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I am leaning towards the idea that players got a bit worse on average but that is mainly because Jin Air has been dominating the Korean scene. It is really just my speculation but I don't think they would have dominated as hard at least in GSLs since they went from winning virtually none of them before 2018 to virtually all of them (only 1 out of 6 of the last 6 GSLs was won by non-Jin Air player). That said, they didn't do particularly well in 2017 (Rogue was really good and Maru and sOs were pretty good) but I think they have more than made up in 2018 and 2019. Without going as far as Dave4, I think the teamhouse advantage does exist but it is possible to do really well without a teamhouse.
it reminds of the situation in Brood War. Most of the players don't play super long hours like in the professional days and many of them believe that mechanics probably have declined (although strategy has been evolving pretty quickly). I think many of the SC2 pros do not play as long hours as they used to because there is less pressure among peers and coaches. As a result, their mechanics suffer.
Overall, I believe some top Korean players would have still been top players in HotS at their present skill level, such as Maru. Considering Maru is still young and has a teamhouse, I can't see how he got any worse from HotS (although I'm a pretty terrible SC2 player so it's hard for me to judge). So I think we could say that while the top of the scene is probably close to as strong as the top of the scene in HotS, there are probably fewer people at that top-Korean HotS skill level nowadays and that may be why people are dominating harder now than in HotS. For example, Dark's run this year would have been one of the best in HotS but in LotV, I could name probably 5 that are more impressive.
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On October 29 2019 02:11 Monster3 wrote:
Normally I would say no GSLs means can't be in the GOAT conversation. But I think the only exception to that is winning multiple IEM Katowice and / or Blizzcon's. Serral realistically doesn't have multiple worldwide majors under his belt nor does he have a GSL or multiple GSLs (ideally for GOAT level comparisons).
Realistically I'd probably say Life. Even Maru or Rogue if they win a global championship (or two) or a GSL or two more respectively. For me to have Serral in the conversation he needs to win at least another Blizzcon or an IEM. Or ideally move to Korea and do it in the best competition in the world.
You're conflating tournament wins with general strength, which is a common fallacy around this community. The stronger a player, the more likely he is to win a tournament; however, it's entirely possible for the strongest player by far to never win a single tournament, yet still have the best winrate against the best players. There isn't a single player in Korea who has a winrate vs top10 players as high as Serral's for the last couple years, though 1 player comes close. I also think you're overestimating the value of a large prize pool in terms of its ability to bring out players' potential. I also believe when people gauge a player's strength, they want to know a player's ability to compete under various prize pools, not just ones with the largest dollar amounts and prestige.
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Northern Ireland26778 Posts
On October 29 2019 02:34 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2019 02:21 Charoisaur wrote:On October 29 2019 00:08 RDO wrote:On October 28 2019 23:16 Sabaton94 wrote:On October 28 2019 14:39 vyzion wrote:On October 28 2019 10:29 Sabaton94 wrote:On October 28 2019 09:48 StarcraftSquall wrote:On October 28 2019 04:23 Anc13nt wrote:On October 28 2019 04:01 Konage47 wrote:On October 28 2019 03:38 La1 wrote:
[quote]
Maybe.. just maybe finishing top of your group meant you got an easier ro8 match..
Its hardly unfair, maru wasn't the highest ranked in wcs points and he didn't win his group.. only has himself to blame..
I hope he gets rolled.. I was just playing devil advocate to the bracket tinfoilers, but in all honestly the bottom bracket is extremely stacked. if Maru wins he would have to go through the best ZvTer, top 3 Zerg in Rogue that knows all his build orders, and then potentially face Serral that will see how he plays ZvT which is a huge disadvantage. If he somehow wins it I would consider him goat being that the meta is zerg favor and how the brackets are. I think Maru will be GOAT as long as he makes it to the finals. If he wins, he will be the clear GOAT as no one can keep making the argument that "he can't be GOAT because he's bad at weekenders" (while simultaneously believing Serral can become GOAT even though he has never played in Code S lol). For the record, I believe Serral can be GOAT without winning GSL but I'm just pointing out that if Maru can't be GOAT because he's weaker in weekender tournaments, then neither can Serral unless you believe that Serral winning GSLs in a counterfactual is almost as good as winning them in reality. Serral can be GOAT because he has won in every style. He has repeatedly said he doesn’t feel the need to participate in Code S as he feels it is unfair to the Korean players to take one of their spots. Maru on the other hand - well, we’ve seen him get bopped on multiple occasions. I’ll reiterate this: the reason we have not seen Maru vs Serral since the debate started is solely on Maru. Not only has serral never competed in Korea, but he never competed when the game was healthy and at its highest level. Now, maybe you are a new player and have no idea about sc2 and its history, but because of the incredibly low level of play we see now (since Proleague disbanded and all korean teams but jin air disappeared) i would not even put serral as the best foreigner of all time. I personally believe Stephano was a better foreigner because he was going head to head vs koreans at their peak forms AND innovated sc2 with max roach timings. Serral is a great player but plays in a really low skill era, where competition is at its weakest since the early WoL days. I disagree completely. I've been following BW and SC2 for 20 years and Serral is among the best of the best. To me, Life was one of the best players of all time and Serral is very similar to Life. However, my opinion and your opinion are entirely anecdotal. All we have to go off of is results an Serral's results are incredible. Lol, you may have been following for 20 years, but you clearly dont know how to analyze anything you are following. If you were really watching sc2 closely, you would have noticed that back in the days, Koreans were SHITTING on foreigners (HotS era). The WCS (EU and NA) were filled with B and C tier korean players and the round of 8 were still filled with koreans (I remember once moonglade making it far and it was a hell of an achievement). Now, most koreans struglle vs foreigners. It started since Proleague and almost all the teams disbanded. Coincidence? In your opinion I guess so, because you seem to believe their level of play is even higher, but foreigners just improved much more..... The level of skill and the level of competition are different things. Even if the competition was fiercer back then, it's pretty much a known fact that the players have gotten better with time; the game itself changed and evolved, and things that were out of the ordinary back then now are pretty normal: the pros themselves stated this multiple times, and they are the same pros that competed in the past. Also, your last argument about koreans that are now struggling more against foreigners, is purely based on the fact that in your opinions koreans should always be way better than foreigners by some kind of fate, otherwise something's wrong, which is certainly not a valid argument. Wrong. It's a known fact that the skill level has decreased since the disbandment of Kespa teams. Wrong, it's a known fact that we don't really know but can argue both angles fairly well depending on what exactly we mean with "skill" in the first place.
As far as I can tell, outside of players slumping there isn’t a great deal of difference in gameplay between the top ex-Kespa guys when they’re playing an international tournament pre and post the teams disbanding.
If one considers that a sort of ‘latent level’ for playing a tournament without as much prep and without knowing the brackets and coming up with stuff on the fly, I can’t tell much difference myself.
What we also lost along with the teams themselves were an additional Starleague, along with Proleague itself. Those are additional prep tournaments, and Proleague had preparing for singular sets, along with teams helping prepare for them.
Of course the outright level is probably going to be higher in those particular tournaments, basically by default.
You wouldn’t say a musician’s skill declined by having him sight read a new piece vs his ‘peak’ where he had plenty of time to learn pieces and with a band.
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On October 29 2019 02:49 darklycid wrote:
I'd argue Players are better now but with kespa Teams koreans would be better than they are now (so basically the growth of Skill could be bigger).
Yeah, that's almost certainly true... Unfortunately we'll never know.
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On October 29 2019 03:28 TheAnarchy wrote:
Why people just cant assume sc2 is a game that is dying and competetion (and skill lvl) now sucks?
Koreans dont even train nowdays. There are planty of examples of that. Rogue said it before winning GSL (he wasnt even training and started training when he saw zerg was op). Soo also admited he wasnt training.
Is so hard too admit competionts after proleague dissamble doenst count as serious? Or in other words you cant compare after proleafue with before.
Is like comparing pros against amateurs.
BTW multitasking nowdays sucks. Ive seen games where top players forget too move units and they cant handle multiples attacks. Back in the days games with players in their pick such as Life or Inno where on other lvl of multitasking. I remember soulkey and life dissambling maru only with lings and mutas. Yeah I dont know why people refuse to see that sc2 is a shadow of its former self and that most korean pros dont care or train like they used to. People who claim that this level is the highest level ever clearly were not around when we had insane competition in Proleague. They are either too invested in the game to admit that its becoming a lot weaker and that most koreans put way less efforts on their own (compared to when they had a team) or they are simply blind and cant see how much weaker the competition is.
On the flip side, I believe that the level of play from foreigners improved a lot, because now that the koreans are way weaker, they have a realistic shot at winning. (that plus the racist korean ban that happened couple years ago)
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Northern Ireland26778 Posts
Do Koreans have to train 10 hours a day to keep up to a certain level?
ByuN hit the level he did teamless after all and won a GSL at Blizzcon, Rain won a GSL playing on a foreign team which is basically the same as being teamless in terms of that team house environments.
The level is going to definitely drop going forward, as nobody else is stepping up to the level of the top Kespa/ESF guys while Classic, herO, GuMiho are going to the military.
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On October 29 2019 08:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
Do Koreans have to train 10 hours a day to keep up to a certain level?
ByuN hit the level he did teamless after all and won a GSL at Blizzcon, Rain won a GSL playing on a foreign team which is basically the same as being teamless in terms of that team house environments.
The level is going to definitely drop going forward, as nobody else is stepping up to the level of the top Kespa/ESF guys while Classic, herO, GuMiho are going to the military.
Kespa was on it's deathbed when ByuN won and in the case of Blizzcon he only won thanks to broken reapers.
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On October 29 2019 03:33 Anc13nt wrote:
I am leaning towards the idea that players got a bit worse on average but that is mainly because Jin Air has been dominating the Korean scene. It is really just my speculation but I don't think they would have dominated as hard at least in GSLs since they went from winning virtually none of them before 2018 to virtually all of them (only 1 out of 6 of the last 6 GSLs was won by non-Jin Air player). That said, they didn't do particularly well in 2017 (Rogue was really good and Maru and sOs were pretty good) but I think they have more than made up in 2018 and 2019. Without going as far as Dave4, I think the teamhouse advantage does exist but it is possible to do really well without a teamhouse.
it reminds of the situation in Brood War. Most of the players don't play super long hours like in the professional days and many of them believe that mechanics probably have declined (although strategy has been evolving pretty quickly). I think many of the SC2 pros do not play as long hours as they used to because there is less pressure among peers and coaches. As a result, their mechanics suffer.
Overall, I believe some top Korean players would have still been top players in HotS at their present skill level, such as Maru. Considering Maru is still young and has a teamhouse, I can't see how he got any worse from HotS (although I'm a pretty terrible SC2 player so it's hard for me to judge). So I think we could say that while the top of the scene is probably close to as strong as the top of the scene in HotS, there are probably fewer people at that top-Korean HotS skill level nowadays and that may be why people are dominating harder now than in HotS. For example, Dark's run this year would have been one of the best in HotS but in LotV, I could name probably 5 that are more impressive.
Thanks for the shout out, hurtful though it was.
I agree with your sentiments, I think it's silly when people argue "lowest skill era therefore wins mean nothing" (these people are simultaneously likely to be the ones who don't think JAGW have any advantage, and Maru is the GOAT for 4 GSLs, go figure).
Skill has definitely increased since HOTS. *Rate* of increase has
however certainly decreased, largely due to the collapse of Kespa. That is the primary reason for the gap closing between foreigners/Korea in my mind.
We are still, in my mind, at the peak level of skill overall in SC history taking into account strategy, micro, macro, positioning, meta. The fact that there is an outlying player who is winning more than half of the tournaments he enters despite this over two solid years is a testament to his skill level, and is why he should certainly be considered in the top echalon across all periods.
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France12912 Posts
On October 29 2019 10:03 DBooN wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2019 08:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
Do Koreans have to train 10 hours a day to keep up to a certain level?
ByuN hit the level he did teamless after all and won a GSL at Blizzcon, Rain won a GSL playing on a foreign team which is basically the same as being teamless in terms of that team house environments.
The level is going to definitely drop going forward, as nobody else is stepping up to the level of the top Kespa/ESF guys while Classic, herO, GuMiho are going to the military.
Kespa was on it's deathbed when ByuN won and in the case of Blizzcon he only won thanks to broken reapers.
He didn’t just win because of reapers, jeez, did people even watch the games?
I’d even say Rogue / Serral BlizzCons were more zerg favored than Terran was during ByuN run.
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Northern Ireland26778 Posts
On October 29 2019 10:03 DBooN wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2019 08:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
Do Koreans have to train 10 hours a day to keep up to a certain level?
ByuN hit the level he did teamless after all and won a GSL at Blizzcon, Rain won a GSL playing on a foreign team which is basically the same as being teamless in terms of that team house environments.
The level is going to definitely drop going forward, as nobody else is stepping up to the level of the top Kespa/ESF guys while Classic, herO, GuMiho are going to the military.
Kespa was on it's deathbed when ByuN won and in the case of Blizzcon he only won thanks to broken reapers.
It wasn’t when Rain won his GSL, and even if the reaper meta suited ByuN’s skillset why couldn’t Kespa Terrans emulate it in that environment?
For people arguing the skill level has dropped when did this happen? Yes Kespa was about to pull out at that time but it’s not as if the players’ skills fell off a cliff immediately
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it happened when kr scene went from having code a/code s and firece competition to barely having enough players to have qualifiers.
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On October 29 2019 20:19 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2019 10:03 DBooN wrote:On October 29 2019 08:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
Do Koreans have to train 10 hours a day to keep up to a certain level?
ByuN hit the level he did teamless after all and won a GSL at Blizzcon, Rain won a GSL playing on a foreign team which is basically the same as being teamless in terms of that team house environments.
The level is going to definitely drop going forward, as nobody else is stepping up to the level of the top Kespa/ESF guys while Classic, herO, GuMiho are going to the military.
Kespa was on it's deathbed when ByuN won and in the case of Blizzcon he only won thanks to broken reapers. He didn’t just win because of reapers, jeez, did people even watch the games? I’d even say Rogue / Serral BlizzCons were more zerg favored than Terran was during ByuN run.
I watched Dark outplay him at pretty much every phase of the game that wasn't mass reaper.
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France12912 Posts
On October 29 2019 21:31 DBooN wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2019 20:19 Poopi wrote:On October 29 2019 10:03 DBooN wrote:On October 29 2019 08:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
Do Koreans have to train 10 hours a day to keep up to a certain level?
ByuN hit the level he did teamless after all and won a GSL at Blizzcon, Rain won a GSL playing on a foreign team which is basically the same as being teamless in terms of that team house environments.
The level is going to definitely drop going forward, as nobody else is stepping up to the level of the top Kespa/ESF guys while Classic, herO, GuMiho are going to the military.
Kespa was on it's deathbed when ByuN won and in the case of Blizzcon he only won thanks to broken reapers. He didn’t just win because of reapers, jeez, did people even watch the games? I’d even say Rogue / Serral BlizzCons were more zerg favored than Terran was during ByuN run. I watched Dark outplay him at pretty much every phase of the game that wasn't mass reaper.
i) His BlizzCon run wasn't only the final vs Dark
ii) He looked great against Dark even in the long game he lost to Dark on the winter / ice map (ultralisks were quite broken at that time), one other game he held an allin, all in all he didn't look inferior to Dark at all
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The skill level today is of course higher than it was 3-4 years ago.
Imagine if you practiced Karate 10 hours per day for the first 5 years.
Then you cut down your practice to 6 hours per day for the next 3 years.
After 8 years you overall skill would be much higher compared to when you practiced for 5 years, even though you practiced more hours per day back then.
The SC2 skill level is the highest it has ever been. Only if people started to slack off completely like practicing maybe 1-2 hours per day would the skill level decline.
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On October 29 2019 21:50 MockHamill wrote:
The skill level today is of course higher than it was 3-4 years ago.
Imagine if you practiced Karate 10 hours per day for the first 5 years.
Then you cut down your practice to 6 hours per day for the next 3 years.
After 8 years you overall skill would be much higher compared to when you practiced for 5 years, even though you practiced more hours per day back then.
The SC2 skill level is the highest it has ever been. Only if people started to slack off completely like practicing maybe 1-2 hours per day would the skill level decline.
I think you can just look at the metrics, look at the APM, look at serrals EAPM. nobody has ever in the history of SC2 been as effective as him in terms of that data point.
I would say the one thing team environments drove and may have fallen off from the korean sc2 scene is how quickly they counter builds and how fast new strategies are developed. the team house environment is perfect for this and the clear evidence of this is with Jin Airs consistent success now.
I would say the Korean players are just as good as ever, however strategically Europeans and the circuit is far closer in terms of current meta strategies and timings as the korean scene moves at a much slower pace than before. Historically a single european could not keep up which is why you would historically see koreans just break out the latest cheese on a non-korean and stomp them.
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Skill level is of course higher these days. When you do something longer you do it better. Experience matters, as simple as that.
Competition, which is a completely different matter, has dropped drastically compared to Kespa days. No teamhouse, no 12 hours a day, no new blood. Look at the number of top-tier players now and that number 4 years ago. There are so few right now. The fact that Maru wins 4 Gsl in a row proves my point. It is literally impossible to win 4 in a row during kespa days.
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Canada8990 Posts
Skill level is most likely higher than it ever was, but it's also lower than it could have been if the team houses environment had lasted.
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Northern Ireland26778 Posts
On October 29 2019 23:21 Nakajin wrote:
Skill level is most likely higher than it ever was, but it's also lower than it could have been if the team houses environment had lasted.
Sounds reasonable to me. I do miss the teams and the rivalries and the extra tournaments and all for sure, I’m rather torn on if on balance I think the team house system is a good thing, for a variety of reasons.
Aside from some concerns as to over-practicing and whatnot, it just raises the bar to entering the pro game to such a level that it’s extremely difficult for anyone to get in the door. It’s always been more prominent in discussion regarding foreigners competing but it’s increasingly more and more apparent that it completely stifled the emergence of new Korean talent who weren’t on Kespa teams for a good half decade.
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The people who think the skill level is lower today are the same people who try to boot up Wings of Liberty games and talk about how great 6 worker start was, oh, and complain about there being no proleague.
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On October 29 2019 23:43 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2019 23:21 Nakajin wrote:
Skill level is most likely higher than it ever was, but it's also lower than it could have been if the team houses environment had lasted. Sounds reasonable to me. I do miss the teams and the rivalries and the extra tournaments and all for sure, I’m rather torn on if on balance I think the team house system is a good thing, for a variety of reasons. Aside from some concerns as to over-practicing and whatnot, it just raises the bar to entering the pro game to such a level that it’s extremely difficult for anyone to get in the door. It’s always been more prominent in discussion regarding foreigners competing but it’s increasingly more and more apparent that it completely stifled the emergence of new Korean talent who weren’t on Kespa teams for a good half decade.
I think Proleague would be amazing in the current environment. A foreign team would actually be competitive compared to the EGTL experiment. Plus that would bring in tons of viewers.
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EPT
