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On February 22 2013 17:04 Sachar Nabai wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2013 16:49 PiGStarcraft wrote: Anyone betting on Curious losing ZvP hasn't studied Curious ZvP enough. He messed with Partings timings nice and early every game with nuanced and beautiful adjustments to his play and followed that through with well executed mid-lategame where Parting made more mistakes.
The issue with starcraft II is there is no physical factor which severely hampers a pro player from being the best. It's all about understanding, reactions, mindgames and builds. So if all you need to do is change your mindset of course you can suddenly play a much better game and beat someone whom historically has been smarter at the game than you.
Part of what makes Starcraft so awesome is it isn't like other sport where physicality tends to take precedence, the mental side of things is super dominant.
Also yes there are elements of Poker (limited and false information) in Starcraft so it will rely more on chance than a sport where its about putting a ball in a net. Interesting points. I would just like to add though that the problem (for me at least) isn't really that Curious defeated Parting but that I wouldn't really be surprised if Curious fell of a little bit now. To me, as a sports spectator, that just gives his win so much less meaning. For instance; I can't really hype myself up that much for watching Sniper even though he won the last GSL (haha I really hope I'm wrong about that...) since that apparently didn't mean that he would make it that far in this one.
Oh yeah well that point about curious dropping off shows how strength in different matchups lets players over or under perform. For instance JYP was SO good PvZ and PvP but had a dismal winrate vs Terran for a long time. So he could take out a potential Zerg or Terran champion, only to lose to an average Terran the next round. This sort of different races is what makes the game more random in tournament results too.
Starcraft will never be a predictable and as even a playing field as sports. We trade off stability and part of the predictability to see constant innovation and mental games going on. It both handicaps and enables Starcraft as a sport.
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Haven't read every response to this post, but I think that there are some factors that aren't being considered. I think that the type of game that Starcraft is benefits from different type of competition structures than the ones currently being used. I'm not saying that the ones used are bad, but that they create more volatile situations.
Playing in longer seasons where you have a long time to accumulate results before an elimination playoff would probably lead to a better view of a player's skill, and you can see an individual's results versus everyone rather than seeding also affecting results.
Once in a playoff setting I think things would become volatile again, but the people who made it there would have proven themselves. And playoffs even in traditional sports can be just as volatile and unexpected. I'm from SF and a big Giants fan. Who would've thought they would win two World Series titles in 3 years? Probably not many "experts" who weren't biased in all honesty.
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Well real sports do not have fog of war, and there arent unknown 'plays' that can suprise you according to current 'rules' aka metagame. It is best to compare sc2 to real war than real sports. Real war has a lot of unknown just like starcraft, while real sports have very little unknown factors.
Fog of war creates situations like right place at right time, wrong place at right time, etc. etc. There is more luck involved. If you want it to be just skilled based, remove fog of war, and this will happen. The best micro will always win.But that would only mean less exciting outcomes almost every time.
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Canada16217 Posts
On February 22 2013 16:01 L0L wrote: Yeah like Kennigit said this has been brought up this the very first games of sc2. by making the game UI more efficient to fit into modern gaming it basically lowered the skill ceiling and the ability for naturally gifted dexterity to win all the time. it has made the game more fun to play, because i can do more stuff and control more things compared to something like BW, but has also made the game less fun to watch imo, because the stuff the pros do is not mind blowing insane and physically impossible looking like it was to watch a korean pro micro and macro in BW.
i think the game should have 2 modes. "casual mode", like we have now. and something like the SC2BW mod as a "hardcore mode" which is used for tournaments.
edit: the game is already very much rock paper scissors already, and by listening to artosis on state of the game, it looks like HotS is even worse. the game will be based completely on scouting and denying scouting because the build orders counter each other so much more now with such a wider variety of units and strategies.
i also want to throw out there that imo the top 100 players (completely arbitrary number) in the game are fairly equal and can take games off each other with around 50% win rate. for example, anyone in Code A, and even a lot of people in Code B, are good enough to beat anyone in Code S and win the GSL. the kespa players are not going to get any better at sc2 imo than they are now. they have already pretty much figured the game out and it just comes down to preparing build orders to counter the other guy.
That's not the way to make the game I highly disagree with that.
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Actually, now that I think about it... MVP proves that you can be a consistent contender\winner of the hardest tournaments for a very long time by simply having been that. And while my personal opinion is that he is by far the most accomplished Wings of Liberty player I definitely don't think he has more natural talent, mentality or a better practice situation than for instance the top top Kespa players. Shouldn't that mean that guys like Flash and Jaedong could (should?) eventually dominate even more then MVP did?
Isn't that, at least part of, what we want? It might still be impossible to predict the round of 32, but we would have a good idea about who's going to reach the semifinals...
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i dont feel as bad anymore having negative score in fantasy pro league tnx :D
as far as the game goes, i wish there was more basic way a better player could just be better and beat people. but the truth is sc2 comes down mostly to knowledge about build orders without nearly as heavy weight on execution
if you know what a guy is gonna do in sc2 - if your high level player you can find a way to win most likely. if you know what a guy will do in bw hes still going to rape the fuck out of you unless your super close to his skill level
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On February 22 2013 17:29 Fionn wrote: I feel bad for Artosis. Must suck always making public predictions, being wrong and having people say you curse their favorite players.
yeah, I bet you've never felt like this ever. Have you, Fionn?
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Skill ceiling has almost nothing to do with it.
I hear a lot of people complain that the skill ceiling is too low (quite funny, considering noone on sc2 comes even CLOSE to reaching it, I have yet to see a guy drop 5 locactions at once and micro each drop perfectly) and how that results in noone dominating.
This is just wrong. You can create games with skill ceilings that far exceed a game like broodwar yet the best players wouldn't win more than 60%. What really matters are the random factors that one cannot control. Say you create a game exactly like bw but now you have to throw 4 dices every 10 seconds and you may not start using your mouse until you've thrown 1234. The skill ceiling would be identical to bw but it should be obvious that the outcome will be largely influenced by the dice throws (luck).
The reason why the best sc2 player loses a lot more often than say the best chess player is because there is a lot more luck involved in sc2, but Id argue that's also what makes sc2 fun to watch. In Tennis watching Federer play an unknown is not very interesting to me because the outcome will almost always be the same. I will not watch until he faces someone who has a decent shot at beating him and all his other games aren't very interesting to me. One easy to way to ensure that the best player wins more often in sc2 would be to remove the fog of war but that would be incredibly boring because it limits the game by removing strategical options.
I actually think sc2 is quite amazing in this aspect. Good players win enough that players like the old MVP/Life can win multiple championships and be favourites in any tournament they enter, but there's still so much luck involved that upsets regularily happen and even a ro 32 match between the former gsl champ and someone who just qualified for code S is interesting to watch. I still think the scouting options on sc2 should be a little bit better though and blind all ins should be a bit weaker.
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On February 22 2013 17:38 NightOfTheDead wrote: Well real sports do not have fog of war, and there arent unknown 'plays' that can suprise you according to current 'rules' aka metagame. It is best to compare sc2 to real war than real sports. Real war has a lot of unknown just like starcraft, while real sports have very little unknown factors.
I am not sure about that. If you look at something like American football, there are lot of different 'plays' that can be run from the same formation. QBs also change their plays after looking at the defense's formation. And it has a meta game. Throwing the football is more common compare to 20 years ago. And even recently, there are things like spread offense, QB option, etc.
It is always offense uses some new plays, defense adjusts, then offense find other new plays and it just goes in circles. In this aspect, it is very similar to the evolving meta of starcraft2.
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well, in poker there are some players who will get lucky and win something big one day but the better players are always going to win in the long run so it's just a matter of short-term and long-term. You can't win something based on luck in more you play
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Winrates are funny things. Suppose you kept track of your winrate on ladder, thinking you could use that to measure your progress at the game. You'd find yourself awfully discouraged; no matter how much it felt like you were improving, your winrate would oscillate but always return to about 50%. Of course, this is not because you aren't improving, but rather because the ladder keeps matching you against harder opponents any time you start winning.
This affects players at the pro level, as well. As your winrate improves, you start advancing further in tournaments; as you advance further in tournaments, your opponents become more difficult. Thus any rise in your winrate is immediately resisted by negative feedback.
Theoretically, you might think this effect would disappear for the very best of the best, since there are no better players to encounter at higher levels. But for those best of the best, other factors come in. If your winrate skyrockets, all of a sudden every player is preparing specifically for facing you. Your builds are picked apart for any weakness imaginable, and those weaknesses are exploited mercilessly. It's not even just other players studying you; Parting's immortal sentry all-in, for example, had such a high win rate that the entire community was out for solutions (there's even statements from Dustin Browder discussing how to properly defend it). So even at the very top of the skill ladder, there's negative feedback effects preventing your winrate from jumping too high.
So it's not exactly that the game isn't skill-based. It's not even really that chance mechanics or "luck" are playing such a huge role. It's just that winrate has a lot of negative feedback effects preventing it from jumping too high or too low.
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On February 22 2013 17:44 vthree wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2013 17:38 NightOfTheDead wrote: Well real sports do not have fog of war, and there arent unknown 'plays' that can suprise you according to current 'rules' aka metagame. It is best to compare sc2 to real war than real sports. Real war has a lot of unknown just like starcraft, while real sports have very little unknown factors. I am not sure about that. If you look at something like American football, there are lot of different 'plays' that can be run from the same formation. QBs also change their plays after looking at the defense's formation. And it has a meta game. Throwing the football is more common compare to 20 years ago. And even recently, there are things like spread offense, QB option, etc. It is always offense uses some new plays, defense adjusts, then offense find other new plays and it just goes in circles. In this aspect, it is very similar to the evolving meta of starcraft2.
I can agree to metagame in real sports, however, when you factor in fog of war, it kinda creates a lot more unknown factors than in sports. Although to my taste, having a bit of unclear factors doesnt take away from excitement, more so, it adds to it. Imagine chess with first move of both players being hidden. It kinda would be similar to what sc2 is. And that would add a whole level of play.
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Starcraft is like poker in a way. There are some randomness that occur, mostly in the beginning of the game I suppose. But it's not all physical capabilities like sports or all strategies like team sports.
The best poker players will win tournament here and there, but never all of them, and can get bested by a no name on a bad read/hand early in the tournament. But for both the poker players and the SC2 player, consistency is what's keeping them on the pro scene.
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The Kim Carrier curse was even worse, and that was in Brood War. Also, 70% is extremely high. In the NHL, during an 82 game season, the best team generally only wins around 60% of their games. In chess, draws are extremely common and often make for the bulk of a top player's games, but excluding draws, Carlsen, the highest rated player in the world, has around a 75% win rate over his last 500 games. Asking for players to consistently win 80%+ of their games is just too much.
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Just to add some more interesting information to this thread, I'd just like to mention my own liquibet stats. I'm currently ranked 27th in liquibet, and actually around last week was tied for first. I've voted in all but 5 bets.
Now you might say, hey, this guy's doing pretty good. How does he pick his winners?
The answer? Pretty much at random. I don't follow starcraft anymore. Haven't for the past year or so. I have heard of less than perhaps 40% of the players I see on liquibet, and even those that I do, I don't follow anymore. I have no idea how good anyone really is. Thus, I bet essentially randomly more than 75% of the time. Usually I just kind of pick the name I like best. Yet this strategy has put me on-par, if not higher than many die-hard liquibetters who follow starcraft religiously.
I don't want to draw any conclusions from this, but it does tend to agree with the OP's suggestions.
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The day someone in Starcraft is holding a 90% winrate consistently is the day I stop watching. In almost no competitive scenes does something go 90% winrate. That is absurd. Not even in 100 years of Baseball has somebody done that. The novelty of a "God" would wear off after a few tournaments of nothing being accomplished.
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On February 22 2013 17:52 NightOfTheDead wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2013 17:44 vthree wrote:On February 22 2013 17:38 NightOfTheDead wrote: Well real sports do not have fog of war, and there arent unknown 'plays' that can suprise you according to current 'rules' aka metagame. It is best to compare sc2 to real war than real sports. Real war has a lot of unknown just like starcraft, while real sports have very little unknown factors. I am not sure about that. If you look at something like American football, there are lot of different 'plays' that can be run from the same formation. QBs also change their plays after looking at the defense's formation. And it has a meta game. Throwing the football is more common compare to 20 years ago. And even recently, there are things like spread offense, QB option, etc. It is always offense uses some new plays, defense adjusts, then offense find other new plays and it just goes in circles. In this aspect, it is very similar to the evolving meta of starcraft2. I can agree to metagame in real sports, however, when you factor in fog of war, it kinda creates a lot more unknown factors than in sports. Although to my taste, having a bit of unclear factors doesnt take away from excitement, more so, it adds to it. Imagine chess with first move of both players being hidden. It kinda would be similar to what sc2 is. And that would add a whole level of play. Why do "real sports" have to be full knowledge games? I don't know what you count as a sport, but poker is at the very least a highly competitive game that is taken seriously at the highest levels, and even winds up on ESPN once in a while. And poker's mechanics depend heavily on players only having partial knowledge. Interestingly, if poker were a full knowledge game it would be almost entirely luck-based, but because of the fact that hands are known only to the players that hold them, poker becomes a very skill-based game.
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On February 22 2013 17:42 MorroW wrote:
[...]
if you know what a guy is gonna do in sc2 - if your high level player you can find a way to win most likely. if you know what a guy will do in bw hes still going to rape the fuck out of you unless your super close to his skill level
I agree completely. I think a lot of that came down to mechanics. None of the races in SC2 are mechanically demanding in a way comparable to BW. Granted, most of the mechanics in BW came from a UI no sane person wants to go back to (no multi-select, 12 units per control, no automine etc.) but I am disappointed Blizzard didn't make a concerted effort when developing SC2 to introduce units that scaled with a players mechanics e.g. units you could dump apm into. Obviously, most players don't want pointless clicking introduced just for the sake of adding mechanical difficulty.
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On February 22 2013 17:33 PiGStarcraft wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2013 17:04 Sachar Nabai wrote:On February 22 2013 16:49 PiGStarcraft wrote: Anyone betting on Curious losing ZvP hasn't studied Curious ZvP enough. He messed with Partings timings nice and early every game with nuanced and beautiful adjustments to his play and followed that through with well executed mid-lategame where Parting made more mistakes.
The issue with starcraft II is there is no physical factor which severely hampers a pro player from being the best. It's all about understanding, reactions, mindgames and builds. So if all you need to do is change your mindset of course you can suddenly play a much better game and beat someone whom historically has been smarter at the game than you.
Part of what makes Starcraft so awesome is it isn't like other sport where physicality tends to take precedence, the mental side of things is super dominant.
Also yes there are elements of Poker (limited and false information) in Starcraft so it will rely more on chance than a sport where its about putting a ball in a net. Interesting points. I would just like to add though that the problem (for me at least) isn't really that Curious defeated Parting but that I wouldn't really be surprised if Curious fell of a little bit now. To me, as a sports spectator, that just gives his win so much less meaning. For instance; I can't really hype myself up that much for watching Sniper even though he won the last GSL (haha I really hope I'm wrong about that...) since that apparently didn't mean that he would make it that far in this one. Oh yeah well that point about curious dropping off shows how strength in different matchups lets players over or under perform. For instance JYP was SO good PvZ and PvP but had a dismal winrate vs Terran for a long time. So he could take out a potential Zerg or Terran champion, only to lose to an average Terran the next round. This sort of different races is what makes the game more random in tournament results too. Starcraft will never be a predictable and as even a playing field as sports. We trade off stability and part of the predictability to see constant innovation and mental games going on. It both handicaps and enables Starcraft as a sport.
Yeah I remember poor JYP back in those days as well... And yes Starcraft II (and its expansions) will most likely never come close to the level of predictability that most of the established sports have. And yes that is both good and bad. I just wish we had a couple of MVPs man... A couple of that MVP who was in a class of his own. I would be fine with that. No sorry; I am fine with what we already have - I would be ecstatic(!) if we could get just a couple of MVP-level players... The extra stability and legitimacy that would add to the game would be great.
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SC2 has a lower skill ceiling than desirable, definitely more so than traditional sports, but it's still there. I do wish there was a greater difference at the very top, but I think you just have to take it as it is and just enjoy it. There are many similar games in the same situation, and people still enjoy them.
I don't think we'll have a game with a truly high skill cap for a long while. Not until the controls have more depth than a mouse a keyboard, or at the least until a new RTS comes out with much less automation than SC2, but a better means for skill-based observation/analysis of an opponent.
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