Starcraft 2 : The Dune II Clone

[Yakk]

But assuming the efficient market hypothesis, any such successful strategy would nearly instantly be transmitted to other zones, and the effect would disappear.

What could possibly be wrong with my logic?

[phlip]

Say strategies X and Y are roughly equal in power, so there's no strong reason to switch from one to the other. Now, say strategy X is popular in one region, and strategy Y is popular in another. Perhaps because the strategies were devised by players in those respective regions, and spread to being popular... perhaps by chance... regardless, this can be self-sustaining, as those will be the strategies new players will be exposed to, and will then learn. Now, in the region where X is prevalent, strategies that are strong against X but weak against Y will be good, but vice-versa will be very weak. In the other region, the opposite applies.

And really, this is an oversimplification, as the relative powers of X and Y also depend on what the opponent is playing - if the opponent is playing the strong-against-X strategy, then choosing strategy X may not be the best idea. Think of it like evolution - there's a lot of random chance and irrelevant variables, but strategies will be selected that are strong in the environment - but the environment is itself made of other strategies, which are themselves evolving.
To keep the evolution analogy going a little further - if you restarted the world at, let's say, the extinction of the dinosaurs, have the random mutations occur differently, but otherwise leave evolution to run its course, and fast forward 65 million years... chances are you'll find a different world, with its selections of stronger and weaker creatures, all interacting in their usual natural ways... but there won't be humans there. And indeed if you were to transplant some humans there, chances are they wouldn't survive nearly as well as they do in our current world. And vice-versa - the dominant life form of alta-Earth likely wouldn't do as well in our own world. Now, strategies aren't nearly as environment-dependent as lifeforms, but they still are to an extent.

Or, tl;dr: the metagame.

[Game_boy]

And people have even more attachment to their current strategies than blind evolution does. Look how long it took blue flame hellions and mech in general to take over the TvT metagame (pre-nerf) despite the key TvT units not being changed since early beta if ever. Clearly BFH were 'better' for a large amount of that time without even hinting at becoming dominant.

[Loadstone]

Except that your argument implies a level of separation between the environments that doesn't exist. To carry on your evolution example, if species from one environment (current Earth) were injected into another environment (hypothetical Earth), the new environment would change as a result. The severity of the change would depend on how much and how prolonged the exposure is - a single lion in a world where no lions had ever existed would have a negligible effect, whereas throwing thousands of lions into a hypothetical planet would shake up the food chain significantly. Furthermore, if creatures on hypothetical Earth found a viable way of protecting themselves from lions and humans learned of it, we'd definitely try to emulate it, and if hypothetical earth learned how we've protected ourselves from lions then they might also adopt it.

To be fair, this requires enough environment interaction that users are subjected to the other environment's strategies consistently enough that responses are found and used.

[EvanED]

Without knowing details, I'd hypothesize that (part of) the differences could be due to mechanical skill differences. My friend who got me into SC always said that in Brood War, terrans needed a very high APM to play effectively. If folks on the Korean ladder get more practice or something like that and improve their mechanics, in theory that could make more strategies and tactics viable.

Does any of this ring true to folks who play? How are Korean mechanics compared to foreigner mechanics? Is terran still an APM-demanding race?

[Spambot5546]

From what I've heard commentators say I believe Terran and Zerg are both fairly high APM where Protoss is relatively low. I'm just parroting what others say, I don't know how true it is.

But even with something like that, you'd think we'd all be using the same techniques and strategies. I would imagine that across the world we're all watching the same tournaments, and most of us are using builds we imitate from those pro players at the tournaments.

Or, maybe we're not. Most of what I know I learned from Day9, for example. Non English speaking SC2 players probably don't watch the dailies and may be learning about pylons and probes from someone else, and that person may teach mechanics differently which, in turn, leads to prevalence of different strategies the counters to which may not penetrate that region as well. I dunno. *shrug*

[|Erasmus|]

Without knowing details, I'd hypothesize that (part of) the differences could be due to mechanical skill differences. My friend who got me into SC always said that in Brood War, terrans needed a very high APM to play effectively. If folks on the Korean ladder get more practice or something like that and improve their mechanics, in theory that could make more strategies and tactics viable.

Does any of this ring true to folks who play? How are Korean mechanics compared to foreigner mechanics? Is terran still an APM-demanding race?

The best Terran players are insanely mechanically skilled. While he may not yet be the best in the world, if anyone has actually watched oGsFinn (aka ForGG) play and seen his multi-pronged banshee harass without missing his macro, it's pretty damn amazing. Just in general, there are few outside Korea that manage to pull off micro intensive Terran openings utilising banshees and hellions without letting their macro slip.

Without worrying about the blizzard ladder stats, it's Korean Terrans who dominate the tournaments. Foreign tournaments without Koreans are generally not Terran dominated at all (at least any more). There are really only 2-3 Terrans that most people seem to give a decent shot of winning a large tournament to, compared to a plethora of Zergs/Protosses.

[Koa]

I think it has something to do with the overall skill level of the sample sizes. The general consensus is AM < EU < KR. It's then much like how Terran players start to have trouble once they hit diamond league and their planned 10m timing attacks don't work anymore, or how zerg players start to have it easier when they're of sufficient mechanical skill to macro decently. It's much more subtle at the higher levels, but it's possible that, all strategies being equal, one race can pull ahead from surmounting a skill threshold.

For example, on EU, when a terran player focuses their tank shots into the middle of a ball of banelings, while controlling their marines and everything else, they can turn a loss into a win. A few more marines survive that normally wouldn't, which then go on to a snipe a hatchery, and that gives them a 5% lead that is represented in the win statistics. Then on KR, the same thing happens as what happens on EU, but the zerg burrows banelings and gets that 5% lead back after a good detonation, plus another 5% for forcing scans and paranoia. The EU zerg player knows how to burrow banelings as well and does win with it, but hasn't quite broken the skill threshold needed to make it statistically definitive. ... Something like that. Basically the strength of a strategy can become seemingly overpowered with perfect execution, whereas anything nonperfect can be considerably less powerful. Though it's close, the strength of a race is nonlinear with skill.

Then again we don't know anything about the statistics involved in the statement, so we could be hypothesising something that can be explained with standard deviation.

[J the Ninja]

So today on the ladder, this game happened. 51 minute PvT, got all the way to battlecruisers and carriers. Neither one of us played that aggressively, and we ended up just trading armies over and over. Enjoy the show.

Carrier vs Battlecruiser.SC2Replay.zip

(96.2 KiB) Downloaded 53 times

Oh, and the army-trading doesn't start until about 15-20 minutes in, before that its a fairly normal game. It just....didn't end.

[Spambot5546]

HD goes retro for xmas.
It's Huk vs Boxer in Brood War,

[Game_boy]

HD goes retro for xmas.
It's Huk vs Boxer in Brood War,

I saw this on IPL's livestream, BW was really showing up SC2's lack of LAN.

[Jesse]

Just a thing, VocTer Gaming will now be streamed live over at www.twitch.tv/voctergaming

Aiming for 7pm London time for the most part, although will depend on my shift work, first live episode is occurring in twenty minutes. Don't fear though. everything will still end up on the youtube channel. This week and next are a sneak preview at what I'm going to be doing in 2012 and then I escape to India for two weeks. Normal service resumes in February.

[Koa]

The twitch recording seems to lag quite a bit. Is it just the stream or will the youtube version also show lag? I'll try to catch it tomorrow.

[Xeio]

Jesse, weirdness with every one of your videos on youtube (but only when I play in fullscreen):

Doesn't seem to be affecting other youtube videos.

[Jesse]

How strange. The video from today's may be lost forever, due to a HDD switch, btw. Changing how I'm recording tomorrow, so youtube uploads will remain the same quality as before.

[Koa]

I'd guess it's a weird conflict with your cache.

[Xeio]

I'd guess it's a weird conflict with your cache.

That only affects Jesse's videos?

Good news that it only affects episode 77 and on?

[Koa]

I did say weird. Try a different browser.

[phlip]

Reinstall Flash? Check display drivers? If your browser supports it, try HTML5 mode?

Jesse's videos may be in a different resolution to the other videos you've tried or something, so maybe it's hitting some edge case...

[arclight]

I'm surprised that nobody has seen this (that I'm aware of). The Battlecruiser special weapon, the Yamato cannon, is a direct reference to the show Space Battleship Yamato. In that show the Yamato had a weapon called the wave motion gun, which also fired from a hilariously large bow gun. Also, I may just be seeing things, but doesn't the picture of the person associated with the Battlecruiser (the captain?) look similar to the captain of the Yamato?

Spoiler:

Sorry for the difference in size.

While they aren't carbon copies each other, there are some striking similarities.

[Koa]

Sure seems similar. The portrait from BW is different though.

[EdgarJPublius]

I always though the BC captain was supposed to be an homage to Capt. Global from Robotech

[Koa]

Boxer vs Ganzi game 1. Definitely one of the greatest strategic maneuvers I've seen in sc2.

[Adacore]

But then a massive screw up in game 2...

Was fun to watch.

EDIT: Also, what's the difference between a GOMTV season ticket (which is $15, for the 'light' version) and a '2012 yearly ticket' (which is $70)? There must be a hell of a lot of seasons in a year to make buying the 'yearly' ticket worthwhile, unless I'm missing something

[Game_boy]

But then a massive screw up in game 2...

Was fun to watch.

EDIT: Also, what's the difference between a GOMTV season ticket (which is $15, for the 'light' version) and a '2012 yearly ticket' (which is $70)? There must be a hell of a lot of seasons in a year to make buying the 'yearly' ticket worthwhile, unless I'm missing something

5 seasons, each having a complete Code S, Code A and Up/Down matches. So buying all the seasons would be $75. But the discount has now ended so the yearly ticket is $75 too, i.e. just buy the individual tickets.

Also this doesn't cover the teamleagues which is $20/season times 3. Or any other tournaments like Arena of Legends extra online thing that juts happened which was $5. GSL is expensive.

[Spambot5546]

A friend with no experience in SC2 or RTSes in general expressed interest when I told her I watch pro SC2 and asked me to show her a few games. Can you guys recommend a good couple replays to introduce someone to SC2? I was thinking Leenock Vs MMA (1, 2, 3), I believe from MLG providence, because I felt that was a pretty exciting series.

[llamanaru]

Nestea vs SC in the GSL May (I think) finals.

[Spambot5546]

I'd have to pay for those, wouldn't I?

[Xeio]

Wouldn't some random casts on youtube be good enough? I mean, someone who knows nothing about starcraft isn't really going to care if the game is awesome or not because they'll have no idea what's going on.

[Koa]

Mana vs Namaa Dreamhack finals? The casters were extremely passionate about that series even though the games weren't particularly complex.

[Spambot5546]

Plus, if nothing else, I should definitely use something with Day[9]. I like it!

[|Erasmus|]

the tsl3 finals was cool too. Day9 was pretty epic casting that.

[Jesse]

*Cough* oGsMC vs EGPuMa from the IEM Cologne is really good, and can totally be found at www.youtube.com/voctergaming *cough*

[rubberduck07]

Dreamhack finals last year were amazing. I think it was summer. HuK vs Moon.

[mike-l]

Whose all still playing this? I just loaded it up for the first time in a year, had to redo placement and got gold The climb begins!

[Tomo]

I've not really had time to play recently, but might get back into it a bit since I've finished my thesis now. Not really sure if there's much point practicing or just waiting for the expansion now though, that should be late this year or sometime?

I still watch the GSL religiously though. Well, apart from games involving Moletrap of course ;D

[Game_boy]

I've not really had time to play recently, but might get back into it a bit since I've finished my thesis now. Not really sure if there's much point practicing or just waiting for the expansion now though, that should be late this year or sometime?

This is Blizzard. I expect 2013 for the beta to start in all honesty.

I still watch the GSL religiously though. Well, apart from games involving Moletrap of course ;D

Spending $130 on GSL all at once (yearly GSL and GSTL passes) feels so good.

[mike-l]

I still watch the GSL religiously though. Well, apart from games involving Moletrap of course ;D

Oh god he's so bad!

[J the Ninja]

I still play 1v1s when i have time between classes and work. (which means a few times a week, usually). Actually made it into plat at the beginning of the season, got booted back to gold after a few weeks. I think the nerves of "Gee Willikers IN PLAT!!!" got to me a bit. Working my way back up now, near the top of my gold division, playing plats fairly regularly.

[Game_boy]

It's annoying when you think you have a good theory background from watching a year and a half of GSL, as well as a year's ladder practice, and you realise you still suck.

Also MLG and Assembly Winter on the same day so the player pool is going to be split. More Koreans at MLG because flights are paid but still going to be a lack of top Europeans which have been missing at MLG all last year. Hopefully at least some of Naniwa/Thorzain/Stephano/White-Ra/Nerchio/Dimaga decide to come to MLG.