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I'm glad SOMEONE realizes it.
Guys, get ready for this... I'll even put it in spoilers.
+ Show Spoiler +Starcraft is not the best competitive game. Go play Quake and Chess. Really.
Because my post felt empty, I'll add more. Innovation is far more talented than Symbol, it's a sad truth which is apparent if you study games closely. Innovation makes TONS of intelligent decisions on basically everything. Symbol on the other hand, just carries out his build and it wins or it doesn't win. Symbol makes those small decisions occasionally, but when compared to a player like Bomber or Polt or Innovation (lolterranfanboy) you will see that there is so much more to those players than what you see out of many other pros. Naniwa also makes a lot of small intelligent decisions, but he isn't as refined. But the sad thing is, those small decisions don't even pay off in the long run. Sometimes it's just better to herpderp your way to victory (look at all the roach-rush builds out there, total herpderp). And that my friends, is Starcraft Poo.
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Note that you drew the example of tennis, which is basically (along with chess) THE MOST consistent sport (that i know of). I mean Federer and Nadal meeting in i don't know how many consecutive finals is really sick.
But my roommate is a huge Hockey fan and he was telling me about this curse, where last Stanley Cup winner never makes it into the playoffs. Reminded me of the GSL curse where winner doesn't break Ro32.
There are two reasons SC2 is so volatile: yes it does have a luck factor, but also the fact that it's so unforgiving. It doesn't matter if you're the best, if you let your army get fungaled, that 1 second loses you the game. That's it. Because of this, the best players tend to be the ones who make less mistakes; but nobody is perfect, and sometimes you will get caught with your units in a ball.
I do, however, agree with you. In fact, I always find myself cheering for the most accomplished player just because i want to feel like sc2 is consistent. The only player i really cheer for is PartinG, cause i've been his fan since the beginning of 2012.
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On February 23 2013 01:52 Evangelist wrote:
Please do not tell an avid football watcher how my own game works, thanks. Nevermind a Manchester United fan from OId Trafford. I know what it is I am talking about.
Wow can you get any more pretentious ? Just because you are from Manchester and watch the team all the time; doesn't change the fact that football has draws. You're also comparing a team sport with draws to an individual one that doesn't. By the way, this season in La liga Barcelona's win percentage is 87.5%; and it's not because la liga is terrible, it's because Barcelona are that much better than everyone.
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On February 23 2013 02:08 Blargh wrote:I'm glad SOMEONE realizes it. Guys, get ready for this... I'll even put it in spoilers. + Show Spoiler +Starcraft is not the best competitive game. Go play Quake and Chess. Really.
Chess is build order rules. Your build order usually determines whether you win or not up to the very high level. This was proven by the fact that computers are essentially unbeatable by grandmasters now. This is not like Starcraft where they have an innate APM advantage. They can just analyse every single move using breadth analysis and follow a logical tree down to the end result. We can do this because chess is an essentially solvable game with quantized movement rules. It is impossible to program a computer to win Starcraft without giving them advantages that no human is capable of following. A human is more than capable of reading a chess book for the length of time required to beat a chess computer, but not necessarily following every single logical strand right the way down to its end.
Quake is no different than Starcraft 2 in that map advantage comes into play as does timing on powerups and a certain amount of luck in that your strategy might directly counter the strategy of your opponent. Essentially Quake is an A-B simulator while taking the minimum amount of damage from A - B while taking the maximum amount of damage. Pro Quake is not like regular Quake. Pro Quake is as much about timings on an individual map and wierd geometry as it is about skill.
Funny how that works.
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FlasH had 85% one season and 65% the next depending on his shape. The other bonjwas winrates were also scewed during their pre and after bonjwa eras and you seem to forget that FlasH had a 74% winrate over all match ups for 4 years... Thats longer than the entierty of SC2s life span + it's beta.
Soo MVP doesn't really compare in any shape or form because he was only dominant for a year and even calling that a dominance is questionable.
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On February 23 2013 02:13 Supert0fu wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 01:52 Evangelist wrote:
Please do not tell an avid football watcher how my own game works, thanks. Nevermind a Manchester United fan from OId Trafford. I know what it is I am talking about.
Wow can you get any more pretentious ? Just because you are from Manchester and watch the team all the time; doesn't change the fact that football has draws. You're also comparing a team sport with draws to an individual one that doesn't. By the way, this season in La liga Barcelona's win percentage is 87.5%; and it's not because la liga is terrible, it's because Barcelona are that much better than everyone.
Its not pretentious. It's just annoying when people with no background in statistical analysis with clear bias issues and no understanding, at all, of computer AI design or game theory come on here and pretend that because someone isn't completely dominant, it means the game is broken.
I've provided no less than six examples of why this is not true. The fact you are picking up on regional examples rather than career averages over a variety of cups (tell me, what was the result between Barca and AC Milan the other night?) suggests that you should probably reconsider your position.
It is very rare in sport that someone is as dominant as Manchester United have been. Extremely rare. Michael Schumacher, maybe Tiger Woods and possibly Kasparov. Even Kasparov was known more for playing opponents into submission (usually forcing draws) which is the usual case in high level chess.
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On February 23 2013 02:08 Blargh wrote:I'm glad SOMEONE realizes it. Guys, get ready for this... I'll even put it in spoilers. + Show Spoiler +Starcraft is not the best competitive game. Go play Quake and Chess. Really.
Because my post felt empty, I'll add more. Innovation is far more talented than Symbol, it's a sad truth which is apparent if you study games closely. Innovation makes TONS of intelligent decisions on basically everything. Symbol on the other hand, just carries out his build and it wins or it doesn't win. Symbol makes those small decisions occasionally, but when compared to a player like Bomber or Polt or Innovation (lolterranfanboy) you will see that there is so much more to those players than what you see out of many other pros. Naniwa also makes a lot of small intelligent decisions, but he isn't as refined. But the sad thing is, those small decisions don't even pay off in the long run. Sometimes it's just better to herpderp your way to victory (look at all the roach-rush builds out there, total herpderp). And that my friends, is Starcraft Poo. I'm not happy to say I agree with you, but I definitely do. I wish the game was designed better, as it happened me so many times to lose in tournaments against players much worse than me and win against players much better than me just by gambling or doing stuff that didn't make sense to them because they were a level above or below me.
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What is actually going on is not that the game is insanely variable, but that the players themselves are insanely variable. When the best players go on a rampage, anyone who watches can see that they're clearly outplaying and dominating the opposition. Generally, they've found an extremely powerful build or tactic and are exploiting the hell out of it, but sometimes it's just that the stars have aligned and they're in perfect shape to play. But just as much as they can go on a tear and win, they can also be struck down by someone else who's at their best.
Maybe Starcraft is a game that encourages that kind of inconsistency. Maybe the ability to innovate builds and the huge amount of focus required is what causes players to spike up and down. But is that a bad thing? Does that show that the game is skill-free, or does it rather that the game is so skill-intensive that nobody's managed to keep everything under control for very long?
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On February 23 2013 02:05 Evangelist wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 01:58 NoobSkills wrote:On February 23 2013 01:38 Evangelist wrote:On February 23 2013 01:33 NoobSkills wrote:On February 22 2013 15:49 Kennigit wrote: Is there something inherently wrong with a game where the supposed best players so often lose to players who are widely considered weaker than them? Like, is the skill ceiling not high enough? Is it too luck based? Why don't the best players beat the slightly less good players more often?
This has been suggested by pros, writers, community figures since 2008 when we started playing alpha builds. It has been consistently complained about (especially by idra) for years now. I agree with this. They also got rid of the early/mid game (sort of) with the economy boosters that they gave each race, so they eliminated the early game which is a place where the truly talented would gain an edge in the game. They would use their small army as efficiently as possible, while macroing up economy and upgrades. With no early game, if it is just max or a solid army vs solid army battle, one mistake can win a lesser player a game, where in the past a truly talented BW player would have capitalized on those mistakes. This is complete nonsense. The reason we have no more early game vs early game mistakes is because the community has forced the maps to be continent sized (since they want more macro games) and the standard is now 3 base 200 supply macro games. When you have maps that are continent sized you are ALWAYS going to have room for error. That's why the only race capable of punishing early mistakes is Protoss now, which is why TvP and ZvP are so punishing if the Protoss all ins and you aren't prepared for it. It is no longer true the other way around. Why do they have this ability? THEY CAN SPAWN THEIR UNITS 6 FEET FROM YOUR BASE. Rather than acknowledging this as a good part in the game (the part everyone wants to see), instead we have amateur game designers trying to remove warpgate from the game because it "punishes diversity". No, just make the fucking maps smaller so terrans and zerg can put on some basic pressure without requiring hellions or zergling/roach speed. On February 23 2013 01:36 dUTtrOACh wrote: I've been thinking what the OP has been thinking since mid-2011.
Balance patches may have been too drastic during the Wings of Liberty phase, throwing things out of wack for many players, but that doesn't explain a solid player just falling off the face of the earth (Danger Days of Code A - the abyss).
It may be a very mental game and it may involve lots of preparation time between games in some tournaments, but a mechanically superior player getting crushed because of some lucky spells in the last game of a close series is actually pretty disgraceful. There is way too much volatility and the metagame of Wings is ridiculously stagnant. We'll have to see if HotS sees a little more consistency, but my mind is made up about Wings. Now, if only I could log on and play some games... No, it completely explains it. The fact that Mvp fell through Code S into Code A is proof alone that the ability to play at your best matters hugely in WoL. The guy's not well. Players get found out, players adjust their builds. Maps change, they get bigger and smaller. Dodgy little bits of geometry get abused. Occasionally there is an overpowered unit (infestor) but usually most of it is that someone hasn't figured out how to play against a unit. Maybe their "dominance" as you ascribe to believe they have, is mostly down to coming out with a new tactic no one had seen before and then playing an absolute fuckton of games. It takes time to adapt to something and some people do it quicker than others. In Code S for example, Life played a really unique style of zerg that was super strong. The only person who really adapted to it was Mvp, in the finals. Same with Rain. Really strong style of defensive Protoss. Who beat it? Mvp. Those players get found out. Some get found out sooner rather than later. HuK was really strong until people got used to defending protoss early pressure builds, at which point HE was found out. Thorzain is still the most mechanically strong foreigner we had, but Koreans and zerg take advantage of his lack of aggression to overrun him with units. The only truly dominant players we have had are Mvp and Nestea and of those two, why Mvp? Well, look at who adapted to Life and Rain first. HoTS, I anticipate a fantastic blow for blow rivalry between a healed Mvp and Flash, who is increasingly looking like God again. You sound pretty salty which doesn't help anyone make their point, only sound angry. Huge maps doesn't make the early game last longer. Again a full economy is easier to obtain than in BW, so windows for pressures are closed almost completely. That doesn't mean they cannot work, but that they are less profitable. If I destroy an expansion worth of workers, but sacrifice my own economy to do so, then chances are my opponent is still going to have the same economic force that I have. Then after the early game is done, both players just work on upgrades and maxing their armies which comes very quickly in this game. Huge maps make the early game shorter. Huge maps give safety. They allow players to cut corners, cut units, get more expansions earlier, get earlier upgrades. On some of the continent sized maps you have now, the early game for TvZ biotank ends as soon as the zerg has enough zerglings to force away whatever number of hellions the terran is taking map control with. That's it. Sometimes they'll get in and do damage, but they're not actually going to DO anything more than economical damage. There are no game ending mistakes that a zerg can make which means 6 hellions will destroy their whole base. Reduce the size of the map by half and all of a sudden six hellions are followed up by a 2 tank marine push three minutes later. All of a sudden getting an actual early defense up is important. That third might have to wait. The reason protoss are unique in this is because if the toss wants to, they can pile on pressure continually due to having a near zero travel time between their unit spawn and the battle itself. I am not complaining about toss when I say this, btw. I am just stating that their method of spawning units is uniquely suited for all ins to some of the enormous maps that exist atm. If you want an early game filled with fun and mental micro heavy defenses then lobby to have maps made smaller. If you want a big 3-4 base 200 200 macro war then lobby to make maps bigger. Or you do what HoTS has done - make harassing units much, much stronger.
In BroodWar matches would consistently have action very early on and their maps were even larger than WoL maps. And yes, I do agree that protoss warp in does allow them to do different pressure when compared to the other races, but their gateway units when compared to BW gateway units are weak. If you want to specifically talk about an immortal timing vs zerg, even those are now being crushed. What really ends the early game is that the capacity for mining is maxed very early, so why would you sacrifice having a full base of economy to attempt an attack if when you reach the enemy's base they will have their max on mining and be able to pump out more units, and possibly have more/better upgrades. That leaves only a small window where you can attack an enemy and they are under prepared, and with static defense+immortal/sentry, the zergs ability to mass produce, and terrans salvageable bunkers there is an easy chance they can defend without much stress.
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The thing is Artosis know the game, and knows how players should play out, considering top form, and 100% correct decisions, if you leave the equation to this, Artosis would always have the answers, however you need to add HUMANS to the equation, this makes the game a million times more hard to predict. It just adds things up, like Mindset, Mindgames, Reads, Mistakes, this makes for the interesting things in betting :D
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@Evangelist Your post was like, totally wasted because you didn't actually make any useful points in it. Chess has one of the most CONSISTENT win rates because skill is so clearly reflected. You can see your opponent and so it eliminates much of the RISK involved. You can still play "risky" because humans are not perfect and do not know every perfect move at every moment. There is such a thing as perfect moves in Chess.
Quake 1v1 is SO much better than SC2 just because of how well skill is reflected. It isn't as good as chess, but the game itself takes tons of talent (SC2 does too, except it's horribly reflected, aka all-in herpderp builds can win games). There's some elements of randomness to Quake, but Quake 1v1 is very heavily based on skill. Proper timing of shots, positioning, general map layout knowledge, every bit makes a huge difference, but almost every element also falls under the category of "skill".
Anyway, a game where a more talented player is not rewarded at nearly 100% is flawed. A perfect competitive game should always reward the more skilled player, always. The whole idea of randomness in a competitive game sounds like a joke. Why would anyone EVER have any elements of randomness, ever?
edit for typos
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On February 22 2013 15:44 Popkiller wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2013 15:41 Sea_Food wrote:On February 22 2013 15:38 Gatesleeper wrote: Consider this: Artosis, perhaps the most knowledgable guy in all of Starcraft II,
he is not. thats the biggest reason he predicts so much wrong. another reason is because the game is kinda volatile and GSL allows you to have a long time to prepare a counter build against your opponent. was predicting Life to get out of the Ro16 really the wrong prediction?
Well, when his only losses are against Zergs, and he for some reason always picks Zergs who he knows will pick other Zergs for his group, then yes. Absolutely wrong.
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On February 23 2013 02:15 Evangelist wrote:
Quake is no different than Starcraft 2 in that map advantage comes into play as does timing on powerups and a certain amount of luck in that your strategy might directly counter the strategy of your opponent. Essentially Quake is an A-B simulator while taking the minimum amount of damage from A - B while taking the maximum amount of damage. Pro Quake is not like regular Quake. Pro Quake is as much about timings on an individual map and wierd geometry as it is about skill.
Funny how that works.
Wait a minute, map advantage what? There's not such thing as "map advantage" when you have access to the same tools then you opponent does. Sure, some people can be better on certain maps than others but that has nothing to do with "map advantage", that just means you're better than certain maps then your opponent. This is completely different compared to "zerg has a huge advantage on this map" or "terran is gimped when he plays on this map". What you're referring to is taking advantage of the map, which is similar to SC2, but like I said before, both of you have access to the same tools so there's no inherent imbalances like you do with the maps in SC2.
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On February 23 2013 02:17 thezanursic wrote: FlasH had 85% one season and 65% the next depending on his shape. The other bonjwas winrates were also scewed during their pre and after bonjwa eras and you seem to forget that FlasH had a 74% winrate over all match ups for 4 years... Thats longer than the entierty of SC2s life span + it's beta.
Soo MVP doesn't really compare in any shape or form because he was only dominant for a year and even calling that a dominance is questionable.
He is also comparing apples to oranges. Flash dominated late in BroodWar where the meta game was pretty much figured out, but he perfected the BO, knowledge of his enemy, and use of every tool at his disposal. MvP dominated where one could say Boxer dominated in BW with more micro than perfection of BO, macro, micro, the whole game.
Edit: I would also like to say that people comparing this to tennis/soccer there is only ONE matchup in Tennis/soccer (the other player/team). They might play differently (build order), but they're all the same and have the same tools. MU specific players do exist and can even thrive which makes SC2 more volatile.
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Th skill gap between these code s players is not so big as you would think.
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ohh and in BW there were players who practiced just as much as FlasH and never got out of the B team or the worse of the practice partner category and the last thing to note is that in BW some players were so beastly that random B teamers prepared a specific build just for that player and only that match up on a predetermined map months ahead of time just so they could get that 1 win for the team. Of course we see nothing of the sort in SC2 because of several reasons: -The higher luck factor -The lesser importance of build orders (If you don't believe me go watch Hiya vs Boxer on bluestorm there is actually a VOD with subbed Korean commentary and not even the casters know whats going on) -The volatilty -The much lower skilling (Donn't bash just go watch Iris vs Jaedong where Jaedong micros 2 control groups of mutas in a fashion that we haven't seen since)
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Honestly this thread is just another spinoff of Lings of Liberty in essence, only Lings of Liberty goes a little more specific about what the OP is referring to.
It's weird...I feel there is consistency to some degree. You can see mainly the difference in skill between a Code S player and and Code B player, but I definitely agree whether it be the state of balance, the design of the races...there is definitely a high chance for inferior players to win. Too much.. but this will only be fixed over time with better design and better balance. So unfortunately there's nothing to do but complain and enjoy gems like "lings of liberty" and hope it gets better.
Also one point about the "superstars" in real sports as opposed to progamers. You have to realize that the sample size to become a superstar and experience to become a superstar in a traditional sport is just insane in comparison, and that these people are acclimated and used to being a champion and in the spotlight for years before they become these national/global figures. They already will have that killer instinct, that confidence and professionalism in them.. they are also older than 18 years old and are probably know themselves a lot better. So its just harder to become that superstar level and maintain it as a young kid to begin with.
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On February 23 2013 02:35 NoobSkills wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 02:17 thezanursic wrote: FlasH had 85% one season and 65% the next depending on his shape. The other bonjwas winrates were also scewed during their pre and after bonjwa eras and you seem to forget that FlasH had a 74% winrate over all match ups for 4 years... Thats longer than the entierty of SC2s life span + it's beta.
Soo MVP doesn't really compare in any shape or form because he was only dominant for a year and even calling that a dominance is questionable. He is also comparing apples to oranges. Flash dominated late in BroodWar where the meta game was pretty much figured out, but he perfected the BO, knowledge of his enemy, and use of every tool at his disposal. MvP dominated where one could say Boxer dominated in BW with more micro than perfection of BO, macro, micro, the whole game. Edit: I would also like to say that people comparing this to tennis/soccer there is only ONE matchup in Tennis/soccer (the other player/team). They might play differently (build order), but they're all the same and have the same tools. MU specific players do exist and can even thrive which makes SC2 more volatile. This also I would have mentioned it in my post, but I didn't want to make the post to long.
Ohh and just to emphasise this again
MVP's best winratio over a year was 68% Flash's best winratio over a year was somewhere around 85%
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On February 22 2013 15:45 Onlinejaguar wrote: As much as people want it to be that the game doesn't have this imbalance factor. It simply does. Unlike games such as tennis where both players have the same things, their bodies and a racquet. Sc2 is not that simple with 3 unique races using different units.
Skill does still play a huge factor. If it was completely RNG how would you explain Nestea or MvP's run in the GSL winning 3 and 4 titles respectively.
I don't think Starcraft can ever be as balanced and 'fair' as other traditional sports. Its just the way it is really. I would explain it via skill + a good understanding of the developing game which really gave them the edge
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The "Artosis curse" is simply that the guy is really good at sounding way more intelligent and knowledgeable than he really is. I love his casting, but lets be honest and admit he has basically zero humility and he can't come close to playing on the level of the players he regularly critiques and predicts.
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