EPTIs SC2 an "Easy Game"? - Page 4
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GeckoVOD
Germany814 Posts
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kubiks
France1328 Posts
On September 13 2012 09:16 FullNatural wrote: An easy game is one that massive amounts of people can pick up and play at a decent level. This would be SC2. This is is how video games are made these days. The easier it is the more people will purchase it and play = more money. Actually this is how movies and just about everything else is made these days. Rule #1 appeal to the masses. Another reason SC2 is easy. The majority of SC2 players with high ranks have terrible BW ranks. I think it's a pretty bad point. If you talk about the koreans pro-gamers, fact is that the good ranked ones switched last, and they are actually doing quite fine. If you talk about foreigners, the fact is that most of the good players don't come from bw but rather from WC3. Use their bw rank to see their skill is pretty irrelevant... Fact is former foreign bw pro perform (relatively) badly in sc2, but I'm not sure if that's a sign that bw is harder or just that "foreigner in bw sucked". | ||
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Dante08
Singapore4119 Posts
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hellsan631
United States695 Posts
Here is my small argument as to why BW > SC2 in terms of difficulty. I would like to define both games as having two different skill sets. One being a Mechanical Skill set, the other being general Skill (tactics, strategy, etc). I assert that BW is a more mechanically demanding game. I think this can be widely agreed upon. This is due, in part, to the game engine and unit pathing. With BW you have to constantly fight the game, and the game itself doesn't give you the same tools (no auto cast, auto mine, auto split now, unit control groups, etc). The hotkey and lack of customization also makes it physically more demanding. In fact, there is no argument that can be made that would go in favor of a tie, or that sc2 is the mechanically harder game. you can say apm is mechanics, and both require top micro abilities, but what I am referring to is the general level of mechanical ability you would need to play within the top 50% of players at any given time in either games history. Since BW is mechanically harder, I would also assert that both games require basically the same level of general skill, because strategy and tactics are universal concepts inside of an RTS game. I believe that the reason why BW is a harder game, and takes a higher amount of skill to play, is due to the fact that learning the game of BW, and becoming good at it is harder then in SC2. Mechanical play is a harder skill to raise then that of general skill level, because it comes from muscle memory and repetitious play, and not from mental cunning and insight. The effect of having mechanical ability over another player is also mitigated in SC2, meaning that it is not as valuable of a skill when compared to BW. Now I know this is about overall level of skill, but more then half of the game in BW, and what separates players at each level of the game is mechanics for BW. I'll take a different direction. If we take 2 people, of identical skill levels, with identical ability, and had them both practice a game, starting from the bottom and working their way up, etc, the player playing SC2 will reach the top of the skill rung before the player playing BW. This is due to the fact that the game of mechanics, one which takes much more time and physical training, is of a greater concern in BW. Therefore, The reason why you see the same stats between those at the top levels is because the difference in mechanical ability at the top is mitigated by the differences of general skill. Example. July is considered a great mechanical player, but looses to flash, who is considered somewhat average. This is the same in sc2. After so many games, both players will place similarly given enough time in both games. I played BW a little bit back in the day, then switched over to sc2. I got to GM once about a year ago in sc2. It took me 1 year to go from copper to top 200 in the NA. I have since switched over to BW, and with some considerable effort, I still lack the mechanical ability currently to play at my previous level in SC2. My point being, while both games have the same general soft cap, and can be seen as being just as equally as difficult. But in the lower portions of the game, it takes a person longer, and a considerable deal more effort, to get equally as good at BW, when compared to sc2, due to the mechanical difference in both games. | ||
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Chef
10810 Posts
The KeSPA pros will show you exactly how hard SC2 can be when they bring to the scene the kind of skill that comes with dedicated and serious practice. I think a lot of people will say platinum and diamond league are not very impressive. Masters and Grand Masters is like the minimum you need to be considered competent. It wasn't really that way in BW, was it? Just getting to B was the childish fantasy of many a player, required dedication and devotion to the game that was beyond the discipline most people had. So many hours have to be poured in just to get to that. And that isn't even close to a good Korean amateur. The same goes with C rank back in the day. It was pretty impressive, in meant you were competent and had learned the game and played for a long time. The question is not 'could you go back to 2000 and compete?' The question is of the games in their current state. Will SC2 ever get the chance to grow complex enough, or will the clock keep being reset by the expansions until the graphics are 10 years old and Blizzard releases SC3 2 years after the last expansion? Let's not resort to pitiful arguements of what SC2 could be, because that is riddled with difficult to support assumptions, complications in data (like SC2 inheriting BW tactics and players) and inanities. If you are going to ask the question what is the harder game, you have to deal with the data that is here. | ||
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StorrZerg
United States13910 Posts
Comon man. We all know sc2 is a challanging game, but we should all know that bw was a more challanging game. I mean its just a simple fact. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28492 Posts
Obviously some of this is related to how the games have slightly different skill sets. and me knowing bw better, I can much easier identify my flaws. But there's just no doubt that, barring theoretical micro challenges where infinity apm would be highly useful in either game, bw is a much more mechanically demanding game. That is, if you are 10% weaker than me mechanically in bw, you're going to lose. Almost every game. those 10% will have a much lower impact in sc2. Essentially, bw requires you to be at a higher level before your mechanical mistakes stop being glaringly obvious. This is related to how macro is more important than micro, and how in bw, the macro is more demanding than the macro from sc2. In turn, this gives the illusion that differences between players is much smaller in sc2 than in bw, because it's harder to tell them apart. And personally, it gives me the impression that I could compete with top sc2 players, if I dedicated myself to it for 6 months. Whereas in bw, I considered it completely impossible for myself to attain a level to defeat flash. | ||
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[UoN]Sentinel
United States11320 Posts
BW is mechanically harder than SC2 in the same way that running is mechanically harder than riding a bicycle. They both use the same leg strength and are essentially the same goal in competition (get from point A to point B in the fastest time), but in cycling the bike does some of the work for you, leaving you to turn the pedals, switch gears as needed, and turn the handlebar in the direction you want to go. That being said, cycling and running are both equally hard. Usain Bolt, given 3-6 months of practice, would probably be a good cyclist due to good leg strength from running, and better than the average cyclist, but nowhere near the best. Conversely Lance Armstrong would probably be a fast runner for the same reasons, but he too would be bad at track events when running alongside the likes of Bolt. Running would seem harder because you have to put in more effort to run the same amount of time. A 10 km run is harder than a 10 km bike ride. But cycling events are longer for this reason. The triathlon usually has the cycling part anywhere from 3 to 10 times as long as the running part (olympic is 4.3). But to get as good at cycling is still just as hard as getting good at running. Very good read. 5/5 | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28492 Posts
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[UoN]Sentinel
United States11320 Posts
On September 18 2012 00:48 Liquid`Drone wrote: I'm sorry but that analogy makes no sense at all. How so? I find it fitting. The bicycle in this case would be things ranging from automine to multiple building selection. | ||
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XCetron
5225 Posts
On September 18 2012 00:51 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: How so? I find it fitting. The bicycle in this case would be things ranging from automine to multiple building selection. I think I agree with drone here, learning to ride a bike is actually pretty hard compare to running. Anyone could just start running but you have to take some time to learn to ride a bike first. Maybe its more like BW = Running and SC2 = Tricycle. | ||
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GeckoVOD
Germany814 Posts
On September 17 2012 23:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: mostly a good OP. there are minor tidbits I disagree with, but it's mostly good. However, it doesn't change the fact that I _feel_ differently. When I play brood war, a game I have played for 12 years, clocking tens of hours of actual game time, I never feel like I play even remotely close to perfect. When I play sc2, a game where I have played something like 150 hours and where I am mid-high master league, I sometimes have games where I feel like I was "pretty close" (mechanically). Obviously some of this is related to how the games have slightly different skill sets. and me knowing bw better, I can much easier identify my flaws. But there's just no doubt that, barring theoretical micro challenges where infinity apm would be highly useful in either game, bw is a much more mechanically demanding game. That is, if you are 10% weaker than me mechanically in bw, you're going to lose. Almost every game. those 10% will have a much lower impact in sc2. Essentially, bw requires you to be at a higher level before your mechanical mistakes stop being glaringly obvious. This is related to how macro is more important than micro, and how in bw, the macro is more demanding than the macro from sc2. In turn, this gives the illusion that differences between players is much smaller in sc2 than in bw, because it's harder to tell them apart. And personally, it gives me the impression that I could compete with top sc2 players, if I dedicated myself to it for 6 months. Whereas in bw, I considered it completely impossible for myself to attain a level to defeat flash. Except he doesn't say anything like that. All he does is to pull random ELO rankings and compares a few lines to another. He doesn't get that he compares apples and oranges (which is almost every time the case for SCII <-> BW comparisons). He also does a few lines that show that this blog (or his "statistics") are "constructed" (knowingly or not) to make his case, rather than to test a theory. It was definitely not worth reading this blog. I see how BW "elitists" are repelled and how SCII people think that proofs "their" point, when in truth only badly done statistics and flawed comparisons are presented. Topics like these should immediately closed, all they do is to split the readers and inforce all the bs hatred. | ||
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RenSC2
United States1012 Posts
On September 14 2012 23:37 Chef wrote: I think most people think of the difficulty of a game being how long it takes you to become competent and competitive at it. Most of your numbers don't really have anything to do with this. Yes, this would be a different, but very reasonable, definition for how easy a game is. The problem is, how do you define competent and competitive? Is having the mechanics to do what you want to do the defining feature of being competent and competitive? If so, Chess must be one of the easiest games in the world. Yet, few would agree with that assessment. I think a lot of the replies have a huge BW bias in how they define competent and competitive. And that bias centers completely around the mechanical difficulty. Yet, if you remove the words "Starcraft" from a game, they're able to get away from their bias and accept a game like Chess as difficult for reasons other than mechanics. So defining competent and competitive is not a straightforward endeavor. If you define competitive from the very top (#1 player), then the stats I show do just that. In SCBW, players outside the top 39 (but still good) can only beat Fantasy 12% or Flash 19% of the time. In SC2, players outside the top 39 (but still good) can only beat Taeja or Curious 20% of the time. Do my stats then appear as a legitimate measure of competitiveness? Or is competitiveness only something to be measured at a much lower level? On September 14 2012 23:37 Chef wrote: The KeSPA pros will show you exactly how hard SC2 can be when they bring to the scene the kind of skill that comes with dedicated and serious practice. On a bit of a tangent here, I think the practice regimen of the ESF houses is highly underrated. If the guys at EG actually practice 8+ hours a day (as they repeatedly claim), then I'd have to imagine the ESF guys are putting in a lot more. Most of them (including coaches) came from the Kespa system in the first place. I don't think they suddenly forgot how to practice. Perhaps they're only putting in 10 hours a day instead of the customary 12 or more? On September 14 2012 23:37 Chef wrote: I think a lot of people will say platinum and diamond league are not very impressive. Masters and Grand Masters is like the minimum you need to be considered competent. It wasn't really that way in BW, was it? Just getting to B was the childish fantasy of many a player, required dedication and devotion to the game that was beyond the discipline most people had. So many hours have to be poured in just to get to that. And that isn't even close to a good Korean amateur. The same goes with C rank back in the day. It was pretty impressive, in meant you were competent and had learned the game and played for a long time. The difference is that more than 99% of all players already dropped out of SCBW. I played SC right when it came out. My 2-gate zealot A-move rush (not even proxied) could beat everyone I knew except for one person and he was in the top 25 of the Blizzard Ladder when it actually meant something (before everyone learned how to abuse it). I believe he actually invented building a second hatchery in-base (he'd then turn that into a massive ling rush... it got him into the top 25), and no, I'm not shitting you. Sadly I don't remember his name anymore. The player base back then was a joke. A whole lot of people had to learn a ton or fall out. Most fell out over the years. Only the most dedicated people are left remaining and that's what you see when you play ICCUP and similar player-made servers. If 99% of the least dedicated players dropped out of SC2 (basically everyone not currently in masters), even getting to silver would suddenly be a big accomplishment. It's another unfair comparison that is frequently made. For someone new to come into that environment, getting to Gold would seem like a childish fantasy. Fortunately, the SC2 player base is still large enough that we won't see that moment for quite some time, especially with two expansions coming out. On September 14 2012 23:37 Chef wrote: The question is not 'could you go back to 2000 and compete?' The question is of the games in their current state. Will SC2 ever get the chance to grow complex enough, or will the clock keep being reset by the expansions until the graphics are 10 years old and Blizzard releases SC3 2 years after the last expansion? Let's not resort to pitiful arguements of what SC2 could be, because that is riddled with difficult to support assumptions, complications in data (like SC2 inheriting BW tactics and players) and inanities. If you are going to ask the question what is the harder game, you have to deal with the data that is here. Yeah, it's difficult to presume exactly what will happen in 10 years. Perhaps SC2 gets figured out and everyone approaches 50% win rate. Perhaps the Kespa pros come in and with their harder training regimen, they run into the soft cap and nobody can really excel. Perhaps Blizzard changes the game every 2-3 years with expansions (and minor balance changes in-between) until SC3 comes out, and we never really learn how high the skill cap in SC2 is. We do have to work in the here and now. Luckily, I already did that in the OP. In the here and now, when we measure difficulty from the very top, the games do show similar results of difficulty. The people making presumptions about difficulty, without looking at the facts, are the people who look at the "easier" mechanics of SC2 compared to BW and assume that the game is easier because of it. Yet, the actual numbers, here and now, don't line up with those assumptions. There's more to a game than just mechanics. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
So, maybe someday. Either way you can't calculate difficulty with win rates and such quantitative data. You can maybe use it to make suggestions but you're not getting answers, and to pretend that you are is unscientific. | ||
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TroW
United States67 Posts
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
On September 13 2012 06:49 Linwelin wrote: I don't think sc2 is an easy game, but its definitely easier than BW yup. On September 13 2012 06:45 DRTnOOber wrote: This is just hypothetical heresay, at least the OP tried to provide some knid of analytical evidence. I wouldn't be surprised if SC2 players could go and play well in BW within 3 months, but my opinion doesn't matter. Show me the evidence. No they fucking couldn't. You do realize that the vast majority of those players were either on a bw pro team or trying to make it to the pros. there are a lot of barriers to entry just like making it in the gsl, i.e. code b, code a and code s whereas bw has courage for earning a pro gamer license or you need to get a handout from one of the few pro gamer licenses the KeSPA team has. A lot of those statistics are irrevelant and a big lol at the Golden Age of BW. Sorry you guys can try to rationalize it all you want, but the critics (i.e. the Koreans who actually played both are already on the fence as to where they stand when it comes to both games). You will keep getting the politically correct answers to sell SC2, which is fine. Not to say the game isn't hard because it is but comparing the two games when everything from the game design to flow is different is apples to oranges. It stops right there. | ||
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Wonders
Australia753 Posts
In all seriousness though, good post - I came here expecting something about how "harder interface in BW is just artificial difficulty", but was pleasantly surprised. However, if SC2 pros were able to take their current mechanical skill and be teleported back in time to the early 2000s, yes, I think they could compete within 3 months Early 2000s!? It'd take more like 3 days considering that most korean SC2 pros are from BW. Any decent amateur player by today's (or 2009's) standards would crush the top pro players from the early 2000's. I suspect that the kind of comparison you want is: if the current pro scene had the strategical knowledge of the early 2000s but retained their current mechanics, then SC2 pros with their mechanics but no knowledge of strategy would be able to catch up in 3 months. Which I'd probably disagree with if we could somehow disregard the philosophical incoherence of such an scenario (e.g. if many of the mechanical subtleties that are now known couldn't arise without the associated strategic understanding first developing). And god I'm so sick of people on both sides giving the impression that the harder interface is the only thing making BW harder. For me it's more that there's just many more situations in BW where the player has "the power to make a difference". To take an innocous early game situation - if I scout a 13cc as zerg, then with good micro my scouting drone can really give the terran a headache. You have to be really fast and accurate with the mouse to do moving shot with drones (spam move+left click on the SCV, right click it only when you're in range, move click away instantly). In the corresponding SC2 situation the other guy just right clicks my drone with another scv and I can't do shit. I might elaborate with a whole blog on this soon. | ||
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Release
United States4397 Posts
If you don't think it's an easy game, then why do you feel the need to defend it? Let those ignorant fools keep thinking what they think and let yourself feel superior to them.... It's a ridiculous debate; bw elitists will be elitists and sc2 elitists will be sc2 elitists. Just call them different and head our separate ways? yes? Close this thread. | ||
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-_-
United States7081 Posts
Here's where you make your crucial mistake. And I quote: "One of the most obvious ways determine a skill curve is to look at the win percentages of the top players. Can the top players differentiate themselves from the masses? Presumably, the higher a top player's win percentage, the greater the skill curve in the game." This is, of course, very wrong. It's wrong for many reasons. I tend to think you realized what a gigantic mistake the colored portion of the quote was. That's why you prefaced it with a presumably. Sadly, you decided to back up that weak premise with statistics, observations, and thousand of words. Considering your choice of words, I doubt I have to even attack your hypothesis myself. You can. And frankly, you should. Your post had some interesting points, quite a bit of solid research, and was presented well. Don't be too proud to admit your mistakes. However, in case you won't, here's a thought experiment for everyone reading. Imagine there are two games, A and B. A is a perfect game, as defined by the author. B is easy game, as defined by the author. In game A, all serious players play a 12 hours a day according to a rigid schedule. As you would expect, all the players get better. They all reach a high skill level, and the players are pretty even. A few players are more talented, or manage to sneak in an hour or two more a day, and win more often than everyone else. In game B, many play about 4 hours, some other play 8, and a very few play 12. As you would expect, the few hard workers would beat the others regularly, even though it's an easy game. But that's not the only example. The fact is, the win percentage of top players against 'less skilled' or 'equally skilled' players does not show hard the game is unless the game is trivial. Players of one game might be more or less talented. They might practice more or less. Players in one game might have hugely superior environments to their competition, while in the other game everyone is on an equal playing field. Unless the soft cap can't be moved, those, and many other things, could explain the variations in win rate. To conclude: 1) Your post was (SERIOUSLY) good, except for the flaw which invalidated everything and 2) I have no comment on whether BW or SC2 is harder. | ||
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Limelights
United States219 Posts
iCCup took a small amount of the best battle.net players and threw them into the large D- to A+ ranking system. From there minor differences in skill and strategy created the divisions. In Starcraft 2 there is no seperate ladder system, a much larger player pool, and less ladder divisions (7 compared to iCCup's 13). All of the above-average players are shoved into just two leagues, Masters and Diamond. I bet if we took just the Diamond, Masters and GM players and threw them into their own ladder system we would see the ladder divisions being filled. My point is if we took that D+ BW player and put him into his own ladder system along with the rest of Diamond, Masters and GM he would be silver or lower, which is equivelant to iCCup's D+. | ||
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