On July 23 2024 08:08 UnLarva wrote: Dear @Poopi, It may have not been particularly difficult to dominate EU 2018, but that same guy who did it also won The GSL vs World, and Blizzcon same year.
Sure, Aligulac rewarded him for such feats. Keep it honest.
Oh it's not a jab at Serral. I have been saying on this very forum before BlizzCon 2018 that Serral was better than Dark/Rogue etc. (top KR zergs at the time)
People thought I was trolling. I really wasn't (albeit given my reputation as a shit poster / troll, I "played" on it so it was difficult to be sure what was on my mind)
On July 23 2024 08:08 UnLarva wrote: Dear @Poopi, It may have not been particularly difficult to dominate EU 2018, but that same guy who did it also won The GSL vs World, and Blizzcon same year.
Sure, Aligulac rewarded him for such feats. Keep it honest.
Oh it's not a jab at Serral. I have been saying on this very forum before BlizzCon 2018 that Serral was better than Dark/Rogue etc. (top KR zergs at the time)
People thought I was trolling. I really wasn't (albeit given my reputation as a shit poster / troll, I "played" on it so it was difficult to be sure what was on my mind)
It's just that aligulac can be really bad
No worries. I'm probably the last man to accuse anyone for trolling or shitposting (certifiedly so). That said, Aligulac is attacked against usually for false reasons. People expect things from it that were never part of the project, or the logic it builds upon. That sucks. As said already the biggest problem for objectivity of the rating system is that there exists obvious inclusion bias for top players and their matches i.e. resolution is much higher for top players than for newcomers. It is not problem in this discussion as for the top players the impact is minimal on average within the system (particularly for players playing in the 'top players' bubble', for example Maru and Serral.)
Problem's origin is a lack of volunteers in the task for proper Data input.
At least part of the system's rating inflation (which is normal per se) comes from the asymmetry of inclusion of data points (not every game deserving to be in the data set ever get included), as rating points filter toward the top naturally, but also because low-mid tiers' stats aren't properly taken account due inclusion bias. That causes systematic over inflation more prominent and near the top the player is; more ratings points are pumped to the system with every new incoming introduced player, but more prominent the player is, more often his/hers games are included, and thus more often they have a chance to pump rating points up into the system. Then there are ultimate farmers at the top: Global all around Serral, Korean GSL Maru, and Global online MaxPax (Yes, ridiculously oversimplified caricature to show the point) to farm the system points and inflate the ratings...
Gee, great. The logic of the system is perfect (as stated), sociology around it isn't. That's the fault.
I wonder, and am too lazy to actually test how Aligulac performs versus expert human intuition that does attempt to factor in the intangibles when it comes to predictions.
Say, the average of the top 10 Liquibetters versus Aligulac, it could be quite interesting!
On July 23 2024 09:26 WombaT wrote: I wonder, and am too lazy to actually test how Aligulac performs versus expert human intuition that does attempt to factor in the intangibles when it comes to predictions.
Say, the average of the top 10 Liquibetters versus Aligulac, it could be quite interesting!
Above 80% the winrates become a bit more erratic, and it seems like the system slightly overestimates the chances for the stronger player.
Thus, if the prediction system shows a winrate of
80% or higher in a best of 1 90% or higher in a best of 3 94% or higher in a best of 5 96% or higher in a best of 7 the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.
Serral has effectively reaching the limit where the math and predictive statistical power of Aligulac's system breaks, and have been for a while. Reality is very near to check the theory.
My human intuition says that the trend will continue, maybe not uninterrupted but overall. Amen.
Add: Hastily adding that from economic perspective things have been looking similar for long; betting companies have been typically placing odds in favor of Serral at least half decade by now. In every single game were Serral plays and you can set a wager. Maybe they just check Aligulac or something else, but there is monetary incentive there. Betting companies typically do not throw their odds from anti-statistical heaven with only cheerful hobbyist intentions.
I think this discussion can be best summarized by “If you use numbers and qualitative data, it’s clear Serral is the GOAT.” If you want to discuss things that cannot be quantified then the only real competitor to Serral is Maru and depending on what you value in a GOAT and what metrics are used, you could chose either player. However if you look at all of the metrics, Serral wins most of them, which explains why the community and current pros from a pure numbers standpoint back Serral much more often.
The whole vocal minority argument comes in to play here.. I would honestly be so curious to see the answer to a true poll of people choosing who they think is the GOAT. I genuinely think it would be Serral at 65-70% of the community.
On July 22 2024 20:17 MJG wrote: You haven't tried to account for any of that context though. You've simply assumed that all things are equal across all eras and expansions, and then treated the numbers as absolute. It should be obvious to everyone here that all eras and expansions are not equal, and so treating the numbers as absolute is somewhat foolish.
This is blatantly untrue and is addressed at length in Premo's post. How about you try reading it before starting arguments in the comments?
I did read it.
He hasn't done it.
Not what I'm talking about anyway.
Maybe you're the one who needs to read posts before starting arguments?
Well, akshually, the absurd degree to which he weighted eras and tournament types is where he did exactly what you're talking about
It's really not. Picking a single cut-off point for weighting results isn't nearly what I was getting at. But I'm going to stop discussing this because it's clear that nobody is going to budge, that we're all talking past one another, and that the discourse is getting increasingly bitter...
The irony remains that I don't even know who I consider to be the GOAT. I just know that it's neither of the two most mentioned contenders because I'm just that biased against Legacy of the Void being taken seriously!
First and foremost, if it was me who came about bitter: This was not my intention! My replies may sound like this via simple text blocks, without features like mimics or intonation, but I promise you I am very cordial fella (which can be persistent about points he disagrees with).
I know that these questions you posed demand a higher resolution if one NEEDED to answer them, which my 50% buff does not address. But as I said in another post: The higher resolution does not matter (except for theory-crafting-purposes). I stacked every possible handicap on Serral that I could. Only one-sided with a much larger margin than even Maru=GOAT-proponents like Miz did. That is why I pointed out that most of the things you posted are very marginal factors. Most of them are included in this 50% deduction for post-2018 tournaments. And even if they would vary for players within that era (one could argue that pre-2012 should be given a much lower bonus than 2013-2015/2016, down-regulating Mvp's claim even more), the end result of this analysis would stay the same. For example GSL from former times have been awarded not only 50% as an era-multiplier but another 20% in comparison to GSLs post-2018 by them being factored in 0.2 points more in the tournament-multiplier. The prep-tournament question was addressed too.
In regards to that LotV notion: I like that you are open about this bias, although balance-wise for most parts I couldn't find much to support your fiasco-claim. Most data suggests Premier Tournaments win rates being dominated by Zerg and Terran is mostly influenced by them having the 2 biggest outliers in the history of the game since 2018 (on top, Zerg having a 3 times world champion does not hurt), a power vacuum for Protoss post-2018 that wasn't really filled, as well as the arguably best/2nd best Protoss of the recent years only playing online. In LotV win rates mostly were 45-55%. When thinking about utterly ridiculous balanced games, Command and Conquerer Generals - Zero Hour comes to mind, where the Aurora Bomber of the USA together with China being so bad had players agreeing that everyone lining up as random in tournaments should do the trick, to equal out the suck. Anyways, as you never came back to this, here is a question from before: "So the data to suggest this fiasco you are portraying, is prize money earned, did I understand you correctly?"
On July 22 2024 01:29 Mizenhauer wrote: No Mvp, no goat list.
100%
But Mvp is in this list as a pre-contender. I replied to this very comment earlier in the thread as well, perhaps you didn't see:
" 1. His Aligulac ranking went as expected. He was 106 lists in the top 10. Around 30 times less than Serral was on rank 1. But when he was in the top 10, he was on rank 1 71,30% - the best score after Serral. This is countered by his low representation in the top 10, with only 84 times, the second lowest score.
2. On the Aligulac HoF he is placed 8th, which gives him the number 4 spot on the list. His PP score versus INnoVation, Maru and Serral is pretty bad though.
3. Mvp's overall match win rate is 52,38%, by a large margin the lowest score. His best year wouldn't even put him in the top 5 years, as Serral's and Maru's best years are better.
4. 2011 saves him a 2nd place in the Tournament win rate analysis. But if he had continued like in 2012 and 2013 he would have dropped down to last place as well in 2014.
5. Average place also sees him in the last place, as 2012 and 2013, drag his hyper successful year 2011 down.
6. As it is obvious by simply counting that Mvp can't win in the tournament score and I was too lazy to actually calculate all the tournaments he participated in, I simply gave him a tournament multiplier of 1 for each placement (massively boosting his score), except his world championship, which of course was multiplied with 1,1. He still has the lowest tournament score.
7. Efficiency-wise he is placed 3rd behind Serral and Maru, as 2011 is his only year where he collected many points, which in relation made his efficiency go down. This score is also boosted as it is a dividend of the tournament score.
Mvp is the player with the least consistency and duration and the trend implies that more years would have simply made his statistics look worse. He only has 1 hyper dominant year, which is not even the best year in this whole comparison and he sports match win rates of under 50% (2012), 38% (2013) and 31% (2014) . It is safe to say that my pre-screening was correct in not letting him in the final contender list."
Adressing everyone who was taking part in the aligulac discussion: For all I care. Take away 32 of Serral's #1 spots (INnoVation's entire rank 1 count who came in 2nd). He still by far outclasses everyone, although this would be utterly unfair to do. Because even if Serral reached a #1 on aligulac before winning a Premier Tournament: This is simply what that metric measures... performance versus other players. Premier tournament wins have been accounted for in another metric. That is why I used 7 different analyzes... Serral is on top of every single one - in 6 out 7 metrics by far.
On July 23 2024 09:28 JJH777 wrote: However he would not have hit #1 in 2017 and would not have spent most of 2018 as #1 and his overall time spent as #1 would be a lot lower. That was pure rating inflation due to beating up on players worse than him. The first time he hit #1 his winrate vs Koreans was in the 40% range for the few months leading up to it.
Well... Aligulac measures Korean players who play versus non-Koreans who play versus Serral. Even if he didn't play them at the end of the year, an educated guess by the machine was made how good Serral would fare versus other player, he didn't play as often, which was verified in 2018, as then Serral's win rate was over 85% versus top Koreans. Why he should lose this spot with win rates that no one else ever achieved is something that needs to be explained. Further: The time in which Serral had rank 1 versus the time he actually played and beat the top Koreans is only 2 months. If I take away all of his top 10 spots from that period, it amounts to less than 1% difference in the overall count...
Lol Serral again. Nothing new from some obsessed fans trying to claim that he should be no.1 no matter what. Next month we get another new 'depth analysis' essay again written by someone else and I bet the verdict from his writing will be the same as usual.
On July 23 2024 18:50 swarminfestor wrote: Lol Serral again. Nothing new from some obsessed fans trying to claim that he should be no.1 no matter what. Next month we get another new 'depth analysis' essay again written by someone else and I bet the verdict from his writing will be the same as usual.
Anything else in store except ad hominems? I mean I laid out measurable data and penalized Serral wherever I could, sometimes at ridiculous rates... if anything Serral-fanboys would have a right to criticize my analysis as biased, lol. Did you even bother to read it?
On July 23 2024 18:50 swarminfestor wrote: Lol Serral again. Nothing new from some obsessed fans trying to claim that he should be no.1 no matter what. Next month we get another new 'depth analysis' essay again written by someone else and I bet the verdict from his writing will be the same as usual.
Anything else in store except ad hominems? I mean I laid out measurable data and penalized Serral wherever I could, sometimes at ridiculous rates... if anything Serral-fanboys would have a right to criticize my analysis as biased, lol. Did you even bother to read it?
Maru > Serral in terms of greatness Serral is great too though, one of the greatest That's my opinion, yours seems to be that Serral is the GOAT It's fine, we have different opinions
On July 23 2024 19:10 PremoBeats wrote: Why do you think Maru is greater?
He has done inhuman things repeateadly, that no other human could do at the time More than any other player His "flavor" / "touch" is something else compared to others
Maru evolved from this kid to a "godlike" / "mythical entity" / "mythical pokemon". He was there at the beginning of Starcraft 2, so young but still having exceptionally good results for his age (basically a "prodigy", like many others, Creator, Life, etc.). And there he is now in 2024, as one of the favorites for the World Championship. The guy is still at the top level. He has maintained elite level consistently, across all eras / patches of the game.
On July 23 2024 18:50 swarminfestor wrote: Lol Serral again. Nothing new from some obsessed fans trying to claim that he should be no.1 no matter what. Next month we get another new 'depth analysis' essay again written by someone else and I bet the verdict from his writing will be the same as usual.
OP analysis is worth to read, you know. From Serral fanboi's perspective it is great read as it doesn't leave much room for accusations on favoritism as it base everything on objectively available, common statistics, and uses such absurd nerfs, penalties, and handicaps for Serral (and lesser extend to Maru too) that it is actually amazing how there even can be so much debate on some matters related to the topic.
Best merit of the analysis is however the fact it force revisiting weighting and value of certain high held, beloved, stone carved nostalgo-maniac assumptions that were already over the top 2018 concerning classic Kespa-era. That is important in sense that if Serral cannot be the GOAT, neither can Maru, demonstrated by hard, cold, statistical facts.
I for one would be extremely happy if there would pop up a new fresh look on the topic every single month, preferably with fresh perspectives and higher resolution over the topic. Any work that makes era and player comparisons less hazy and subjective are very much welcomed by me.
The Author of the analysis really deserve respect for his, no doubt, very time consuming efforts to clarify some things. Do anyone here really think that quality and intensity of competition suddenly dropped from 2015/16 to 2018 that much it would really justify 50% nerf to later era tournaments?
On July 23 2024 19:10 PremoBeats wrote: Why do you think Maru is greater?
He has done inhuman things repeateadly, that no other human could do at the time More than any other player His "flavor" / "touch" is something else compared to others
Maru evolved from this kid https://youtu.be/5QkCJDTg6ec?si=1HNuEG13yP_FoqSl&t=47 to a "godlike" / "mythical entity" / "mythical pokemon". He was there at the beginning of Starcraft 2, so young but still having exceptionally good results for his age (basically a "prodigy", like many others, Creator, Life, etc.). And there he is now in 2024, as one of the favorites for the World Championship. The guy is still at the top level. He has maintained elite level consistently, across all eras / patches of the game.
Alright, so your metrics are excellence at a young age and duration of career - implying the ability to adept - coupled with high end results?
@UnLarva: Thanks for the kind words and the recognition of me disfavoring Serral. I am currently working on the higher resolution of the transition you spoke of. My vacation ends soon.. perhaps I'll be able to finish it, as the wind for kiting seems to pass me somewhere else.
On July 23 2024 18:50 swarminfestor wrote: Lol Serral again. Nothing new from some obsessed fans trying to claim that he should be no.1 no matter what. Next month we get another new 'depth analysis' essay again written by someone else and I bet the verdict from his writing will be the same as usual.
OP analysis is worth to read, you know. From Serral fanboi's perspective it is great read as it doesn't leave much room for accusations on favoritism as it base everything on objectively available, common statistics, and uses such absurd nerfs, penalties, and handicaps for Serral (and lesser extend to Maru too) that it is actually amazing how there even can be so much debate on some matters related to the topic.
Best merit of the analysis is however the fact it force revisiting weighting and value of certain high held, beloved, stone carved nostalgo-maniac assumptions that were already over the top 2018 concerning classic Kespa-era. That is important in sense that if Serral cannot be the GOAT, neither can Maru, demonstrated by hard, cold, statistical facts.
I for one would be extremely happy if there would pop up a new fresh look on the topic every single month, preferably with fresh perspectives and higher resolution over the topic. Any work that makes era and player comparisons less hazy and subjective are very much welcomed by me.
The Author of the analysis really deserve respect for his, no doubt, very time consuming efforts to clarify some things. Do anyone here really think that quality and intensity of competition suddenly dropped from 2015/16 to 2018 that much it would really justify 50% nerf to later era tournaments?
I suspect NO.
Yeah I disagreed with that part of the analysis because the competitiveness didn't suddenly massively drop from one year to another, it was more of a gradual decrease. Personally I would've divided it into 3 or 4 parts with full score being given to the Kespa era, then a slightly lower score for 2017-2019 (Kespa disbanded but most players kept going), then a significantly lower score from 2020 on (that was when the military retirements really kicked in). Optionally also a lower score for WoL although that's arguable because tons of players were playing the game and that era required the most innovation/strategic prowess out of players.
On July 23 2024 19:10 PremoBeats wrote: Why do you think Maru is greater?
He has done inhuman things repeateadly, that no other human could do at the time More than any other player His "flavor" / "touch" is something else compared to others
Maru evolved from this kid https://youtu.be/5QkCJDTg6ec?si=1HNuEG13yP_FoqSl&t=47 to a "godlike" / "mythical entity" / "mythical pokemon". He was there at the beginning of Starcraft 2, so young but still having exceptionally good results for his age (basically a "prodigy", like many others, Creator, Life, etc.). And there he is now in 2024, as one of the favorites for the World Championship. The guy is still at the top level. He has maintained elite level consistently, across all eras / patches of the game.
Alright, so your metrics are excellence at a young age and duration of career - implying the ability to adept - coupled with high end results?
@UnLarva: Thanks for the kind words and the recognition of me disfavoring Serral. I am currently working on the higher resolution of the transition you spoke of. My vacation ends soon.. perhaps I'll be able to finish it, as the wind for kiting seems to pass me somewhere else.
Once again if you want to prove a point using metrics and statistics you are wasting your time, but I guess you are the kind to enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing.
So I guess since you seem to want to have the last word with this, the GOAT will ultimately be the last player/bot to play starcraft 2 before the servers die / get terminated
I enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing with random strangers from the internet, bots or not, so keep going
On July 23 2024 07:01 Charoisaur wrote: Do we really need to nitpick about how meaningful aligulac ratings are? Yeah, it's not a good metric to use, but Serral would be at the top regardless of the rating system we use, his winrates are just so far ahead of any other player.
Btw starcrafthistorian released a really good interview with uthermal that includes the topic, and he basically summarized what I also think
I agree with Uthermal that if LIFE wasn't banned and didn't gamble etc and continued to play, he would be the GOAT easy.
On July 23 2024 07:01 Charoisaur wrote: Do we really need to nitpick about how meaningful aligulac ratings are? Yeah, it's not a good metric to use, but Serral would be at the top regardless of the rating system we use, his winrates are just so far ahead of any other player.
Btw starcrafthistorian released a really good interview with uthermal that includes the topic, and he basically summarized what I also think
I agree with Uthermal that if LIFE wasn't banned and didn't gamble etc and continued to play, he would be the GOAT easy.
If only Life didn't mess up!
Life was better than Maru and Serral period.
Life owns his entire legacy to "messing up". If he hadn't, he would have been relegated by now in the Top 10-15 range of players and that only because he is a World Champion, otherwise no one would really bring up his name.
On July 23 2024 07:01 Charoisaur wrote: Do we really need to nitpick about how meaningful aligulac ratings are? Yeah, it's not a good metric to use, but Serral would be at the top regardless of the rating system we use, his winrates are just so far ahead of any other player.
Btw starcrafthistorian released a really good interview with uthermal that includes the topic, and he basically summarized what I also think
I agree with Uthermal that if LIFE wasn't banned and didn't gamble etc and continued to play, he would be the GOAT easy.
If only Life didn't mess up!
Life was better than Maru and Serral period.
Life owns his entire legacy to "messing up". If he hadn't, he would have been relegated by now in the Top 10-15 range of players and that only because he is a World Champion, otherwise no one would really bring up his name.
I think that’s slightly exaggerating it, but the ‘might have been’ is often stronger than the reality. The factors that saw Life drawn into match fixing in all likelihood would have seen him being unable to maintain the motivation to stay at the top of the game in perpetuity in a way Maru or Serral have managed, IMO anyway.
I mean in a hypothetical world where Innovation had some crippling injury in like 2014/15 I imagine his reputation today would be as a lock for GOAT who was cruelly prevented from achieving his destiny. But the reality was rather different.
EPT
