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I'm just gonna throw out an unpopular idea here that's been sitting at the back of my mind for a long time while watching Starcraft.
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?
I know variance is a thing, and on paper the better player/team can and does lose to the weaker player/team, but this seems to happen a lot more in Starcraft than it does in other sports I watch. Federer can be injured or have a bad day, but 95% of the time he beats the lower ranked player that he faces.
Consider this: Artosis, perhaps the most knowledgable guy in all of Starcraft II, is constantly predicting certain players to do well and constantly getting it wrong. Hence, the "curse".
But what if this game is just inherently too luck based, too RNG, too coin flip-y, that to predict winners is very much like predicting winners in a tournament of people playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. Yeah, you can analyze and make up a bunch of depth and nuance that you think is there, but what if it's an illusion? You can say that PartinG is a much stronger player than Curious, he should win 3-1, maybe 3-2. But for then for him to get trounced 0-3, what does that say about this game we watch?
Here's something else. I am an avid liquibet voter. I've voted on every vote this season. I try to vote for the people I think will win, not hope will win. My correct liquibets is 125 of 236, or 53%. 53%! Only 3% higher than what a person would get if they closed their eyes and picked every answer at random (since all liquibets are 50/50).
And you know what? Even having a mere 53% correct voting rate puts me in the top 20% of people who vote every time. (There are 12310 people who have voted on liquibet this season, through the mystic arts of math and estimation, I've concluded that ~3100 people like me vote on every bet.) Isn't that weird?
The maximum number of liquibet points you can have this season right now is 242, if you got every vote correct. Obviously, this is essentially impossible, but how high do you think the #1 ranked person is?
The number 1 ranked person on liquibet, a fellow by the name of SpiZe, has 157 points. He has predicted the correct winner 64.9% of the time. There are 3 people tied for second (aznball123, Arla, and quannump) at 152 points, or 62.8%.
Don't those numbers seem low to you? Out of ~3100 people who vote every time (and these people who vote every time are probably gonna be pretty avid fans of Starcraft, not just casual viewers), the very best predictors, the Artosis of liquibet predictions, is only sitting at 64.9%, he's correct less than 2 out of 3 times. And he's an outlier, there are only 17, SEVENTEEN, people on liquibet who are right more than 60% of the time.
Consider if I were to look at any sport I don't watch at all, football or basketball, and predicted the winners of each game. Just by looking on wikipedia at the teams stats this season and last, I feel like I could probably be right around 65% of the time. Yet the absolute sickest nerd ballers of starcraft who know the game and players inside and out, have trouble being right 60% of the time.
Is there something wrong with the game? If so, is there anything that can be done to fix it?
edit: I originally submitted this as a thread on reddit, but long text posts by someone not famous have a habit of dying quick on that site. I wanted to hear some more opinions on the matter.
One point a couple of people made in that thread was that even back in Brood War, the best of the best maintained only a ~70% winrate. I would say that that's not good enough either. Additionally, there is no one in SC2 that can even reach that low watermark. Mvp, the King of Wings, has a lifetime TLPD winrate of 61%. Life, the most dominant player we've seen in a long time, has over the last 6 months a winrate of 68% (he also failed to reach the round of 8 the last two seasons). After Life, the very top pros are between ~54 and ~62% winrate over the last 6 months. This is for an expansion that's been played for nearly three years now and that's coming to an end soon, shouldn't the game be stable enough for it not to be so volatile?
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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.
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On February 22 2013 15:41 Sea_Food wrote:Show nested quote +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?
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The problem with your final summation is that the game changes as new builds, meta, maps and patches come along. Players get better as the game is more figured out, and of course you have to be able to account for player error in scouting, preparation, knowledge of your opponent, macro, micro and strategy. It isn't as cut and dried as "Life was really good for a few months so no one will be able to touch him if he continues to improve at that pace."
SC2 is a deep enough game that players can specialize in certain timings or micro or builds, and players can get very streaky until other players figure out how to counter what they're doing. Everyone improves, but players do not improve at the same pace.
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On February 22 2013 15:38 Gatesleeper wrote: One point a couple of people made in that thread was that even back in Brood War, the best of the best maintained only a ~70% winrate. I would say that that's not good enough either. Additionally, there is no one in SC2 that can even reach that low watermark. Mvp, the King of Wings, has a lifetime TLPD winrate of 61%. Life, the most dominant player we've seen in a long time, has over the last 6 months a winrate of 68% (he also failed to reach the round of 8 the last two seasons). After Life, the very top pros are between ~54 and ~62% winrate over the last 6 months. This is for an expansion that's been played for nearly three years now and that's coming to an end soon, shouldn't the game be stable enough for it not to be so volatile? At the end of 2011, MVP has a nearly 70% win ratio. He fell off quite a bit in 2012 because of his wrists. Besides, it's not only Artosis. There's Kim Carrier as well......
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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.
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wow lol OT, but didn't realize I was rank 2.
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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 is the biggest problem I see with SC2 as an eSport in general. It seems that luck plays such a significant roll in the outcome. I want to see the skill ceiling be so high that we can have players that generally never lose to weaker opponents.
I want to see the best player in Starcraft have a 90% win rate. Not a 60% win rate.
Edit: I think I over-estimated when I said 90% win rate, but the idea stands that I'd prefer higher win rates for the best players.
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Artosis is not the most knowledgable guy in all of starcraft lol. the best players are.
the main reason why predictions are often wrong is the people who predict stuff dunno what the hell they are talking about because they know the players based on a couple games they have seen of them. even if they watched hundreds of games of a certain player it's still just like 0.5% of all the games the players have played.
the best people to predict stuff would be other good players who know both 2 players very well and played them both a shit ton of times.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
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.
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Keep in mind that these players' winrates are based on their entire careers, through their highs and lows (especially Mvp, considering his injuries). If a player's winrate is 60%, they win ~65% of all BO3's they play ON AVERAGE. I agree that it's hard to predict a match's winner, but a winrate like 60% is not to be underestimated.
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On February 22 2013 15:41 Sea_Food wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I think this explains it pretty well. I don't know where you got that Artosis is the most knowledgeable guy of SC2. He's often very off when hyping players, doing it for players that haven't been winning for two or three months because they were good back in the day. And although he sometimes speaks about new players, you can notice that he isn't always really aware about their actual style. Those two things combined with SC2 volatility makes his predictions often wrong.
And I'm not an antifan of Artosis, I enjoy his casting style.
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On February 22 2013 15:47 inSeason wrote:I want to see the best player in Starcraft have a 90% win rate. Not a 60% win rate. See this is what I want too. It seems people are split into two camps here, some that agree with me, and others who are saying that Starcraft is just not the game that's ever gonna be like that.
On February 22 2013 15:46 aznball123 wrote: wow lol OT, but didn't realize I was rank 2. hehe, congrats! And what's your secret?
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But if the same player won every single competition and had a 90% winrate, wouldn't everyone complain about the fact the outcome of every tournament is boring and obvious? I'm pretty sure they would.
Also a lot of other (non e-sports) are incredibly volatile. As much so as SC2, if not much more.
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On February 22 2013 15:51 ColtraneL 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. I think this explains it pretty well. I don't know where you got that Artosis is the most knowledgeable guy of SC2. He's often very off when hyping players, doing it for players that haven't been winning for two or three months because they were good back in the day. And although he sometimes speaks about new players, you can notice that he isn't always really aware about their actual style. Those two things combined with SC2 volatility makes his predictions often wrong. And I'm not an antifan of Artosis, I enjoy his casting style. Well okay, maybe I should've said most knowledgable caster in SC2? I mean, if not him, who? Coaches and players? The thing is, I never hear their opinions on who is going to win every match. If I can't believe the pundits, the people whose job it is to know the game and the people who play it, who can I believe?
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On February 22 2013 15:49 Kennigit wrote:Show nested quote + 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.
Why doesn't this change? Why aren't we seeing steps taken for this to improve?
On February 22 2013 15:53 MCXD wrote: But if the same player won every single competition and had a 90% winrate, wouldn't everyone complain about the fact the outcome of every tournament is boring and obvious? I'm pretty sure they would.
Completely disagree. I want players to quiver in fear when they play against Flash. When a lesser player beats a better player, it would actually feel significant.
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If you put it at a BO7, then a 70% win rate per game becomes a 87% on the series. Sure, it can be even less random, but not having upsets at all is also bad for the sport.
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Pro players are human too, maybe they didn't get a good night sleep or ate some slightly bad bbq beef or fell prey to his own hubris. Not to mention you can't use % of people choosing winners on a voting site as evidence of game being too random cause none of the voters have any information apart from previous televised games. You also neglect to mention that unknown players facing famous "better" players have (and should) a big advantage in that they can study and prepare builds while the famous player takes much more of a risk if they try anything greedy or tricky as they don't know their opponents style
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On February 22 2013 15:53 MCXD wrote: But if the same player won every single competition and had a 90% winrate, wouldn't everyone complain about the fact the outcome of every tournament is boring and obvious? I'm pretty sure they would.
if it was just one good player who won everything and everyone else sucked, it'd be boring. But if there were 3-4 players (or even two) who were at the top of the game and constantly battling for trophies, everyone would love it, like what we've had in tennis over the past years.
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Artosis is the best analytical commentator in SC2. (At the very least, he is on almost everybody's list of good commentators, which says a lot). However, he loves to play favourites... pick something he loves about a player, and cheer for that player on the air. I wouldn't be surprised if he does it on purpose, it's one of the things that makes him so interesting to listen to. Unfortunately it seems to have created a sizable population of people who love to complain about the "best player losing".
And since I realize that the OP is saying more than that, let me add that some inherent unpredictability should be expected from a game of hidden information. Imagine if tennis had fog of war.
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