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On February 23 2013 18:07 thezanursic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 05:03 TheRabidDeer wrote:On February 23 2013 03:45 Reborn8u wrote:On February 23 2013 03:27 TheRabidDeer wrote: Does anybody have any stats on the best players from bw in like, 2003? I mean even then, that is 5 years experience with BW, but I imagine itll be pretty different than stats from like 2008+ What you have to realize is that everyone didn't lose the 10+ years of learning to analyze RTS games they gained from BW, AOE, WaR3, ect. When BW came out maximizing efficiency in macro and builds wasn't nearly at the level it was at when SC2 hit the scene. In the first 6 months of Sc2 we had thread after thread, of mathematical breakdowns of each race and it's optimization. We had lengthy analysis of maximizing economy, zerg expansion and pool timing were broken down scientifically before sc2 beta ended, terran expansion and mule timing also became set in stone very early (the only change now is we often see expansion 1st builds) but these were also popular in BW. Keep in mind, it took BW 5 years to reach that point in the meta, where it took Sc2 less than 2 years (and that is a big deal considering all of the terrain negating and crazy all ins that exist in Sc2 compared to BW. I think BW was a virgin experience, no one really knew how to play an RTS when the original starcraft came out, the RTS games before it didn't have the complexity in econ or the unit diversity to warrant the depth of understanding that starcraft requires at top levels. Any new mainstream RTS that ever is released, will be analyzed and understood in it's first year, better than BW was understood in it's first 5. Just look how long BW was out when players like iLuvoov rose up, think about how elementary his "revolutionary macro play" seems by today's standards. He started 1 rax expanding against zerg, and it changed everything, it took another 5 years after that when flash came along and started CC first all the time in BW. Starcraft 2 when through these changes in under 2 years, with constant and drastic balance changes. Yes, this is true. This is also why we are currently at a point where we are close to the probably 2009 area of BW in terms of game knowledge (in WoL). However, a year ago even we were much much lower in skill. Also, this rapid rapid change that we have undergone is another reason things seem so volatile. In BW, players saw a year of dominance. It took a lot of time for people to figure out what to do, then get it known throughout all of the players to be able to consistently beat them. Just look at the stats posted about boxer/iloveoov/Nada. They had stellar YEARS then fell off a bit as people learned how to play against them. Now compare that to SC2, people had stellar SEASONS then started to fall off. To go 4-5 months with a 70% win rate is the equivalent of a dominant year in BW just because of how quickly information and strategy travels. Once the game is truly figured out, only then will we see a Flash in SC2. Flash was so dominant because he knew everything about the game, had great play and mechanics and everything. You cant have a dominant force when things are still changing so quickly. NO actually once the game gets fully figured out (I would argue that it already is) we will have a lot of people being " the best " because they won't be able to differantiate themselves from others and while I agree mostly on what you've said the mechanical restrictions were also a reason for it being figured out so late in it's life span. The mechanical restrictions was THE one and only reason for BWs strategies being more complex and taking longer for them to be figured out
How can you possibly make this claim? There's no way to know whether it was solely the mechanical skill ceiling or whether BW is inherently more complex strategically. In fact I'm pretty sure most people would completely disagree with you. If BW had SC2's mechanics (mbs, autocast, etc) I think winrates of top players would still be higher than in SC2.
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SC2 Foreigners are like pop singers and Kespa pros are like opera singers. Foreigners appeal and can relate more to the masses due to their personalities and culture but they're a completely different product from Kespa pros.
Artosis is like a classical /opera music elitist, He judges things by vocals (mechanics) instead of who won the American Idol Contest (tournament). Being a Broodwar Terran myself like Artosis I can completely understand his elitism and tastes.
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A lot of people have been discussing this with the correct factor in mind. However a lot of people seem to ignore it and have missed the point. Perhaps people aren't reading the rest of the replies not sure.
The reason SC2 seems volatile is down solely to BO1 and BO3 formats. Mechanical skill ceilings etc are just not relevant at all. The reason for this is that we are so far away from the skill ceilings that any difference between games in that regard won't manifest themselves in win% at the top level unless you compare exactly like for like, which is impossible. What is the equivalent of one map of SC2 to one game of Quake? Who knows, its way way too complicated.
The analogy with tennis is interesting because tennis, being arranged into BO3 or BO5 set matches in tennis is a hugely longer format and allows the better player to win much more often. If a Grand Slam was a BO5 games format, Roger Federer wouldn't have 17 grand slams, he'd be lucky to have 4 or 5 such would be the massive variance in terms of who wins. The top tennis players win rates would be 55% or something in Grand Slams. Instead in BO5 matches it is (I think) over 80% for the top 4 players.
If a top top player in SC2 has a 65% WR by mapscore against his average opponent. Something which apparently is unacceptable to many people here. Then in a BO3 this will increase to 72%. In a BO5 this will increase again. By the time you get to BO11's, BO21's etc the top players win rates would be the magical 90%+ people desire.
TL;DR: This is purely a function of number of games in a series. Nothing else is remotely relevant in comparison.
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On February 23 2013 18:30 thezanursic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 17:16 magicallypuzzled wrote: no the problem isn't what ever random bull crap most of you are spouting. the problem/cause of the randomness compared to most quote sports unquote is the number of people who have the opportunity to play against the pros in starcraft is hugely disproportionate to the number of people who can play the pro's in any other actual sport.
In starcraft if you put the work in you can become as great as you ever want to be/play who ever you want to play all that's need is for you to literally eat breath sleep starcraft. in any sport you care to name no matter how many peple eat/breath/ sleep (insert sport name here) there is still an absolute limit on the number of players that are needed/wanted in the sport.
if a thousand people said hey I have he skill and want to be the best basketball player and I am going to do nothing but basketball 24/7 for how ever many years it takes to reach that goal 900 of them atleast are going to be completely out of luck no matter how good they actually get. there just isn't and won't be the teams/management/what ever to support them nor is there any desire to have such.
not so with starcraft there is no actual limit to the number of teams/players theres no ok we are drafting these many people for the nba and no more. if they get the skill there is nothing but perhaps common sense that says there can't be millions of pro players. That's a bunch of BS while it might be true to small extent it just doesn't work that way. Have you never watched any olympic sport? If you did you would know what kinds of differences there are. In skiing for instance (I used to compete when I was younger although I didn't achieve anything I am still pretty good at it and understand the sport) in woman's league a competitor from my country Tina Maze has been totally dominating this season with 8 wins this season over several disciplines, she was also 2nd and 3rd several times and if you look at the sport itself you will NEVER see a no-name take a championship the difference between the winner and the 30th is often above 3 secs which is fucking a lot if you've ever competed like I have. The dame goes for chess a top grandmaster in FIDE rating usually doesn't lose to a lower tier GM (and both of them are among the best) you could put a Grandmaster against as many national champions that aren't as established and he just wouldn't lose (if he played to the best of his abilities that is). I am not very into sports I follow a couple of winter sports since they are close to heart, but I can tell you that everyone who has ever followed or better yet competed at a sport can tell you that what you've spouted is utter bullshit. There are sports of course that are more luck based and teamsports are also a little bit more unpredictable because of the larger number of competitors
you didn't understand my point at all your post is saying there isn't any one in those sports that could compete with the top pros which is exactly what I was saying soooo? what exactly are you saying?
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can't seem to delete double post
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On February 24 2013 00:09 _SpiRaL_ wrote: A lot of people have been discussing this with the correct factor in mind. However a lot of people seem to ignore it and have missed the point. Perhaps people aren't reading the rest of the replies not sure.
The reason SC2 seems volatile is down solely to BO1 and BO3 formats. Mechanical skill ceilings etc are just not relevant at all. The reason for this is that we are so far away from the skill ceilings that any difference between games in that regard won't manifest themselves in win% at the top level unless you compare exactly like for like, which is impossible. What is the equivalent of one map of SC2 to one game of Quake? Who knows, its way way too complicated.
The analogy with tennis is interesting because tennis, being arranged into BO3 or BO5 set matches in tennis is a hugely longer format and allows the better player to win much more often. If a Grand Slam was a BO5 games format, Roger Federer wouldn't have 17 grand slams, he'd be lucky to have 4 or 5 such would be the massive variance in terms of who wins. The top tennis players win rates would be 55% or something in Grand Slams. Instead in BO5 matches it is (I think) over 80% for the top 4 players.
If a top top player in SC2 has a 65% WR by mapscore against his average opponent. Something which apparently is unacceptable to many people here. Then in a BO3 this will increase to 72%. In a BO5 this will increase again. By the time you get to BO11's, BO21's etc the top players win rates would be the magical 90%+ people desire.
TL;DR: This is purely a function of number of games in a series. Nothing else is remotely relevant in comparison. Of course you are correct, but the game could still be changed to allow higher mapscore winrates, which is what people are talking about here. If you did bo11 sure you'd get 85%+ match winrates, but the matches would take a long time, if you tweaked/redesigned the game to allow 75%+ mapscore winrates then you could do bo3 with way less variance and it wouldn't take so long.
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On February 24 2013 08:42 Die4Ever wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2013 00:09 _SpiRaL_ wrote: A lot of people have been discussing this with the correct factor in mind. However a lot of people seem to ignore it and have missed the point. Perhaps people aren't reading the rest of the replies not sure.
The reason SC2 seems volatile is down solely to BO1 and BO3 formats. Mechanical skill ceilings etc are just not relevant at all. The reason for this is that we are so far away from the skill ceilings that any difference between games in that regard won't manifest themselves in win% at the top level unless you compare exactly like for like, which is impossible. What is the equivalent of one map of SC2 to one game of Quake? Who knows, its way way too complicated.
The analogy with tennis is interesting because tennis, being arranged into BO3 or BO5 set matches in tennis is a hugely longer format and allows the better player to win much more often. If a Grand Slam was a BO5 games format, Roger Federer wouldn't have 17 grand slams, he'd be lucky to have 4 or 5 such would be the massive variance in terms of who wins. The top tennis players win rates would be 55% or something in Grand Slams. Instead in BO5 matches it is (I think) over 80% for the top 4 players.
If a top top player in SC2 has a 65% WR by mapscore against his average opponent. Something which apparently is unacceptable to many people here. Then in a BO3 this will increase to 72%. In a BO5 this will increase again. By the time you get to BO11's, BO21's etc the top players win rates would be the magical 90%+ people desire.
TL;DR: This is purely a function of number of games in a series. Nothing else is remotely relevant in comparison. Of course you are correct, but the game could still be changed to allow higher mapscore winrates, which is what people are talking about here. If you did bo11 sure you'd get 85%+ match winrates, but the matches would take a long time, if you tweaked/redesigned the game to allow 75%+ mapscore winrates then you could do bo3 with way less variance and it wouldn't take so long. but such thing just isn't possible, its human limitation. If you have 100 pros who all put in same amount of training time, what you get is a graph that looks alot like a Binomial distribution with a low p value (not the graph's value i wanted to use, but I don't remember the term)
Alot of people in this thread that keeps comparing sc2 winrates to tennis either don't understand basic math. 60%+ winrates for games is very amazing for any athletes in any sports.
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artosis predicted that FXO is gonna win tonight. oh well, we will see
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I think part of the problem especially with the artosis piece is that a lot of his predictions (at least in my eyes) are on entire tournaments, where he mentions a few names that he thinks will do really well. The only thing we will focus on is when said player/players lose, as is inevitable at some point given the amount of maches played.. Also calling it an artosis curse calls extra attention to when he gets predictions wrong as opposed to the substantial amount of times where he is right. I think the artosis curse is just a made up thing and if we could somehow get all the statistics together regarding his predictions wed all be surprised at how often hes right. As to the other points about when seemingly better players lose to inferior opponents: its a volatile game. Looking away at the wrong time for just a second or two can be the difference.
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I feel like when the best players have a 70% win rate in a match up that's normal for competition. Most people aren't going to be able to win as consistently as the best. And to be honest, in most sports the best is an extremely small pool of people and they don't last forever. In tennis, Djokovic, Nadal and Federer are the best players around right now bar non, and they win way more often than not. But they still lose. And most players below them are significantly worse and lose randomly way more often. In competition shit happens. Get over it.
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On February 24 2013 08:42 Die4Ever wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2013 00:09 _SpiRaL_ wrote: A lot of people have been discussing this with the correct factor in mind. However a lot of people seem to ignore it and have missed the point. Perhaps people aren't reading the rest of the replies not sure.
The reason SC2 seems volatile is down solely to BO1 and BO3 formats. Mechanical skill ceilings etc are just not relevant at all. The reason for this is that we are so far away from the skill ceilings that any difference between games in that regard won't manifest themselves in win% at the top level unless you compare exactly like for like, which is impossible. What is the equivalent of one map of SC2 to one game of Quake? Who knows, its way way too complicated.
The analogy with tennis is interesting because tennis, being arranged into BO3 or BO5 set matches in tennis is a hugely longer format and allows the better player to win much more often. If a Grand Slam was a BO5 games format, Roger Federer wouldn't have 17 grand slams, he'd be lucky to have 4 or 5 such would be the massive variance in terms of who wins. The top tennis players win rates would be 55% or something in Grand Slams. Instead in BO5 matches it is (I think) over 80% for the top 4 players.
If a top top player in SC2 has a 65% WR by mapscore against his average opponent. Something which apparently is unacceptable to many people here. Then in a BO3 this will increase to 72%. In a BO5 this will increase again. By the time you get to BO11's, BO21's etc the top players win rates would be the magical 90%+ people desire.
TL;DR: This is purely a function of number of games in a series. Nothing else is remotely relevant in comparison. Of course you are correct, but the game could still be changed to allow higher mapscore winrates, which is what people are talking about here. If you did bo11 sure you'd get 85%+ match winrates, but the matches would take a long time, if you tweaked/redesigned the game to allow 75%+ mapscore winrates then you could do bo3 with way less variance and it wouldn't take so long.
Except that win rate is not only determined by the game design alone.
A lot of people here have used tennis as an example. Because in the current game. There is the 'big' four. But if you looked at the pre Federer era, there was a lot more variance. Did tennis get 'patched' to affect this? No, sometimes you just get dominant competitors who are just above the rest of the field.
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On February 24 2013 13:47 Megabuster123 wrote: I feel like when the best players have a 70% win rate in a match up that's normal for competition. Most people aren't going to be able to win as consistently as the best. And to be honest, in most sports the best is an extremely small pool of people and they don't last forever. In tennis, Djokovic, Nadal and Federer are the best players around right now bar non, and they win way more often than not. But they still lose. And most players below them are significantly worse and lose randomly way more often. In competition shit happens. Get over it.
I am not sure why it has to be 70%.
But anyways, it depends on the format as well. Remember something like Code S is top 32 players. For tennis, it is 128 for Grand Slams. So players play more of the low 'tier' players. Remember that Koreans had 90%+ win rates on the international TLPD when only a few of them travelled to foreign events. So the win percentage also depends on who you play.
That is also why a win rate of 55% compare with 60% is not just 5%. Because the 60% player is advancing further in tournaments more often and thus play 'better' players more often.
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I think comparing SC2 to sports like football, soccer, tennis etc are incorrect, since those are simple sports which focus much more on mechanical skill whereas SC2 is a combination "special tactics", incomplete information and mechanical skill.
Watching SC2 feels a lot more like watching poker, where although the pros win more than they lose, you don't get total domination as per other sports for what I think are similar reasons to SC2.
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I think sc2 is a lot like basketball actually. The best teams clearly have strong winning percentages, but every now and then even very good teams lose to bad teams. Does that mean basketball needs to be changed so that a good team never loses to a bad team? Of course not.
As others have said, the limitation really is the sample size of games/tournaments. If one player is 10% better than another player, it would take at the very least a bo7 to figure that out, and even then you can't really know who is the better player. My math skills are totally atrophied, but there is a way to calculate it and I'm sure to be actually certain about small skill differences you would need like a best of 20 series or something like that.
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In game like SC2, the skill cap is so high that its impossible for humans to play perfectly, there is ALWAYS something that people could do better plus you cant know everything because of fog of war, and its also inevitable that players make mistakes in every game also.
Also, in brood war there is no total domination by any player, even flash has only about 70% total winrate. Its high, but far from absolute dominance which I would define as near 100% winrate.
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Just chiming in with my two (or maybe a few more) cents.
First, the comparison to other sports and the lack of a truly dominating single individual. Last year, if you're a hockey fan, was an amazing playoffs in the NHL. The Los Angeles Kings needed all 82 games of the regular season to make it in. As in, they won their very last game of the season which gave them just the right amount of points to take the 8th playoff spot. They then proceeded to absolutely flatten every single team they were matched up against in the playoffs, on their way to the franchise's first Stanley Cup. Their championship run included dominating wins over the Vancouver Canucks (owners of the best team record, and pretty much everything else in the league that year - they also have been one of the top 5 teams in the league for the past 4 years or so) and New Jersey Devils (one of the most dominant defensive teams of the past decade). No one was unexcited by this fact, in actuality, TV numbers showed it was the most popular televised playoffs of all time. So clearly, a less-winning record (like the Kings') does not in and of itself indicate inferior play even in team sports.
Second, the comments about the skill ceiling. The amount of people saying that they believe SC2 either has or hasn't a high enough skill ceiling is mind-boggling to me. Mostly because, if there is a person who has seen and/or mastered the skill ceiling of SC2, I would love to meet them, shake their hand, and ask them why they aren't out there flattening MVP, Life, and other pros. What our opinion is of the skill ceiling is irrelevant. Until someone arrives to show us the next level of the skill 'ceiling' (note the qualified nature of that term), we don't know how high the potential of SC2 is. The original Starcraft had less of a skill ceiling and a higher rate of imbalance than Broodwar did, and look how that expansion turned out (after a pretty substantial series of patches, I might add).
To sum up, anyone who believes they know for a fact what the skill ceiling of SC2 is is probably deceiving themselves, and having 80%+ dominance in any sporting/competitive event is not indicative of spectator enjoyment or quality of the game.
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I think the ultimate goal is to have the better player winning 100% of the time. Don't even get me started on the CoD's.
So yes, there is a "problem" when a game doesn't have a high skill ceiling. It doesn't allow a better player to fully flourish. In sc2 we commonly see worse players beat better players- mostly through cheese, short series, and prepared builds. This isn't the case in long series with mostly macro games, so that is good.
There are a lots of things that Blizzard should have done differently in game design. 1) Units that reward micro instead of relying on the opponent to be unprepared. 2) Highground advantage for positioning and micro 3) APM heavy macro and interface mechanics - automine, hotkeys, etc.
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I think it's a bit sensationalized that Artosis is the most knowledgeable player, but he certainly does have enough knowledge of the game in which he could make remarks about who is favored in a given series.
Watching all different kind of sports over the years, it is very easy to remember when someone says a team is going to lose relative to someone saying that a team is going to win.
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On February 24 2013 13:54 vthree wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2013 13:47 Megabuster123 wrote: I feel like when the best players have a 70% win rate in a match up that's normal for competition. Most people aren't going to be able to win as consistently as the best. And to be honest, in most sports the best is an extremely small pool of people and they don't last forever. In tennis, Djokovic, Nadal and Federer are the best players around right now bar non, and they win way more often than not. But they still lose. And most players below them are significantly worse and lose randomly way more often. In competition shit happens. Get over it. I am not sure why it has to be 70%. But anyways, it depends on the format as well. Remember something like Code S is top 32 players. For tennis, it is 128 for Grand Slams. So players play more of the low 'tier' players. Remember that Koreans had 90%+ win rates on the international TLPD when only a few of them travelled to foreign events. So the win percentage also depends on who you play. That is also why a win rate of 55% compare with 60% is not just 5%. Because the 60% player is advancing further in tournaments more often and thus play 'better' players more often. I just threw out a number I remembered hearing in the thread. But I agree, the tournament format in Esports has a lot to do with it as well. Very few people in the world are so good at something as to gain the win rates that people are expecting sc2 players to get.
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On February 24 2013 14:34 monitor wrote: I think the ultimate goal is to have the better player winning 100% of the time. Don't even get me started on the CoD's.
So yes, there is a "problem" when a game doesn't have a high skill ceiling. It doesn't allow a better player to fully flourish. In sc2 we commonly see worse players beat better players- mostly through cheese, short series, and prepared builds. This isn't the case in long series with mostly macro games, so that is good.
There are a lots of things that Blizzard should have done differently in game design. 1) Units that reward micro instead of relying on the opponent to be unprepared. 2) Highground advantage for positioning and micro 3) APM heavy macro and interface mechanics - automine, hotkeys, etc. Uh, Monitor... Brood War wasn't any different. Fantasy, #1 in all the rankings at the time of the KeSPA transition to SC2, had an all-time win rate of 62.41%. Then we look at the current #1 in the SC2 Korean rankings, and we have Life at 62.05%. Even the man who earned the nicknames "Ultimate Weapon" and "God" boasted a 71.74% win rate. Yes, even Flash lost more than 1 in every 4 games, most against statistically inferior opponents, in BW.
Moving toward traditional sports, which feature purely physical skill and no information hiding or other such "luck"-based concepts, even the best teams don't win all their games and lose to inferior teams, statistically speaking. Last season, the Vancouver Canucks were the highest-ranked team; they won 62.19% of the time (51-22-9). Life's 2012 record was 181 wins - 108 losses (62.63%). His 2013 stats so far are 8 wins - 4 losses (66.67%). In the sports world, that's textbook consistency.
I know you don't like SC2 personally, but frankly I find the general idea of this thread to be faulty.
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