EPTThe Myth of Expectations - Page 4
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insitelol
845 Posts
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AzAlexZ
Australia3303 Posts
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Vendethiel
213 Posts
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Olli
Austria24422 Posts
On May 03 2017 16:54 Vendethiel wrote: I guess this is a "WoL was better" writing prompt You missed the point of the article entirely. | ||
Ragnarork
France9034 Posts
It's really interesting to see these players being dissected (right in the continuation of your intro about the community doing that for everything of value) beyond one- or two-word archetypes that don't really tell their story but just give only a small hint at what a player career looks or looked like. It feels like these simple archetypes, categories can be useful for describing players quickly to newcomers to the game, but past that, it's so oversimplifying that it becomes quite a shame to summarize so much when there's an interesting and unique story behind a player's career. Oh and one little fix I'd make (j/k): Ultimately, the history of StarCraft 2 is recorded by the community rather than the players (and of course Liquipedia)  | ||
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Locutos
Brazil273 Posts
But a lot of the stereotypes are fed from the classifications given by TL writers, like the Bomber Law, Royal roaders and so on... | ||
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Olli
Austria24422 Posts
On May 03 2017 20:11 Locutos wrote: Interesting. But a lot of the stereotypes are fed from the classifications given by TL writers, like the Bomber Law, Royal roaders and so on... We do create these archetypes sometimes to build storylines, which is necessary in a way for us to write articles. But from there on it's largely out of our hands. Sometimes these stick for years (Bomber's Law is a good example), sometimes they don't. We have little to no influence on what casters, other community figures, other websites (Reddit) or even the community itself come up with or turn into a "thing" that sticks around. The trick in my opinion is not to get too caught up in them and judge a player only by those. There isn't one definitive story behind a player. You could tell their story in a thousand different ways if only you're given the necessary information and perspective. But yes, you're right that we are partially to blame for creating the expectations and image the community has of players. | ||
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neptunusfisk
2286 Posts
Squirtles reign could have been longer if he wasn't soul crushed, and Dear only managed to dominate two or three tournaments before he vanished. Zest on the other hand, kept going for a year and a half, because he was a beast. I still remember those final games squirtle played in the GSL (that loss despite stellar micro on neo planet s!) which seemed in a way to be the start of a comeback, but alas, it never happened. Similar story for dear. Zest can still do it, and he probably will... | ||
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DieuCure
France3713 Posts
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Liox
Germany47 Posts
Nice article, I actually agree in general. I mean no harm by writing this but this is just one example of how people try to project their hopes and dreams of success and happiness onto people who actually achieve them. And it is a totally normal phenomenon (I guess the most common example would be children and the expectations / wishes projected on them by their parents), nonetheless a dreadful one. And actually, one has to admire those kids / young adults who deal with this pressure the whole time. I pay respect to all who try. | ||
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ClaudeSc2
United States73 Posts
On May 03 2017 01:42 Shellshock wrote: TL trying to prop up TaeJa again with his 0 korean titles. will probably get another terran of the year award Yeah Taeja getting over praised on TL seems a bit too common. And the defense of his foreign titles is that he beat X (high level Korean) in the finals or Ro4...as if this is equal to beating X (high level Korean) in the qualifiers, Ro32, Ro16, Ro8, Ro4, and Finals. Sorry for digressing from the main point of this article though. "It’s easy to forget every player in the Ro32 is in the 99th percentile of all StarCraft players. The difference in skill between a gatekeeper and Stats seems huge within the game, but the gap is composed of an accumulation of minor details. In reality they are the best of the best. To forget that fact is to undermine a player’s legitimacy. Moreso it whitewashes how hard it is to even maintain a presence in Code S." I don't think it's easy to forget this. I was just at DreamHack Austin and if any Code S Korean was placed (that's been playing in Korea) into that tournament you'd probably have to concede that they'd be the favorite to win the entire thing or at least pencil them into the Ro4. We've seen foreign hopes get smashed by B-tier Koreans or A-tiers in poor form and we aren't ever surprised by this. I'd also go farther to say that the reason that people are judged relative to where they have been before, is because we want to see consistent increases in skill until a very high level is reached and if there is a drop off in a results, we'd like to still see good showings (I would argue Byun falls under this category, I've still seen a lot of brilliance in the multiple series he's lost in 2017). When you see players reach great heights and fall off hard with consistent poor outings (Leenock and Jjakji vs basically every top tier protoss during HotS). What else can you think besides...their lack of consistency and failure to improve with the pack diminishes their championships. Compared to INnoVation, who's results slumped at times, but you could always tell the skill and understanding was there, and that he'd be back on top soon enough. (Life definitely falls into this category too, but he's broken all of our hearts and it's sad to mention him). My hope for Sc2 (which is likely an irrational one) is that the consistency of the top Code S players will be more similar to professional tennis (the premier 1v1 sport because I don't consider golf a sport). Over the last 15 years we saw Roger Federer win 18 majors, Rafael Nadal win 14, and Novak Djokavic win 12. All of these guys had at least 1 year where they won at least 3 majors in a row and weren't making the finals in 1 major and then dropping out before the 4th round in the next. There were 60 majors during this time and 44 were won by these guys, the other 16 will be remembered as fierce competitors of high skill that will be remembered as elite players but aren't legends. Basically every E-sport has shown to be more volatile than this, but it'd be nice if the results of the best players were CLOSER to this level of consistency. GG NO RE | ||
NonY
8751 Posts
Yeah Taeja getting over praised on TL seems a bit too common. And the defense of his foreign titles is that he beat X (high level Korean) in the finals or Ro4...as if this is equal to beating X (high level Korean) in the qualifiers, Ro32, Ro16, Ro8, Ro4, and Finals. Or the people praising Taeja actually watched the games and didn't just check the results. You can look at tournaments, matches and individual games, and tally results and calculate strength of opponent. But you can also watch a player play and see how good they are. In sports it's known as "the eye test" and it refers to, all data aside, how good does a player look when you watch them play. There's nothing wrong with having attempts at objective arguments based on results (futile as they may be) but you can't dismiss the opinions of people who have been watching/playing SC for over a decade just because they're not attempting to play your game. People who watched all these great players play in the context of their eras are allowed to just assert an opinion. If a consensus forms out of all those opinions, then it deserves some respect. In basketball, they've been keeping stats well beyond win/loss for decades. But analytics have only recently begun to advance to the point of being able to create some deeper and more meaningful conclusions about players' performance from these stats. Some players of the past who were praised by the eye test but did not have the raw stats to support that praise have been vindicated by advanced analytics finding ways to support the effectiveness of those players. Compared to SC2, where we don't even keep any stats beyond win/loss, we are a bit helpless in comparing the abilities of players. It always surprises me a bit when people get so involved in an argument totally based on results. It does not even require any expertise of SC2 or knowledge of the scene at all. It all boils down to on win/loss and strength of opponent and is basically an exercise in statistical analysis or something. Give a guy educated on those things a data dump and that's that. What is the point? Why come to a forum of SC2 fans to do a math problem? Watch the game, discuss the game. Taeja was a fucking beast and anyone who watched him play with some decent understanding of the game knows that. | ||
Waxangel
United States33603 Posts
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igay
Australia1178 Posts
On May 03 2017 22:00 neptunusfisk wrote: I think of Zest in a similar way to Squirtle and Dear: they all bashed everyone in macro games and seemed flawless for a while and then dissappeared... Squirtles reign could have been longer if he wasn't soul crushed, and Dear only managed to dominate two or three tournaments before he vanished. Zest on the other hand, kept going for a year and a half, because he was a beast. I still remember those final games squirtle played in the GSL (that loss despite stellar micro on neo planet s!) which seemed in a way to be the start of a comeback, but alas, it never happened. Similar story for dear. Zest can still do it, and he probably will... The over extension that cost squirtle his career | ||
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JudeauTV
Germany262 Posts
On May 04 2017 05:34 Waxangel wrote: It's fascinating how the simplification of narratives occurs in esports, just as it does in traditional sports, even though most esports fans/players/voices don't have a history of following traditional sports. It's equally fascinating to see the exact same backlash against lazy cliches, and call for more nuanced discussions. I don't really find it neither fascinating nor surprising. Humans are humans - what can one expect? | ||
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Edpayasugo
United Kingdom2217 Posts
On May 03 2017 11:05 JackONeill wrote: What bothers me the most isn't that casters are overselling a player, since they're pretty much forced to do so to induce hype and excitement. I'm not annoyed by Tastosis screaming about Byun's micro, since he is probably the best terran micro ATM. On the other hand, i'm much more bothered by casters to repeat over and over again the liturgy about how "this is the best state SC2's always been". It may come from my personal beef with HOTS and LOTV, but throughout terrible states of design or balance hearing casters chanting about how great the game "is right now" was especially infuriating. But it also has a direct repercution on what's described here. Because HOTS and then LOTV traded off much of WOL's strategic components for execution and micro ones, the best players in the game are mostly very good at execution, not at being a good strategist. I was already scoffing at casters shouting "great forcefields !", "huge storm !", "massive fungal !" and so on during WOL. But now, the players being hyped are mostly very good at execution, and seeing casters praising that while mostly dissmissing other aspects of the play is very annoying. However, i do admit that because LOTV is LOTV, there's often not much to talk about or praise than the execution. When every TvZ is a double medivac marine drop with stim, you can't really talk about the build, strategic decisions, or gameplan. Only about "oh he focus fired 4 banes in a row how amazing !". Also, what we have to notice is that the level of analysis by casters dropped hugely since WOL. I've seen Dark rolling over every single terran during HOTS with banes/roaches/corruptors because everyone was going biomine because marine/tanks sucked against mutas, and i've never heard a single caster mention that. Only that "Dark is the best TvZ in the world !". And with LOTV, it's even worse. I've heard casters say countless time that gateball can't beat bio with medivacs and stim, and act baffled when a protoss player did, praising him in a general way with no explanation whatsoever. More specifically, i've never heard any caster talk about the huge influence of guardian shield, the 1 native armor on the adept the marauder nerf. How bio vs gateball fights usually revolved around guardian shield heavily lowering marauder attacks, or how some terran players manually position the marauders in front against adept heavy compositions to protect the marines. I've seen Maru destroy adept/sentries army with that, but without the casters even mentionning it. It'd be like WOL casters commentating bio/vikings vs gate/colossi fight without explaning mentionning how did the vikings perform against the colossi. I guess it's because casters don't really play the game as much as before? Or that they're less interested in the game? I dunno, and maybe i missed some good analysis during casts, but to conclude i'd say players are praised mainly on their execution and not the other components of their play, and that both those aspects and the execution are often not analysed at all, with casters only chanting the "Byun/Zest/Dark/etc is sooooo gooooood". The state of the game, the players, everything is dumbed down to being "sooo goood". This is the best comment on an interesting and discussion provoking piece. Someone else also commented on an analysis of Dear's rise and fall which would be very interesting to read,certainly more so than hearing about Mvp again. Also, to add to the never ending debate, like many I also feel Mvp's achievement s have been blown out of proportion (especially his '4th miracle', and although I'm not a Taeja fan I think, at least until ByuN, he showed the highest level play of anyone I saw (which isn't to say he is the GOAT) | ||
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xtorn
4060 Posts
though now i feel guilty for having said that zest is no longer best | ||
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Fango
United Kingdom8987 Posts
On May 03 2017 16:00 AzAlexZ wrote: Do one for Neeb Neeb's one would be easier. I don't think he ever peaked and then dropped off in skill, but expectations were blown out of proportion for him cause of KeSPA Cup hype. To any casual you might think that if he can win a KR major then he is a top 5 player or something, which would make sense. Neeb was (and still is maybe?) the best disruptor player in the world. It should be no suprise that he won a cup playing disruptor vs disruptor every game (against opponents which barely knew how to use them properly). The problem came about because people thought he would naturally dominate as hard in other matchups and metas. That's where expectations come in. But he's still a top foreigner, heck I was favour him in a bo7 vs Trap any day. I see people relating Starcraft to games like tennis, I mean yes it's 1v1 but it can never be as consistant. New maps/metas/patches/expansions change everything about how a game is played (never played tennis idk if theres a deeper meta to it). Neeb is an example of how good you can be at a specific meta or matchup. | ||
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207aicila
1237 Posts
On May 03 2017 21:02 Olli wrote: We have little to no influence on what casters, other community figures, other websites (Reddit) or even the community itself come up with or turn into a "thing" that sticks around. I guess no one remembers that cringy forced meme of "elfi is god" which was shitposted even by staff members.  | ||
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Wintex
Norway16838 Posts
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