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On August 03 2020 17:49 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2020 05:30 ejozl wrote:On August 03 2020 04:52 Die4Ever wrote:On August 03 2020 03:48 ejozl wrote:
The level in Korea was high, yes, but even Life, Dream and PartinG of that era would die to Serral now. Doubt it. Serral would have to practice the game in 2015 to learn the build orders and get used to everything like 6 worker start and different units and all sorts of balance changes. Once he does any practice in 2015, KeSPA with all their players and coaches would see his replays and take whatever lessons they can learn from the future knowledge. It's not like he could just show up in 2015 and win a GSL. Remember that many of the balance changes were designed to make skilled players appear even more impressive. Also I think korean players were more in-shape back then, they practiced more and lived in teamhouses and had coaches. I think players like Dream, DRG, Parting coming back, and GSL shrinking down to just 24 players instead of 32, is showing that 2019 really was not the highest skill era and neither is 2020. Even Byun showed this a bit, I mean if he was so good and skill of the scene only goes upwards, then why didn't he dominate back in 2010 and 2011? I didn't make up a story about him going back and beating them, I'm comparing his skill with theirs. I think preparation was much stronger back then and players were under strict regiments to try and eek out as much of their performance as possible for short-term benefits. 5 years is a LOT to hone your finger dexterity and feeling of the game though and with practice comes expertise. But as I said there certainly is not the same depth as it is spread out on EU and Kr instead. But for top level play it's best to compare the rivalries I think. Life vs Dream, Life vs PartinG, Life vs TaeJa I feel were the highest levels we'd seen and Reynor vs Serral is above that as I see it. Well then we agree to disagree here. Dream vs Life is still the highest level series I have watched to this date.
I would agree.
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On August 03 2020 05:30 ejozl wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2020 04:52 Die4Ever wrote:On August 03 2020 03:48 ejozl wrote:
The level in Korea was high, yes, but even Life, Dream and PartinG of that era would die to Serral now. Doubt it. Serral would have to practice the game in 2015 to learn the build orders and get used to everything like 6 worker start and different units and all sorts of balance changes. Once he does any practice in 2015, KeSPA with all their players and coaches would see his replays and take whatever lessons they can learn from the future knowledge. It's not like he could just show up in 2015 and win a GSL. Remember that many of the balance changes were designed to make skilled players appear even more impressive. Also I think korean players were more in-shape back then, they practiced more and lived in teamhouses and had coaches. I think players like Dream, DRG, Parting coming back, and GSL shrinking down to just 24 players instead of 32, is showing that 2019 really was not the highest skill era and neither is 2020. Even Byun showed this a bit, I mean if he was so good and skill of the scene only goes upwards, then why didn't he dominate back in 2010 and 2011? I didn't make up a story about him going back and beating them, I'm comparing his skill with theirs. I think preparation was much stronger back then and players were under strict regiments to try and eek out as much of their performance as possible for short-term benefits. 5 years is a LOT to hone your finger dexterity and feeling of the game though and with practice comes expertise. But as I said there certainly is not the same depth as it is spread out on EU and Kr instead. But for top level play it's best to compare the rivalries I think. Life vs Dream, Life vs PartinG, Life vs TaeJa I feel were the highest levels we'd seen and Reynor vs Serral is above that as I see it.
Even though 5 years is a lot of time to improve, the top players back in 2015 had also all been pros for at least 5 years before then. Some even longer.
Add the that the level of practice these guys were getting when there were like 3x the number of korean pros, and most of them were in kespa houses. The builds those guys were doing were customed and optimised pretty much as well as you could with the game being how it was. I don't think there's much reason to believe any top korean pros now are playing better than they were 5 years ago.
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On August 03 2020 17:47 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2020 05:05 Poopi wrote:On August 03 2020 02:24 Cricketer12 wrote:On August 02 2020 17:32 Poopi wrote:
Wasn’t 2015 mostly HotS AND blink era? No thanks then, even though there were lot of leagues the game just wasn’t good Article SC2 was great because of all the koreans leagues, and dream maru and life trading insane series after insane serirs Poopi dUh BluNK There were korean leagues in 2016 as well and LotV was just a better game for all of its lifespan than HotS ever was imo. But yeah the article is cool, korean leagues are the most interesting that's for sure. The game in 2016 was shit with tankivacs, mass Reapers, mass Adepts, 4 supply mass Tempest spam and Ultras that got healed by marine bullets...
Don't forget pylon cannons and maps like Dasan Station.
To be honest 2015 wasn't great in terms of game design either. But it definitely produced the highest level of competition and gameplay between pros.
Maru, herO, and Life were the best players of their races while also being the most entertaining. Rain, INnoVation, soO, and Zest were all still winning championships. Even the next generation of elites (Dark, Stats, TY) had broken out and were making it deep. Even PartinG was in his prime.
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Good writeup and good reminiscing. Except for broodlord+infestor. Those aren't good memories. Broodlord infestor and swarm host wars aren't the SC2 memories I want in 2030.
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The release of sc2 was so unnecessary it even killed broodwar for some years. David Kim failed hard and the whole company failing even harder till this day.. Nuff said
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2015 was the year I got hooked up in the SC2 pro scene. No wonder why.
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On August 03 2020 02:24 Cricketer12 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2020 17:32 Poopi wrote:
Wasn’t 2015 mostly HotS AND blink era? No thanks then, even though there were lot of leagues the game just wasn’t good Article SC2 was great because of all the koreans leagues, and dream maru and life trading insane series after insane serirs Poopi dUh BluNK
Well, no matter what the structures are, if the game are shits (and oh god they were, the 2015 blizzcon really showcase awful stuff, Life advancing just with tricks because it was the only way as a zerg) I just don't watch.
A year of mech and blink dominance doesn't make me nostalgic in the slightest.
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Northern Ireland14312 Posts
On August 04 2020 09:58 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2020 05:30 ejozl wrote:On August 03 2020 04:52 Die4Ever wrote:On August 03 2020 03:48 ejozl wrote:
The level in Korea was high, yes, but even Life, Dream and PartinG of that era would die to Serral now. Doubt it. Serral would have to practice the game in 2015 to learn the build orders and get used to everything like 6 worker start and different units and all sorts of balance changes. Once he does any practice in 2015, KeSPA with all their players and coaches would see his replays and take whatever lessons they can learn from the future knowledge. It's not like he could just show up in 2015 and win a GSL. Remember that many of the balance changes were designed to make skilled players appear even more impressive. Also I think korean players were more in-shape back then, they practiced more and lived in teamhouses and had coaches. I think players like Dream, DRG, Parting coming back, and GSL shrinking down to just 24 players instead of 32, is showing that 2019 really was not the highest skill era and neither is 2020. Even Byun showed this a bit, I mean if he was so good and skill of the scene only goes upwards, then why didn't he dominate back in 2010 and 2011? I didn't make up a story about him going back and beating them, I'm comparing his skill with theirs. I think preparation was much stronger back then and players were under strict regiments to try and eek out as much of their performance as possible for short-term benefits. 5 years is a LOT to hone your finger dexterity and feeling of the game though and with practice comes expertise. But as I said there certainly is not the same depth as it is spread out on EU and Kr instead. But for top level play it's best to compare the rivalries I think. Life vs Dream, Life vs PartinG, Life vs TaeJa I feel were the highest levels we'd seen and Reynor vs Serral is above that as I see it. Even though 5 years is a lot of time to improve, the top players back in 2015 had also all been pros for at least 5 years before then. Some even longer. Add the that the level of practice these guys were getting when there were like 3x the number of korean pros, and most of them were in kespa houses. The builds those guys were doing were customed and optimised pretty much as well as you could with the game being how it was. I don't think there's much reason to believe any top korean pros now are playing better than they were 5 years ago.
I think they both are and they aren’t.
If SC2 was quite as demanding as BW then perhaps. Still very demanding, but I don’t think you have to grind mechanics out quite as hard.
One obvious problem is more the next generation. The current top guys don’t have the coming generation to push them to stay at the top of the game, so perhaps there’s some complacency there too. And not just complacency, boredom too, some of these guys have been playing the same game for 7-10 years and the hunger might not be quite the same for them. In BW that decline in appetite would be ruthlessly seized by the next generation, who would quickly supplant their more decorated elders. You don’t really have that now.
Optimised and tailored strategies have declined a little, equally so have the tournaments that require them. We got to see more of them with an extra Starleague and Proleague for sure.
For weekenders, or just a general high level of skill it seems much the same to me, or higher in areas. The areas it is higher I would argue are just years of extra experience, and the pace of improvement would have possibly been higher still with the Kespa scene still intact.
There’s also more cross-pollination of ideas and strategies across the scenes, but equally within the Korean scene too. The top guys are more free to practice together and players with appreciable English or links to the foreign scene feed stuff back to Korea in a way that maybe didn’t happen when it was considered the Kespa way was the only way.
The foreign scene has a lot of good ideas, even if it’s purely theoretical that the Korean scene has maybe historically neglected investigating fully. With more porous borders some of the better theorycraft is polished with the Korean mechanical chops.
It’s only one example, and I took a pretty long hiatus but coming back and having watched Serral’s stream for example, where he uses the mouse scroll a lot over screen scrolling.
I don’t recall high level players using that technique before but it clearly has a lot of theoretical advantages (with some drawback), so people are still pushing what’s efficient and optimal to this day.
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On August 04 2020 10:08 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2020 17:47 Charoisaur wrote:On August 03 2020 05:05 Poopi wrote:On August 03 2020 02:24 Cricketer12 wrote:On August 02 2020 17:32 Poopi wrote:
Wasn’t 2015 mostly HotS AND blink era? No thanks then, even though there were lot of leagues the game just wasn’t good Article SC2 was great because of all the koreans leagues, and dream maru and life trading insane series after insane serirs Poopi dUh BluNK There were korean leagues in 2016 as well and LotV was just a better game for all of its lifespan than HotS ever was imo. But yeah the article is cool, korean leagues are the most interesting that's for sure. The game in 2016 was shit with tankivacs, mass Reapers, mass Adepts, 4 supply mass Tempest spam and Ultras that got healed by marine bullets... Don't forget pylon cannons and maps like Dasan Station.
Yeah the beginning of LotV was even worse than the beginning of HotS imho
I hated a lot of changes that were brought with the last expansion especially 12 workers start, takivacs, adepts and libs.
However as with HotS, LotV has gotten steadily better and I can see why people think that it is the best version of sc2 now - but it certainly wasn't at its' day of release.
2015 was great. Proleague + GSL + SSL combo was delivering superb games and Fantasy PL was pure gold.
Thanks for the article, nice read and a lot of memories 
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On August 04 2020 09:58 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2020 05:30 ejozl wrote:On August 03 2020 04:52 Die4Ever wrote:On August 03 2020 03:48 ejozl wrote:
The level in Korea was high, yes, but even Life, Dream and PartinG of that era would die to Serral now. Doubt it. Serral would have to practice the game in 2015 to learn the build orders and get used to everything like 6 worker start and different units and all sorts of balance changes. Once he does any practice in 2015, KeSPA with all their players and coaches would see his replays and take whatever lessons they can learn from the future knowledge. It's not like he could just show up in 2015 and win a GSL. Remember that many of the balance changes were designed to make skilled players appear even more impressive. Also I think korean players were more in-shape back then, they practiced more and lived in teamhouses and had coaches. I think players like Dream, DRG, Parting coming back, and GSL shrinking down to just 24 players instead of 32, is showing that 2019 really was not the highest skill era and neither is 2020. Even Byun showed this a bit, I mean if he was so good and skill of the scene only goes upwards, then why didn't he dominate back in 2010 and 2011? I didn't make up a story about him going back and beating them, I'm comparing his skill with theirs. I think preparation was much stronger back then and players were under strict regiments to try and eek out as much of their performance as possible for short-term benefits. 5 years is a LOT to hone your finger dexterity and feeling of the game though and with practice comes expertise. But as I said there certainly is not the same depth as it is spread out on EU and Kr instead. But for top level play it's best to compare the rivalries I think. Life vs Dream, Life vs PartinG, Life vs TaeJa I feel were the highest levels we'd seen and Reynor vs Serral is above that as I see it. Even though 5 years is a lot of time to improve, the top players back in 2015 had also all been pros for at least 5 years before then. Some even longer. Add the that the level of practice these guys were getting when there were like 3x the number of korean pros, and most of them were in kespa houses. The builds those guys were doing were customed and optimised pretty much as well as you could with the game being how it was. I don't think there's much reason to believe any top korean pros now are playing better than they were 5 years ago.
Now the players are better than they were. This is the stupidest move IMO - comparing the plaeyrs with years of difference. Unless the game totally crashes and bankcrupts the players will be better. But taking an old player and saying he wouldn't have a chance today - duh, he doesnt know the game since the player wasn't bloody playing the god damn game for 5 years!
Now, to the bigger issue. Back then we have many behemoths of the top play. Maru, soO, Life, Zest, Inno, TY, Dark, Rogue, Soulkey, herO, ByuL, Classic and some I forgot. (edit> somehow I deleted Rain, I wouldn't forget my most beloved SC2 Protoss  )
Now? Maru, Dark, Stats, Rogue, Zest, Inno, TY. The issue is nowadays half of the players appear to not even try properly. The best example is Rogue, probably the most unpredictable player in the terms of form. Back then Rogue was a beast every time. There was a reason why Maru, Rogue and sOs costed so much in the Fantasy Proleague 
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On August 06 2020 21:16 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2020 09:58 Fango wrote:On August 03 2020 05:30 ejozl wrote:On August 03 2020 04:52 Die4Ever wrote:On August 03 2020 03:48 ejozl wrote:
The level in Korea was high, yes, but even Life, Dream and PartinG of that era would die to Serral now. Doubt it. Serral would have to practice the game in 2015 to learn the build orders and get used to everything like 6 worker start and different units and all sorts of balance changes. Once he does any practice in 2015, KeSPA with all their players and coaches would see his replays and take whatever lessons they can learn from the future knowledge. It's not like he could just show up in 2015 and win a GSL. Remember that many of the balance changes were designed to make skilled players appear even more impressive. Also I think korean players were more in-shape back then, they practiced more and lived in teamhouses and had coaches. I think players like Dream, DRG, Parting coming back, and GSL shrinking down to just 24 players instead of 32, is showing that 2019 really was not the highest skill era and neither is 2020. Even Byun showed this a bit, I mean if he was so good and skill of the scene only goes upwards, then why didn't he dominate back in 2010 and 2011? I didn't make up a story about him going back and beating them, I'm comparing his skill with theirs. I think preparation was much stronger back then and players were under strict regiments to try and eek out as much of their performance as possible for short-term benefits. 5 years is a LOT to hone your finger dexterity and feeling of the game though and with practice comes expertise. But as I said there certainly is not the same depth as it is spread out on EU and Kr instead. But for top level play it's best to compare the rivalries I think. Life vs Dream, Life vs PartinG, Life vs TaeJa I feel were the highest levels we'd seen and Reynor vs Serral is above that as I see it. Even though 5 years is a lot of time to improve, the top players back in 2015 had also all been pros for at least 5 years before then. Some even longer. Add the that the level of practice these guys were getting when there were like 3x the number of korean pros, and most of them were in kespa houses. The builds those guys were doing were customed and optimised pretty much as well as you could with the game being how it was. I don't think there's much reason to believe any top korean pros now are playing better than they were 5 years ago. Now the players are better than they were. This is the stupidest move IMO - comparing the plaeyrs with years of difference. Unless the game totally crashes and bankcrupts the players will be better. But taking an old player and saying he wouldn't have a chance today - duh, he doesnt know the game since the player wasn't bloody playing the god damn game for 5 years!Now, to the bigger issue. Back then we have many behemoths of the top play. Maru, soO, Life, Zest, Inno, TY, Dark, Rogue, Soulkey, herO, ByuL, Classic and some I forgot. (edit> somehow I deleted Rain, I wouldn't forget my most beloved SC2 Protoss ) Now? Maru, Dark, Stats, Rogue, Zest, Inno, TY. The issue is nowadays half of the players appear to not even try properly. The best example is Rogue, probably the most unpredictable player in the terms of form. Back then Rogue was a beast every time. There was a reason why Maru, Rogue and sOs costed so much in the Fantasy Proleague
Exactly, the players might be better but the game is sadly less competitive in Korea.
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On August 06 2020 21:16 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2020 09:58 Fango wrote:On August 03 2020 05:30 ejozl wrote:On August 03 2020 04:52 Die4Ever wrote:On August 03 2020 03:48 ejozl wrote:
The level in Korea was high, yes, but even Life, Dream and PartinG of that era would die to Serral now. Doubt it. Serral would have to practice the game in 2015 to learn the build orders and get used to everything like 6 worker start and different units and all sorts of balance changes. Once he does any practice in 2015, KeSPA with all their players and coaches would see his replays and take whatever lessons they can learn from the future knowledge. It's not like he could just show up in 2015 and win a GSL. Remember that many of the balance changes were designed to make skilled players appear even more impressive. Also I think korean players were more in-shape back then, they practiced more and lived in teamhouses and had coaches. I think players like Dream, DRG, Parting coming back, and GSL shrinking down to just 24 players instead of 32, is showing that 2019 really was not the highest skill era and neither is 2020. Even Byun showed this a bit, I mean if he was so good and skill of the scene only goes upwards, then why didn't he dominate back in 2010 and 2011? I didn't make up a story about him going back and beating them, I'm comparing his skill with theirs. I think preparation was much stronger back then and players were under strict regiments to try and eek out as much of their performance as possible for short-term benefits. 5 years is a LOT to hone your finger dexterity and feeling of the game though and with practice comes expertise. But as I said there certainly is not the same depth as it is spread out on EU and Kr instead. But for top level play it's best to compare the rivalries I think. Life vs Dream, Life vs PartinG, Life vs TaeJa I feel were the highest levels we'd seen and Reynor vs Serral is above that as I see it. Even though 5 years is a lot of time to improve, the top players back in 2015 had also all been pros for at least 5 years before then. Some even longer. Add the that the level of practice these guys were getting when there were like 3x the number of korean pros, and most of them were in kespa houses. The builds those guys were doing were customed and optimised pretty much as well as you could with the game being how it was. I don't think there's much reason to believe any top korean pros now are playing better than they were 5 years ago. Now the players are better than they were. This is the stupidest move IMO - comparing the plaeyrs with years of difference. Unless the game totally crashes and bankcrupts the players will be better. But taking an old player and saying he wouldn't have a chance today - duh, he doesnt know the game since the player wasn't bloody playing the god damn game for 5 years!Now, to the bigger issue. Back then we have many behemoths of the top play. Maru, soO, Life, Zest, Inno, TY, Dark, Rogue, Soulkey, herO, ByuL, Classic and some I forgot. (edit> somehow I deleted Rain, I wouldn't forget my most beloved SC2 Protoss ) Now? Maru, Dark, Stats, Rogue, Zest, Inno, TY. The issue is nowadays half of the players appear to not even try properly. The best example is Rogue, probably the most unpredictable player in the terms of form. Back then Rogue was a beast every time. There was a reason why Maru, Rogue and sOs costed so much in the Fantasy Proleague
Inno and especially Zest are currently a shadow of their former selfes so I'm not sure I'd include them in that list.
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EPT
