On September 12 2017 13:06 RenSC2 wrote: Autumn22 has a good solution with creating notes. After a game, you should be able to make a note on a player. When the loading screen pops up, if you've added a note for that player, it should be shown.
For Avilo in the meantime, I'd recommend not being so predictable. Mech as you have X% of the time, but throw in some other builds, especially aggressive ones, so that nobody is blind countering you on name alone.
Something like this would actually solve the problem really easily if you could do that. That's actually a really good idea. Then it doesn't matter if someone is on a barcode, because you'd be able to know "oh i played this barcode before, he's this guy." Then there is no unfair advantage, well, except the very first game that you played them of course and had no idea who the barcode was.
Still...i have not seen one good argument in this thread that barcodes do not give an unfair information advantage on the ladder.
On September 12 2017 17:02 fLyiNgDroNe wrote: i'm not sure how banning barcode names will help. Everyone will start playing under the "aaaaaaaaaaa" name. Barcodes were a way to create unrecognizable name when it wasnt possible to choose the name that is already registered. (so multiple combinations of "I" and "l" would create a lot of similar but different names). In SC2 afaik you can make a thousand of accounts with the same name.
That's true. When myself or other people talk about barcodes i think we're referring to any type of username that could be considered similar to a barcode, including stuff like "aaaaaaaaaaaa" where everyone just arbitrarily decides that's the new barcode. There should be some way to idenfity one aaaa from another aaaa when the game begins.
On September 12 2017 12:09 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: Guys, I was playing a game of Texas hold em, and I accidentally dropped my 2 cards face up.
I don't think it was fair that my opponents saw my cards, and they should have been forced to look away as soon as they realized my cards were exposed.
Sure, you could tell me that I should have hidden my cards better, but it's not fair that they had eyes to see what I did.
Ok I could get banned/warned for my comment above, so I will add something meaningful, at least I think it will be.
Barcodes have been around during BW. Those crazy Koreans were so secretive of their builds, so they created barcodes.
That is the original purpose.
Now creating barcode accounts for the sole purpose of stream-sniping/ghosting on the ladder is deplorable, but I don't think Blizzard really cares. However, for tournament purposes, barcodes are banned, and streaming during WCS qualifiers requires a stream delay anyways.
It sucks to see barcodes, but I think we need to put down the stick and let the dead mule rot.
Strawman. WHat would be more analogous to a poker situation is you're playing at a live event.
You sit at the table and people can see and know who you are. But there is one guy at the table that gets to have his identity hidden from every other player at the table before the game even starts.
He knows who you are, you have no idea who he is. He has a clear unfair advantage in this situation because he has an informational advantage that isn't supposed to exist in that situation. You all are sitting at the table and went to play a game of poker and the information you have to give up to be allowed to play is who you are.
It is clearly an unfair advantage that one person gets to hide all information about themselves, while the players that are not using barcodes have information known about them before the game begins.
Even in my OP i mentioned that i knew some people are just gonna say "just use a barcode yourself!" which really does nothing to address the problem.
When you really think about it, how is it a problem? I don't think real pros care that much. Like do you think Rogue and sOs care who their opponent are when they launch their 7k MMR ladder game? No, they just win the game.
It would be unfair not to know who you play against in a COMPETITION, but in training it's just annoying at best. Plus you can easily find out who you are / were playing against.
And you should be glad that people even play against you, I know I wouldn't bother to waste time since I don't like playing against boring styles in TvT. I think that if people didn't like trolling you on ladder when you are streaming that much, you would have almost nobody to play with.
There is a really simple solution for your problem, play random. it doesn't matter if you don't know who your opponent is if he doesn't know what your race is.
Strictly from a professional players perspective I think Barcodes has a place in e-sports and various ladders that is fair.
Barcodes is not so much about taking advantage of that your opponent doesn't know you. I'd say it's the opposite of that. You are protecting yourself from letting up valueable information about your style of play while being able to practice against a wide range of opponents. At least when I was active during 2010-2012 that was my reason for using barcodes. There's no telling that if you are practicing for a tournament and have to resort to ladder, that it'll be used against you later on.. But it's the beauty of the sport. mindgames, metagame, styles etc. If deploy counter-measurements to hide my playstyle prior to a tournament, that's just part of competition and the nature of it.
But Starcraft is a game of limited information and I think most of us can agree on that you can win games based off calculated risks that have factored in the opponents playstyle. Is that a risk you wanna expose yourself to (more than necessary) if you are making a living of the game? I'd say no.
The argument about custom games is relevant but not really entirely valid. First of all, the range of players that you'd have custom games against are probably the very same players you'd play in a live tournament setting. There's no telling what you are risking if you practice prepared builds and what not against them. They can use that information against you if you had to play in a tournament.
Also the ladder, which I touched upon above, offers you a wider range of opponents. It's not just the very best, it's the semi-pros and decent non-fulltimers and what not. It gives you a better sample size I guess.
From a streaming perspective this is a tougher nut to crack. But here's my take on it.
Again, Starcraft is a game of limited information where knowing a certain players style can be the missing puzzle piece that allows you to flat out blind counter them (at the risk that they play something entirely different which is why it'll always be a risk).
When you choose to stream yourself playing Starcraft you are willingly giving that advantage up. I.e. the advantage of not having multitudes of people knowing about your play style. When you choose to stream yourself you are also making a choice of being a public person and you can't really demand that you should be able to know every opponents identity just because you choose to reveal yours.
The way I see it is you have two options. You either accept the fact that, because of you choosing to always display your playstyle, you'll sometimes be at disadvantage. Option number two (which I think Flash is a great example of from Brood War) is that you make sure that your style can't be predicted as easily. Sure most people know Flash favours solid and standard play, but once in a while he'll opt for an entirely different playstyle just to keep his opponents honest.
EDIT:
Just to be clear, the streaming perspective is in the sense of that they just snipe you as in que when you que. If they are actually watching the stream while playing you, then that's just cheating and it's obviously not fair.
Well-known personalities and professionals will always suffer an information disadvantage against anonymous players, regardless of whether they use a barcode or not. In fact, barcodes are what these very players turn to to mitigate this.
As for lower-ranked players, any information advantage a random ladder barcode will get from knowing which of the other hundreds of random ladder players players he is playing against is negligible and can be more than compensated for by simply getting better at the game
But it kinda begs the question: why dont you just take it upon yourself to negate the information advantage that you may be conceding by making up a barcode yourself?
Furthermore I also believe that it is firmly on you to adapt your play to gain advantages over any opponent, even one that may have an idea of your play style going in. Mix it up, do little things different to keep opponents off balance, etc.
On September 12 2017 21:34 merz wrote: Strictly from a professional players perspective...
thx for taking the time to post this. i suspect Blizzard realizes this and took into account ur perspective when choosing to remain with the status quo. of course, this won't stop the OP for screaming that Blizzard is not "listening to the players" because his specific requests are not being addressed even when it turns out these requests are bad for the game.
Is there really that big of a difference between a random unidentifiable smurf id and a barcode? While I am not really qualified to offer up an authoritative position on this, I just don't see it as a big enough issue to require action from Blizzard.
If it isn't |||||||| then it will be some other unidentifiable string of characters, no?
I agree with Avilo. I don't think barcodes should be allowed. The argument that you could use some other username falls flat. I can't put a trademark or registered trademark on my username, it's a character that's not allowed. But barcodes are allowed? It makes no sense.
Personally it doesn't affect me, but there's something called empathy. You use it when you want to see something from someone else's perspective. If you don't have empathy, that's something else. That's called sociopathic, that's when you can't see things from anyone's perspective other than your own. Sometimes it's combined with enjoying seeing other people miserable. That's called sociopathology
Whether the solution is to ban barcodes or to allow Unique Id's or notes to be written/displayed on players u face, i think something should be done to get rid of the anonymity.
Its like using a chat program but always setting your status to Invisible. Sure you can do that but it defeats the purpose of having friends on a chat program.
I can kinda see the same idea here within SC2. The point behind having player names is so everyone knows who you are. Its not someones Social Security Number. Its not someones home address. Its their player name & for reasons already stated, i do think everyone should have an unique identifier. Just my 2 cents
Imagine if someone smurfed as avilo in GM and build to blind counter his opponent who's almost definitely going to go for an anti-mech build. That would be genius
On September 13 2017 01:17 OPL3SA2 wrote: I agree with Avilo. I don't think barcodes should be allowed. The argument that you could use some other username falls flat. I can't put a trademark or registered trademark on my username, it's a character that's not allowed. But barcodes are allowed? It makes no sense.
Personally it doesn't affect me, but there's something called empathy. You use it when you want to see something from someone else's perspective. If you don't have empathy, that's something else. That's called sociopathic, that's when you can't see things from anyone's perspective other than your own. Sometimes it's combined with enjoying seeing other people miserable. That's called sociopathology
On September 12 2017 23:09 Indrajit wrote: I get the spirit of your argument
But it kinda begs the question: why dont you just take it upon yourself to negate the information advantage that you may be conceding by making up a barcode yourself?
Furthermore I also believe that it is firmly on you to adapt your play to gain advantages over any opponent, even one that may have an idea of your play style going in. Mix it up, do little things different to keep opponents off balance, etc.
I literally even mentioned this in OP and other posts - if your solution is to make a barcode yourself...then you are acknowledging it's a problem and gives an unfair advantage!
On September 12 2017 23:09 Indrajit wrote: I get the spirit of your argument
But it kinda begs the question: why dont you just take it upon yourself to negate the information advantage that you may be conceding by making up a barcode yourself?
Furthermore I also believe that it is firmly on you to adapt your play to gain advantages over any opponent, even one that may have an idea of your play style going in. Mix it up, do little things different to keep opponents off balance, etc.
I literally even mentioned this in OP and other posts - if your solution is to make a barcode yourself...then you are acknowledging it's a problem and gives an unfair advantage!
Not really. Whether the "unfair" advantage is real or imagined, making a barcode would at least put you on equal footing in your mind, and all the people who don't care can continue not caring.
On September 13 2017 02:29 avilo wrote: I literally even mentioned this in OP and other posts - if your solution is to make a barcode yourself...then you are acknowledging it's a problem and gives an unfair advantage!
That is not necessarily correct. How I see it, it is more like: 1.) Yes, it does give an advantage (sometimes at least). Nobody denies that. 2.) It's debatable if that is unfair. Most people think the advantage is so slight that it doesn't even matter.
And even if for arguments sake we invest the ressources to analyze the problem:
The current situation is the following in SIMPLIFIED terms: 1.) Some people prefer their opponent not knowing who they are playing (hence Barcode). 2.) Some people want their opponent who they are playing (hence regular name).
There is a choice for everybody. Hence fair.
The changes you suggest would turn the choice around. 1.) People can choose to not know who they are playing. 2.) People can choose to know who they are playing.
Both are viable scenarios. I, for example, prefer the first option as it is for personal reasons (e.g. that internet and anonomity yadayadayada) You prefer the second scenario for your reasons which you have named.
So in conclusion. The current situation might be problematic for you. However if your suggested changes (banning all Barcodes), which I find quite drastic went through, it would be problematic for other people.
So can you provide reasons which totally justify your position over the other?
EPT
