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To have a game that would put amazing players way above those with lesser skill would be to increase the execution of what needs to happen for all gameplay mechanics, but by doing so you start to alienate the lower player base. Its not good for a game you need to make money off of especially in this economy.
If you ever played fighting games take a player who plays Marvel vs capcom 2 at a lower level and pit him amongst the top players they simply wont win. a will possibly be oCVd (one character victory). You take those same 2 players and put them in a game like Street Fighter IV. and one random ultra can cost you a match. You decrease execution requirements and increase randomness and comeback factor you have a game that all the masses can play on a relatively equal footing.
Likewise if you did the opposite, If you increase execution requirements and decrease randomness to close to nil and comeback factor you have a game that alienates the lower fan base but makes an enourmous gap in between amazing players and average players. This is usually the 'reward' i feel like most people esp the sc1 crowd call out for, but imo isnt good for business(or for sales).
my 2cents. Thats what i feel about it.
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A question from a somebody who is very, very far from a pro (Rank 1 Gold League, currently playing mostly against Platinum and mostly winning):
I've stopped losing to cheese from players at or below my skill level. Out of the last 100 games, I may have lost 3 to 5 to cheese. The people who cheese mostly have horrible micro and I often end up killing 6 zealots with 6 lings and 2 roaches or something ridiculous like that.
How is it that at the higher end of the game, cheese becomes viable again? What mechanics are at work there?
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Can you really call the player who calls the coin flip correctly the "better player"? The problem isn't that SC2 rewards a skill set that we aren't happy with, its that SC2 allows luck to give weaker players a decent chance of winning.
In one single game: no. But over a series or even a carreer: of course!
Limited information guesses are not coin-flips by any means. Some people are just consistently better at guessing what their opponent is doing, or at setting themselves up in very flexible positions that have the lowest possible number of downsides.
It's called game-sense, and it has very little to do with luck.
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On December 21 2010 19:32 Esjihn wrote: You take those same 2 players and put them in a game like Street Fighter IV. and one random ultra can cost you a match. You decrease execution requirements and increase randomness and comeback factor you have a game that all the masses can play on a relatively equal footing.
You are very wrong about the ultra in SF4. At the highest level competition, you rarely see random ultras connect, except against fireball characters. Most non-grab ultras take at least 8-9 frames to connect, and that's with your opponent right next to you. More often than not, your opponent could be in the middle of a move when you do the ultra, and still block it easily.
The time it takes an ultra to actually land, in SC2-sense, is like building a PF in your opponents base. Your opponent has to make a horrible timing mistake or be using a very risky strategy to fall for it.
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I think the difference in mentality in the 2 communities comes from 2 things:
1) Fighting games have historically been more criticised for encouraging "lame tactics" like fireball spam. The fans had to respond to this by explaining why fireballs don't break the game, and that you can react and punish. If you lose to it, it's your fault, not the game's. This maybe made them a little over defensive, and now any complaining about balance or "cheapness" is automatically dismissed. Thus the idea that results are all that matters.
2) There are more balance changes in a RTS. This is both Starcraft's blessing and its curse. SF fans have to accept the game as it is because they know it's not going to change for a while. Starcraft players wouldn't whine near as much, or blame their losses on imbalance, if their wasn't the possibility that Blizzard would patch it. Frankly, I don't want to learn how to counter a 2-rax cheese near as much as I want to see it simply removed from the game.
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On December 21 2010 20:20 dookudooku wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2010 19:32 Esjihn wrote: You take those same 2 players and put them in a game like Street Fighter IV. and one random ultra can cost you a match. You decrease execution requirements and increase randomness and comeback factor you have a game that all the masses can play on a relatively equal footing. You are very wrong about the ultra in SF4. At the highest level competition, you rarely see random ultras connect, except against fireball characters. Most non-grab ultras take at least 8-9 frames to connect, and that's with your opponent right next to you. More often than not, your opponent could be in the middle of a move when you do the ultra, and still block it easily. The time it takes an ultra to actually land, in SC2-sense, is like building a PF in your opponents base. Your opponent has to make a horrible timing mistake or be using a very risky strategy to fall for it.
How many fighting game tournaments have you been to? I used to goto all the Major East Coast ones, and the amount of wakeup/random ultras ive seen admittedly not like an absurd amount but i have seen it cost top players games. Example would be gootecks getting hit by iloveujoe/longislandjoe random wakeup ultra from sagat in (sfivvanilla) 2s teams at i think devastation '09. It wont catch you all the time but there is that factor that is there. Which also sets up for a meta game and the threat of it being there.
Id say that factor could more closely be compared to like the 2 rax scs rine push or the 12/10 drone rush on steppes. Stuff thats relatively easy execution wise, and stuff that while you wont see very often can still catch better players off guard.
If there was somehow a way to take out of the game you wouldnt see 2300k diamonds with wins from games being 6:30 min long lol.
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On December 21 2010 19:54 CaptRoadkill wrote: A question from a somebody who is very, very far from a pro (Rank 1 Gold League, currently playing mostly against Platinum and mostly winning):
I've stopped losing to cheese from players at or below my skill level. Out of the last 100 games, I may have lost 3 to 5 to cheese. The people who cheese mostly have horrible micro and I often end up killing 6 zealots with 6 lings and 2 roaches or something ridiculous like that.
How is it that at the higher end of the game, cheese becomes viable again? What mechanics are at work there?
Cheese like 6 pools and proxy gates actually happen quite rarely at the pro-level. People are obsessed with calling all-in builds "cheese" when it's really not the case.
Off the top of my head, I can think only of two cheese games in GSL3: MC's proxy gate vs Marineking and leenock's 6 pool against guineapig.
On the other hand, early-midgame one base all-ins, particularly from Terrans, are exceedingly popular, and really strong right now: this is what many players refer to when they complain that "low-skilled" players like Rain and Marineking are getting undeserved wins. They look cheesy, but they are, in fact, not cheese. It just so happens that the results hinge on micro so much that they look cheesy. If the Terran pulls every SCV, it becomes truly all-in, but the game can actually continue if the Terran player pulls half of his SCVs or something and the resulting engagement is an even exchange. This can happen with cheeses too (Leenock's six pool) but that's really rare.
Also, cheese at high level is effective because pros know how to micro, unlike your plat level cheesers. Cheese is unexpected. All-ins are powerful at the pro level because pros practice the timings and micro nonstop. At lower levels, these all-ins (in my opinion) are more easily deflected because average Terran players don't have the micro and multitasking necessary to make them work as well.
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On December 21 2010 21:34 wherebugsgo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2010 19:54 CaptRoadkill wrote: A question from a somebody who is very, very far from a pro (Rank 1 Gold League, currently playing mostly against Platinum and mostly winning):
I've stopped losing to cheese from players at or below my skill level. Out of the last 100 games, I may have lost 3 to 5 to cheese. The people who cheese mostly have horrible micro and I often end up killing 6 zealots with 6 lings and 2 roaches or something ridiculous like that.
How is it that at the higher end of the game, cheese becomes viable again? What mechanics are at work there? Cheese like 6 pools and proxy gates actually happen quite rarely at the pro-level. People are obsessed with calling all-in builds "cheese" when it's really not the case. Off the top of my head, I can think only of two cheese games in GSL3: MC's proxy gate vs Marineking and leenock's 6 pool against guineapig. On the other hand, early-midgame one base all-ins, particularly from Terrans, are exceedingly popular, and really strong right now: this is what many players refer to when they complain that "low-skilled" players like Rain and Marineking are getting undeserved wins. They look cheesy, but they are, in fact, not cheese. It just so happens that the results hinge on micro so much that they look cheesy. If the Terran pulls every SCV, it becomes truly all-in, but the game can actually continue if the Terran player pulls half of his SCVs or something and the resulting engagement is an even exchange. This can happen with cheeses too (Leenock's six pool) but that's really rare. Also, cheese at high level is effective because pros know how to micro, unlike your plat level cheesers. Cheese is unexpected. All-ins are powerful at the pro level because pros practice the timings and micro nonstop. At lower levels, these all-ins (in my opinion) are more easily deflected because average Terran players don't have the micro and multitasking necessary to make them work as well.
So you're saying that it's not cheese because only some people can do it and get 100% wins from it? and when you lose it's because YOU make the mistake? (i.e mis microing?)
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As far as the GSL goes which is what I think you're refering to, the game rewards the best player for that series that day because they won the games. If you're getting cheesed and you defend it you're miles ahead. If you don't scout it, you will wind up miles behind. It is up to the individual player to spot and know what is coming and prepare for it by any means possible. If a zerg chooses to make 5 extra drones instead of making more spine crawlers and roaches against a 2 rax play then they DESERVE to lose. Anyone could argue that their "late game" is better than the others, but that doesn't win tournaments you must present your A game 100% of the time.
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So in SF scene there is no thing as "underdog won against the best player in the world because he studied his play a lot and focused on this match only"? That's quite sad, why even play at all if the player with more skill will win no matter what him and his opponent will do.
In SC if you read your enemy perfectly then you will have chance of beating opponent that has (not a lot better but still) better mechanics/macro/micro/experience than you.
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There is, for damn sure, luck and skill involved everytime. The only way in which it is 100% skill and no luck involved, is if there was permanent vision of the entire map in SC2; just think about that. Luck coming into play, however, is reduced by ridiculous amount of experience. Like if you were to send in the overlord at so-and-so time and see the bla bla bla getting chrono boosted you immediately can sense how the game flow is going to be, the immediate response, how much more you can afford on investing into economy etc. Back to the point, there is definitely luck involved while omniscience does not exist in a game.
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Upon closer look, there is no one single "skill" required for starcraft, rather a combination of very different skillsets, i.e. strategic preparation, remembering stuff, being able to react correctly upon surprises, precision in unit control, gambling skills and a lot more....
Its highly unlikely that a player will be better in all of these categories than his opponent, and to add to that, each of these categories can be instant game deciders depending on how everything plays out.
What you call "not rewarding the most skilled players (whatever you exactly mean by skilled)" is in fact, a sign that the game is not as one-dimensional as a lot of other simpler games, where if you're the best in one ability, you're just the best.
In basketball you also have different skills, although by far not as drastically different in nature, and the game simply will not be decided by single mistakes, but rather by a continuous performance over a given length of time. So there is less chance of a team winning which is considered "worse overall".
If you really want to compare it to a team-based sport a better example would be football, where also oftentimes teams from the 3rd division are able to cause an upset to a premier division club.
Still this does not mean that there is any "randomness" in the outcome. The game doesn't grant any player a random advantage during any stage of the game, and both are in full control of all parameters of their play (I'll skip any eventual discussion about match fixing in football here. ). Anyways, for every single match you will be able to find a critical skillset which was the deciding factor in which the loser/losing team was lacking.
In Starcraft, much like in football its not enough to be the overall better player/team on paper. You have to make your skill-advantages count in the game, and prevent your opponent from making his possible strengths count. This adds a lot of excitement to a match and adds aditional depth to the game, because now even another type of skill (a meta-skill if you want to call it that way) is required, it is how you succesful you make use of all the (mis-)information about strenghts and weaknesses you have of your opponent and adjust your play or strategy. If you play ladder against someone unknown for example this comes down to knowing what type of builds are currently popular with the race that your opponent is playing. In the end it also always some gambling involved, but even this is a meta-skill of its own. In the end the "overall most-skilled" player was the one who won, nothing else.
tl;dr Starcraft requires very different skillsets, ranging from simple mouse precision to adjusting your play to abstract information you have about the opponents playstyle, and a lack in any of these might be an instant game decider. Since nobody can play perfect or be the best in all of the needed categories, and players dont't develop linearly at all these skills, the outcomes will always vary to a certain degree.
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On December 21 2010 13:42 TheLonelyCarrier wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2010 08:06 Perscienter wrote: It's interesting that you mention the relationship between a high variance and Blizzard's self-interest. Divide et impera. They won't severely reform the game. They belong to a profit-seeking corporation, which means that the educated community is politically ignored.
Two questions come into my mind.
1. What is the social function of variance (or chaos)?
2. Has Blizzard (or corporations in general, especially in the gaming software branch) an interest in introducing variance to the game? Well, question 1 is a bigger question for a different thread (possibly a different web site) but as far as question 2 goes the only interest they could possibly have in variance is if it leads to their game catching on as an esport across the world. Reforming the game (if in fact it needs reforming) is actually in the best interest of the bottom line for them. Twelve years later, SC/BW continues to make money for Blizzard and the sole reason for that is the success and longevity of it's professional scene. That is why Blizzard has poured tremedous resources into making the SC2 pro scene happen, it's good for business. What won't be good for business is if after they spend the metric ton of money they have. the pro scene falls apart when people stop watching because they have a perception that it's a game of luck and abuse. Again, to be perfectly clear, I am not saying that it is or is not a game of luck and abuse. My opinion is categorically irrelevant to this discussion as far as I am concerned. All that is relevant is that the perception exists and not at just the uneducated laymen level, but at the enthusiast level and the professional level. The bottom line is that if variance emerges as a force that drives professionals to want to play it and spectators to want to watch and support it, then variance will remain. But if it becomes clear that a certain level of variance alienates players and fans, you would be foolish to think Blizzard won't do something to fix it. Them and their shareholders want this game to sell for the next 15 years. Believe that. Many people just embrace variance. WC3/TFT is full of it and it didn't hurt the non-pro scene. MMORPGs and board games are full of it. The non-analytical players will win more often against analytical players when variance is introduced so it will probably boost sales to a degree.
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Very good post, and I agree with you except on one point : Day9 being only one person. Yes technically he is not a double entity, but IMO his role in the community is bigger than one person. He knows the game, the players, he watches pretty much everything, and he's way less affected by win/loss in tournament as he doesn't participate. His opinion cannot be altered by hate or rage like IdrA (dont get me wrong I like the guy and I watch all of his games and analysis), and even incontrol seems to get pissed at a few things quite easily (for everybody's enjoyment, god that guy is funny). But again, dont get me wrong, these guys do know what they're talking about, but going as far as saying MK doesn't deserve anything he got.... I highly doubt that, the guy impressed me almost as much as Jinro (btw Jinro makes me wanna try terran sometimes). That being said, I dont think the opinion of players concerned is very viable, we need a clear pair of eyes on neutral ground to take a look and really tell us what's going on. And I highly believe Day9 is that pair of eyes (with glasses, fixed glasses no less).
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If both players could see each others' bases and what they are doing, cheese play would become much much less viable. No more surprise, no more luck involved. I'm pretty sure it would solve a lot of problems, probably create some balance issues related to scanning and scouting, but nothing that couldn't be fixed. It would become much more strategical than it is. No more "Oh, i can't see what he's doing... i'll just have to blindly guess and hope to have luck on this strategy." For me at least, luck, guesses and all hoping-to-get-lucky related based gameplay, takes a lot of respect from the players, and i wouldn't mind if it was completely removed or at least reduced by a great amount by facilitating scouting for all races.
For the OP, this is probably a reason why there's no luck involved in SF, you know what skills your oponnent can do, it's not like he has a very risky combo of skills he put on his char before the combat, hoping that the other didn't chose an appropriate skill sombination that beats them.
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Excellent OP (read it after Update 3).
The situation in SC2 is not very different from professional golf. Any player in the golf top 100 can win a major. The SC2 scene simply is too young for a Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus to have emerged.
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On December 21 2010 23:16 Kaniol wrote: So in SF scene there is no thing as "underdog won against the best player in the world because he studied his play a lot and focused on this match only"? That's quite sad, why even play at all if the player with more skill will win no matter what him and his opponent will do.
In SC if you read your enemy perfectly then you will have chance of beating opponent that has (not a lot better but still) better mechanics/macro/micro/experience than you.
No no there most definitely is. Where not saying that its not no more than were saying that the underdogs havent beat people like idra in sc2. It happens im just talking about that randomness factor that has appeared in recent games.
Like compare Super Turbo and 3s to sfiv. in both those games the japanese DOMINATED us because of the just overall better skill, but in ssfiv (albiet US players as a whole improved) are on a pretty equal footing, due to the lower experience requirement of the game (there still skill involved in it no doubt, where not talking about extremes here)
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On December 22 2010 01:08 Esjihn wrote: Like compare Super Turbo and 3s to sfiv. in both those games the japanese DOMINATED us because of the just overall better skill, but in ssfiv (albiet US players as a whole improved) are on a pretty equal footing, due to the lower experience requirement of the game (there still skill involved in it no doubt, where not talking about extremes here) LOL? Japanese dominate foreign players just as much as they ever have in SF4... You've got no idea buddy.
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On December 22 2010 01:55 Bluey wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2010 01:08 Esjihn wrote: Like compare Super Turbo and 3s to sfiv. in both those games the japanese DOMINATED us because of the just overall better skill, but in ssfiv (albiet US players as a whole improved) are on a pretty equal footing, due to the lower experience requirement of the game (there still skill involved in it no doubt, where not talking about extremes here) LOL? Japanese dominate foreign players just as much as they ever have in SF4... You've got no idea buddy.
You mean just like how filipino champ dominated daigo in a recent MM in socal, or how about the states best sim player arturo going on a long standing win streak vs him sim vs ryu? Do you even watch live streams or keep up with current events?
Even Daigo himself has stated that the level of comp is on a pretty equal footing. (for those of you who dont know who daigo is hes arguably the worlds best SF player)
Better yet before this thread gets derailed. Troll once for your response and then let these fine folks get back to the discussion.
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On December 21 2010 23:16 Kaniol wrote: So in SF scene there is no thing as "underdog won against the best player in the world because he studied his play a lot and focused on this match only"? That's quite sad, why even play at all if the player with more skill will win no matter what him and his opponent will do.
In SC if you read your enemy perfectly then you will have chance of beating opponent that has (not a lot better but still) better mechanics/macro/micro/experience than you.
This would be sad were it true, and I am pretty sure we don't want that to be the case in SC2. Do not mis-understand. Everyone loves to see an underdog win through great preparation, hard work and determination against an opponent who may be more mechanically gifted and have more experience. What most people do not really love to see is when someone with ALL those great attributes loses to someone who clearly just practiced a couple of gimmicky builds that haven't been figured out yet.
It's hard to watch someone who has exhibited talent, dedication, skill and understanding lose in that fashion. It's the kind of thing that makes fans walk away.
MilesTeg France. December 21 2010 17:31. Posts 73
It's painful to see you guys discuss imaginary numbers. As far as I know no one gave the exact win percentage of Daigo, and to be intellectually honest we'd need his win percentage from 4month after the release of SFIV. I don't think anyone was dominating at the time.
What I do remember, is that there was an ocean of mediocre Sagat players who constantly did well in tournaments. Eventually the matchups were figured out, and now they are not even remembered. Which is exactly what will happen to Rain.
As for the "any high rank player can beat Nestea online" argument, there were a lot of people showing videos of themselves beating Daigo...
It is a hard fact that he was not beaten in tournament play stateside by anyone through the duration of vanilla SF4. 2 people beat him in Bo5 money matches in that time frame. In the SSF4 era he has bean bested in single tournament competition 4 times, which was considered unprecedented by the community. His current documented win% in the newly released SSF4AE is 86% competing in the highest class arcades in Japan and using one of the new characters who obviously haven't been figured out yet (Yun).
I have to totally agree with you about the first 4 months of SF4. So many scrubby Sagat players. Not that I think Rain deserves to be categorized similarly, but I hope the concerns being highlighted in this thread fade away the same way all those mediocre Sagat players did.
As far as people showing videos of them beating Daigo in an arcade, I believe you are actually referring to the vids from the first couple of weeks the game was out in arcades. I did see those vids. Like you said, those first few months were the wild west. That kind of stuff stopped happening real quickly.
Anyway, I don't mean to derail with SF discussion. Again, I don't think anyone (myself included) wants to see the same statistical level of dominance from one genre occur in another. The real purpose of bringing SF4 and Daigo into the discussion is because no one in his community thinks he doesn't deserve his wins and no one who beats him is seen as a lesser player who just got lucky. On the contrary, if you beat Daigo Umehara, the crowd errupts in ecstatic cheers and your name will be remembered for the rest of the year. And not because they hate Daigo, because they don't. They cheer because it's exciting to see an underdog find a way to have a revelation and truly play beyond the level they thought they could and beat a true master.
Right now, no one seems to find upsets in SC2 exciting or entertaining. Warranted or not, when Rain beat Nestea he felt compelled to apologize because of the outrage expressed by the community. When someone beats Daigo, the crowd errupts into an exhalted mob scene. Someone beat Nestea and people shook their heads and wrote angry message board threads. I think we can all agree thats a problem.
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