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-11 15:31:14
December 11 2013 15:16 GMT
#71
On December 12 2013 00:10 Kasaraki wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 11 2013 23:43 opterown wrote:
i find the thinly veiled BW elitism in some of these posts rather amusing

"Thinly"?

"Thinly veiled"; e.g. hardly veiled at all.
TheDougler
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada8320 Posts
December 11 2013 15:16 GMT
#72
Whoops I just misread the OP sorry
I root for Euro Zergs, NA Protoss* and Korean Terrans. (Any North American who has beat a Korean Pro as Protoss counts as NA Toss)
DinoMight
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States3725 Posts
December 11 2013 15:21 GMT
#73
On December 11 2013 23:35 Caladan wrote:
That's like the 500th thread about this topic.

In Short:
- The skill ceiling in Sc2 is too low, so on top level everyone can beat everyone. Victories are determined by daily form, small advantages and luck.
- Lack of scouting possibilities in early game leads to more all-in-play and build order wins/losses.
- Lack of defender high ground advantage leads to more static game play and one-battle-takes-it-all games. You win one battle and your opponent needs to gg because there are barely possibilities to defend with fewer units against far more units.

So, that's it. There cannot be something like a Bonjwa in SC2.


Except Taeja who won 5 tournaments this year and destroyed everyone's face in the last three tournaments he played in. And Jaedong who took 5 2nd places and 1 st place this year. Or MVP who was undisputed king of the world for quite some time.

People need to realize that even in BW these "bonjwas" had their ups and their downs.

"Wtf I come back and find myself in camp DinoMight all of a sudden, feels weird man." -Wombat_NI
SpaceCow
Profile Joined February 2013
Germany21 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-11 15:25:23
December 11 2013 15:24 GMT
#74
I've enjoyed watching broodwar and I enjoy watching Hots. And if I take off the nostalgia googles I can clearly see that BW was "random" too. For example the oh soo dominant NaDa needed 4 YEARS to win his 3 OSL trophies. Was he consistent? yes! was he able to win every tournament he entered? no! When people think back to BW they just often seem to only see the "big picture".
If you look back at the early stages of WoL, Mvp,Nestea and MC all have been very dominant but they also lost games. Mvp often got knocked out quite early in the GSL and suddenly next season he looked so dominant and made to the finals. In the big picture he is also one of the most consistent pro gamers ever but he still cannot win ever series.

Maybe it's just that the top koreans are just closer in skill that most people want to realise. How come we never see a random foreigner win a tournament? (or a foreigner at all...) How come one of these open online qualifiers for big tournaments are won by top pros 99% of the time? because the game is soo random? I don't think so. Top players are just much closer in skill than people want to admit because they want to cheer for this one hero no one can beat.
The_Darkness
Profile Joined December 2011
United States910 Posts
December 11 2013 15:31 GMT
#75
On December 11 2013 22:40 BrieFanFiction wrote:
Look, let me bring some common sense into this thread. I have a 71% accuracy rating on Liquibets, and I am FAR from the best at picking winners. In fact when I started using Liquibet I would randomly pick broodwar players and even SC2 players I hadn't heard of, so nowadays my SC2 accuracy rating is probably closer to ~80%. 80% predictability is not low in my opinion (especially since I am not up on all the players quirks, like say Apollo is). We need to get some Liquibet masters in here to explain how SC2 winners are actually pretty predictable.

Have you ever asked yourself if the winners are hard for you to predict because you don't know enough about the players, game, and maps?

Who is the most accurate SC2 Liquibetter and what is their accuracy percentage? Because in my mind, that is a good way to determine how predictable this game is. I'll bet they're shooting 90%+

edit: And stop talking about always knowing who will win a tournament as if it would be a good thing.


I actually haven't found it difficult to predict winners at all. I was #1 for a good portion of this season (until I missed a week's worth of picks because I was traveling; i have around an 80% win percentage currently). I don't find it difficult at all to sort between the players. People have to remember when you're picking it's not just is this player better than this player -- it's is this player better than this player at this particular match up and is there any reason that this player is not going to perform up to expectations? You can look at a bunch of other factors too but I think there are diminishing returns. Because of the way matchups change, and because of the constant balance patches, it's amazing that there is as much consistency as there is but it's clearly there.

The fact that SC2 doesn't simply seed most tournaments based solely on past results or Elo contributes to randomness as well. It always seems like in WCS Korea one of the groups is a "group of death" and the strongest players are knocking each other out. If one player has suffered more than anyone from that it has to be Flash.
To be is to be the value of a bound variable.
StarStruck
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
25339 Posts
December 11 2013 15:37 GMT
#76
On December 12 2013 00:31 The_Darkness wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 11 2013 22:40 BrieFanFiction wrote:
Look, let me bring some common sense into this thread. I have a 71% accuracy rating on Liquibets, and I am FAR from the best at picking winners. In fact when I started using Liquibet I would randomly pick broodwar players and even SC2 players I hadn't heard of, so nowadays my SC2 accuracy rating is probably closer to ~80%. 80% predictability is not low in my opinion (especially since I am not up on all the players quirks, like say Apollo is). We need to get some Liquibet masters in here to explain how SC2 winners are actually pretty predictable.

Have you ever asked yourself if the winners are hard for you to predict because you don't know enough about the players, game, and maps?

Who is the most accurate SC2 Liquibetter and what is their accuracy percentage? Because in my mind, that is a good way to determine how predictable this game is. I'll bet they're shooting 90%+

edit: And stop talking about always knowing who will win a tournament as if it would be a good thing.


I actually haven't found it difficult to predict winners at all. I was #1 for a good portion of this season (until I missed a week's worth of picks because I was traveling; i have around an 80% win percentage currently). I don't find it difficult at all to sort between the players. People have to remember when you're picking it's not just is this player better than this player -- it's is this player better than this player at this particular match up and is there any reason that this player is not going to perform up to expectations? You can look at a bunch of other factors too but I think there are diminishing returns. Because of the way matchups change, and because of the constant balance patches, it's amazing that there is as much consistency as there is but it's clearly there.

The fact that SC2 doesn't simply seed most tournaments based solely on past results or Elo contributes to randomness as well. It always seems like in WCS Korea one of the groups is a "group of death" and the strongest players are knocking each other out. If one player has suffered more than anyone from that it has to be Flash.


That's all I needed to hear. Case closed.
urboss
Profile Joined September 2013
Austria1223 Posts
December 11 2013 15:37 GMT
#77
I believe that this issue is quite important for any sport in general.
If the results become random, people just stop caring.

The question is what there can be done about it.
grs
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Germany2339 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-11 15:41:13
December 11 2013 15:40 GMT
#78
On December 12 2013 00:37 urboss wrote:
I believe that this issue is quite important for any sport in general.
If the results become random, people just stop caring.

The question is what there can be done about it.

I think the first step is making posts on TL. When doing that, it is of importance not to react to any counterarguments and facts disproving the statement.
Ansinjunger
Profile Joined November 2010
United States2451 Posts
December 11 2013 15:41 GMT
#79
A ton of players who won major tournaments this year were repeat winners or in JD's case very high placers (or he's a repeat winner, obviously, if you count BW). That speaks of consistency, at least among a group. Flash in BW never got that 4th OSL; even the GOAT had very stiff competition at the top.
Plansix
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States60190 Posts
December 11 2013 15:41 GMT
#80
On December 12 2013 00:37 urboss wrote:
I believe that this issue is quite important for any sport in general.
If the results become random, people just stop caring.

The question is what there can be done about it.

Nothing, because the results are not random. The better player wins on the give day. That's why the NFL has the phrase "Any given Sunday". Also people care more if there is a chance of an upset. No one likes knowing the outcome before hand.
I have the Honor to be your Obedient Servant, P.6
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