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Austria24422 Posts
As far as counterattacks go, that just isn't true. ByuN had far less to do all over the map than TaeJa did. ByuN spent most of the game kiting ling/bane and ultras on the edge of creep. That's not harder than engaging ling/bane/muta and constantly dealing with mutas flying around.
As far as difficulty and skill goes, that's where opinions differ. Personally I think LotV is harder mechanically, but players are far less refined. I think as far as strategical diversity and complexity goes, LotV is a joke compared to HotS. Everything is centered way too much around the economy. The right "strategic" choice is always to maximize an economic lead, never to prioritize other aspects like tech or upgrades. Macro mechanics take far less skill to use now yet still aren't being utilized properly. The number of times I've seen chronoboost on "empty" buildings is insane.
Players now, despite the game in my opinion being strategically simple, are making strategic mistakes that players in 2014 would have been ashamed of. The game is much less forgiving but that doesn't make it harder, because it works both ways. You get a single power move off against your opponent's economy, you're likely winning the game. That means the winning player has less to do to create a game winning scenario.
And as far as mechanics go, I don't believe that players now are better mechanically than they used to be. That's my take, I genuinely think the only aspect that LotV is harder in is mechanics, and even that is debatable.
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On April 03 2017 04:43 pvsnp wrote:I wouldn't say inevitable, since the KeSPA team environment fostered a fairly cyclic population where you had younger amateurs practicing with the best and improving while older pros gradually retired. It wasn't a perfect system because there was less and less new blood as Starcraft lost popularity and the player population shrank (vicious cycle), but it more or less worked. Now that all of those teams have disbanded though, the situation for little-known amateurs and newcomers is really tough. I remember watching an interview (of Classic maybe?) where they were talking how the top-tier players are mostly alright but the second-tier ones are suffering. For instance, if soO wants to practice his ZvT he can just call Inno and be like "Yo, you want to play some custom games?" Most of the guys at the top know each other very well (since they've all been competing with each other for years and years) so it's not at all hard for them to find good practice partners. But the ones lower on the food chain are hard out of luck since teamhouse trainees can't practice with teamhouse aces when there isn't a teamhouse.
There's also the fact that some sports are just prone to be more top-heavy than others. Despite not having all the infrastructure problems that Starcraft II does, Tennis is insanely top-heavy. Team sports or team eSports rarely get that top-heavy.
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On April 03 2017 04:31 pvsnp wrote:
The question going forward will be how far Scarlett and/or Major can make it in GSL. It's been pointed out several times that the skill level for low-mid tier Koreans has dropped off, but that means that GSL gets very difficult very quickly because all of those players are rapidly eliminated.
In the Ro32 there are usually pretty clear favorites to advance. In the Ro16 less so, and by the Ro8 just about everyone has already been a premier-league champion. I don't really think foreigners in the Ro32 says all that much when the skill gap between the top players and everyone else has grown so huge.
GSL is obviously still the toughest and most prestigious tournament around, but both it and the entire Korean scene have gotten pretty top-heavy as of late. Winning the GSL might be as hard as it ever was; qualifying is not.
Totally agree. Qualify is one thing but advance to later stage is totally different thing. Scarlett did qualify last season so she did it again is rather obvious. I'm glad to see Major did as well though.
I'm gonna be honest here so don't kill me but I don't see them advance to Ro16. I hope they do take WCS Circuit events seriously (especially Scarlett who failed to qualify WCS Austin though Challenger NA) because those events are where they may go far and win to get enough points to go to BlizzCon. Korean seasons are too top-heavy so they will never get close to Top 8 in ranking.
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On April 03 2017 04:43 pvsnp wrote:I wouldn't say inevitable, since the KeSPA team environment fostered a fairly cyclic population where you had younger amateurs practicing with the best and improving while older pros gradually retired. It wasn't a perfect system because there was less and less new blood as Starcraft lost popularity and the player population shrank (vicious cycle), but it more or less worked. Now that all of those teams have disbanded though, the situation for little-known amateurs and newcomers is really tough. I remember watching an interview (of Classic maybe?) where they were talking how the top-tier players are mostly alright but the second-tier ones are suffering. For instance, if soO wants to practice his ZvT he can just call Inno and be like "Yo, you want to play some custom games?" Most of the guys at the top know each other very well (since they've all been competing with each other for years and years) so it's not at all hard for them to find good practice partners. But the ones lower on the food chain are hard out of luck since teamhouse trainees can't practice with teamhouse aces when there isn't a teamhouse.
That's a good point, yeah. I wonder how StarCraft will look in a year or two without the teamhouse environments anymore. I've heard reports that the players from China do well on KR ladder but still get crushed in actual tournaments because most of the gitting gud is happening behind closed doors.
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Totally agree. Qualify is one thing but advance to later stage is totally different thing. Scarlett did qualify last season so she did it again is rather obvious. I'm glad to see Major did as well though.
I'm gonna be honest here so don't kill me but I don't see them advance to Ro16. I hope they do take WCS Circuit events seriously (especially Scarlett who failed to qualify WCS Austin though Challenger NA) because those events are where they may go far and win to get enough points to go to BlizzCon. Korean seasons are too top-heavy so they will never get close to Top 8 in ranking.
No reason to be ashamed of honesty. I completely agree with your opinion; seeing somebody take advantage of a biased system (region lock is only one-way for some stupid reason) rubs me the wrong way.
As for how far they will go, bracket luck could allow Scarlett and Major to make it farther than we expect; in Season 1 Scarlett had a fairly easy group. I would say that Major will likely be eliminated in the Ro32, but Scarlett has a reasonable chance of making it to the Ro16. I would be very surprised if she makes it to the Ro8 however (would require some magical bracket luck) and astonished if she went farther than that.
And I believe Stats is allowed to choose his Ro32 opponent; both Scarlett and Major are probably near the top of his list so we might be seeing their end very soon.
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On April 03 2017 04:47 Olli wrote:Macro mechanics take far less skill to use now yet still aren't being utilized properly. The number of times I've seen chronoboost on "empty" buildings is insane.
I remember in WoL and HoTS I used to watch a lot of pro replays to try and copy them as much as possible. I would often see that making basic macro mistakes was still a thing (even like getting supply blocked and forgeting about chronos).
On April 03 2017 04:47 Olli wrote:Players now, despite the game in my opinion being strategically simple, are making strategic mistakes that players in 2014 would have been ashamed of. The game is much less forgiving but that doesn't make it harder, because it works both ways. You get a single power move off against your opponent's economy, you're likely winning the game. That means the winning player has less to do to create a game winning scenario.
No. Just no that's not how it works. If you make a game mechcanically harder to play for each side, arguably it is no "harder" because each opponent suffers the same drawbacks, but in reality the play will just be less clean on both sides (the better player still winning most likely).
I do believe that some people are forgetting the level of skill that HoTS had going around, it's easy to only remember the very cleanest moments (why would anyone remember the 90% which was medicore). Nowadays there are players showing amazing skill like TY, Inno or Stats, but now that everyones comparing the skill to that of previous years the poor/mediocre plays become more of a talking point.
Remember IEM Katowice 2015 (the last one in hots), the whole cup was mostly trash games. Zest won dispite mostly meh performance (his form was clearly lacking the in 2015 compared to 14/16). Meanwhile the latest IEM KW had a huge display of skill from the top guys. It was a good ass tournament
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That's a good point, yeah. I wonder how StarCraft will look in a year or two without the teamhouse environments anymore. I've heard reports that the players from China do well on KR ladder but still get crushed in actual tournaments because most of the gitting gud is happening behind closed doors.
I expect the situation to continue down the current path; the skill gap between the Best and the Rest will simply grow wider and wider until all of the Best get too old/join the army/retire. Call me pessimistic, but I think the current generation of super-aces will be the last generation; there's no rising stars on the horizon to replace them once they fade away.
Of course there are still people trying their damnedest to improve and I really hope they succeed. There are still a few resources left, like all the streams of the top-tier players that are around now that teams don't forbid them.
For example, DeMuslim said "INnoVation's stream is God's gift to Terran." The guy averages 1k-2k viewers every session and they certainly aren't coming for his winning personality. But still, watching somebody is very different than practicing with somebody, and copying INnoVation's build orders does not transform a man into The Machine.
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Wow wow that's sick ! Easy brackets maybe, but hyped anyway.
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On April 03 2017 03:43 Olli wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2017 03:34 Fango wrote:On April 02 2017 23:50 Olli wrote:
Besides, I rounded up some numbers a while ago about that Byun vs Dark game on KSS that people called one of the best ever, and they didn't hold up to the Life vs Taeja game on the same map 2 years prior. What numbers? Can you really judge the skill level of top players based of in game stats from different expansions? It's worth noting that any long back and forth/"down to the last units" type of game in a blizzcon final will get people saying its one of the GOATS. Although imo it was still a really great game. And overall I would rather watch ByuN vs Dark than Life vs MMA finals any day. "Did players get worse or did the game just get harder?" is a discussion. I think that Dark/Inno/TY/Stats right now and as good as Inno is 2013, zest in 2014, life in 2014/15 etc. But making no mistakes in LoTV is way more demanding than in HoTS. The "way more demanding" argument that people make is exactly what I looked at, because it's a misconception that everything is harder now. If you look at the TvZ ByuN played against Dark on KSS for example, all he had to do was micro against ling/bane, because mutas weren't a thing at that point in LotV. He had no counterattacks to worry about, no mutas killing his medivacs and making fights more difficult, etc. So what exactly is more difficult here? Compare that to Taeja vs Life from BlizzCon 2014. Bio is still controlled exactly the way it used to be. Macro still works the same way as far as difficulty goes. Everything functions the same way, only that ByuN actually had far less to do than Taeja did, because there were no mutalisks on the map. Some matchups are harder mechanically now, sure. PvP for example, although it's lost a ton of strategic depth for it. But the idea that everything is much harder now and that players are automatically better now because of it is absolute nonsense.
i agree that terran faces lessc ounter attack than in HOTS
the most impressive games for me were always Taeja, life and MMA. mma said once "form is temporary class is permanent" (something along these lines) and it really stuck with me. he was talkinga bout losing a series to MC, and how much respect he has for MC who really was a brilliant strategic player. what he meant by it is that players like Byun and Maru (form / micro players) will be here today and gone tomorrow. But will always remember the legends like life, Taeja, MVP, and MC because even if their (form / micro) isnt as good, they are the masters of strategy.
when the going gets rough, byun/maru cut workers and build bio/medivacs basically
when the going gets rough, taeja would hide a CC/mc would go dts and continue workers lol
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On April 03 2017 04:47 Olli wrote:
As far as counterattacks go, that just isn't true. ByuN had far less to do all over the map than TaeJa did. ByuN spent most of the game kiting ling/bane and ultras on the edge of creep. That's not harder than engaging ling/bane/muta and constantly dealing with mutas flying around.
As far as difficulty and skill goes, that's where opinions differ. Personally I think LotV is harder mechanically, but players are far less refined. I think as far as strategical diversity and complexity goes, LotV is a joke compared to HotS. Everything is centered way too much around the economy. The right "strategic" choice is always to maximize an economic lead, never to prioritize other aspects like tech or upgrades. Macro mechanics take far less skill to use now yet still aren't being utilized properly. The number of times I've seen chronoboost on "empty" buildings is insane.
Players now, despite the game in my opinion being strategically simple, are making strategic mistakes that players in 2014 would have been ashamed of. The game is much less forgiving but that doesn't make it harder, because it works both ways. You get a single power move off against your opponent's economy, you're likely winning the game. That means the winning player has less to do to create a game winning scenario.
And as far as mechanics go, I don't believe that players now are better mechanically than they used to be. That's my take, I genuinely think the only aspect that LotV is harder in is mechanics, and even that is debatable.
Fighting ultras might not be harder than fighting LBM, but it sure as hell wasn't easier. TaeJa's first push faced much less ling/bane than ByuN's did, and ByuN had to deal with a lot of queens, TaeJa had several lackluster splits in the game, losing lots of marines, while ByuN's insistence on kiting/pick up rather than splitting actually worked incredibly well for him (I know, no mutas, but still). And I honestly don't quite see how having mutas flying around means having so much more actions to do.
In LotV, I've found it not to be economy-centered, but army-centered, actually, it sort of feels that econ damage is a lot more dampened and less crippling in LotV as it was in HotS. Map control and army movement I feel are more important than ever in LotV, especially with how much harder armies are to control now. I have also never seen or felt that econ plays >>>>> tech plays in LotV.
That means the winning player has less to do to create a game winning scenario.
The losing player also has less to do to make a comeback play of their own.
I think players have indeed matched up to the mechanical increase in LotV, especially with control, because LotV added so many new micro intensive units that pros are actually using really well. And I think players are much better with, like I said, army movement and map control (I still get traumatic flashbacks of tankivac TvT).
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On April 03 2017 05:02 pvsnp wrote:Show nested quote +Totally agree. Qualify is one thing but advance to later stage is totally different thing. Scarlett did qualify last season so she did it again is rather obvious. I'm glad to see Major did as well though.
I'm gonna be honest here so don't kill me but I don't see them advance to Ro16. I hope they do take WCS Circuit events seriously (especially Scarlett who failed to qualify WCS Austin though Challenger NA) because those events are where they may go far and win to get enough points to go to BlizzCon. Korean seasons are too top-heavy so they will never get close to Top 8 in ranking. No reason to be ashamed of honesty. I completely agree with your opinion; seeing somebody take advantage of a biased system (region lock is only one-way for some stupid reason) rubs me the wrong way. As for how far they will go, bracket luck could allow Scarlett and Major to make it farther than we expect; in Season 1 Scarlett had a fairly easy group. I would say that Major will likely be eliminated in the Ro32, but Scarlett has a reasonable chance of making it to the Ro16. I would be very surprised if she makes it to the Ro8 however (would require some magical bracket luck) and astonished if she went farther than that. And I believe Stats is allowed to choose his Ro32 opponent; both Scarlett and Major are probably near the top of his list so we might be seeing their end very soon.
yeah im scared for scarlett, the toss in kr are not the same race, but as a foreigner i am so happy to be represented
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On April 03 2017 04:47 Olli wrote:
As far as counterattacks go, that just isn't true. ByuN had far less to do all over the map than TaeJa did. ByuN spent most of the game kiting ling/bane and ultras on the edge of creep. That's not harder than engaging ling/bane/muta and constantly dealing with mutas flying around.
As far as difficulty and skill goes, that's where opinions differ. Personally I think LotV is harder mechanically, but players are far less refined. I think as far as strategical diversity and complexity goes, LotV is a joke compared to HotS. Everything is centered way too much around the economy. The right "strategic" choice is always to maximize an economic lead, never to prioritize other aspects like tech or upgrades. Macro mechanics take far less skill to use now yet still aren't being utilized properly. The number of times I've seen chronoboost on "empty" buildings is insane.
Players now, despite the game in my opinion being strategically simple, are making strategic mistakes that players in 2014 would have been ashamed of. The game is much less forgiving but that doesn't make it harder, because it works both ways. You get a single power move off against your opponent's economy, you're likely winning the game. That means the winning player has less to do to create a game winning scenario.
And as far as mechanics go, I don't believe that players now are better mechanically than they used to be. That's my take, I genuinely think the only aspect that LotV is harder in is mechanics, and even that is debatable.
I 100% agree with everything you say. HotS was a hundred times deeper. I had big hopes SC2 would be great in HotS, mostly when it wasn't figured out. Then it began to be figured out and, one after the other, oracles and blink (PvT), SHs (all Z mus), blink/sentry (PvZ) and mech (TvZ) damaged the game beyond repair. Then came LotV, that mostly solved zero problems while adding others (12 workers start, new eco, new units - mostly the adept and the liberator -...). Now we have the game as it is, very eco and harass focused with very little strategic depth. But that's the game we're going to get so I think we have to get along with it.
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i hope MajOr makes something happen...he's so much better than most foreigners, including some that have won premier tournaments in the past year....*cough*....Ptitdrogo...
maybe he can finally showcase his skill
chances are though, he'll disappoint 
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I can't speak to the strategy aspect, but LotV is way more fun to watch than HotS. I was super into WoL and watched pretty much all of it, and I could not take watching HotS games. Especially when they turned into 1 hour slow death swarm host games. ZvT was one of my favorite matchups to watch in WoL and became my least favorite in HotS. I basically stopped watching during HotS and came back for LotV.
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i hope MajOr makes something happen...he's so much better than most foreigners, including some that have won premier tournaments in the past year....*cough*....Ptitdrogo...
maybe he can finally showcase his skill
chances are though, he'll disappoint
He might be much better than most foreigners....but he is not competing in a tournament with most foreigners. GSL hype!
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On April 02 2017 22:37 DieuCure wrote:
"Highest skilled era"
comments like this is why i am disgusted of reading TL
When foreigners don't reach GSL at all, they are not capable enough
when foreigners do reach GSL, its because the amount of chlorine in Seoul's tap water reached abnormal levels suddenly and made all koreans dizzy
How about you try to compete in, ugh, anything, and when everyone spits on you on public forums for trying , then we see how you feel.
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Scarlett's group was seriously the easiest it gets. Not that it wasn't impressive, and props to Cloudy for getting close! It'll definitely be refreshing to have some foreigners there!
And whoo, go Major!
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:D Scarlett!!! Very excited 
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Wow what happened to Cure? He used to be so good. I liked watching him.
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EPT
