You were not better 10 years ago

"...turning the godhead of the ghols into a monument to Balin's victory. Nothing else has done more to sustain the mutual hatred since the ghols raided the crypt at Myrgard for 'victuals'."
grim
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You were not better 10 years ago

Post by grim »

Prelude

A typical response from a "new-school" player who judges a current players performance on how they play a game that they probably really stopped giving a fuck about in terms of acquiring M2SBR probably 5 years before the new-school player even got to the same level of play raziel (or insert lots of other old-schoolers name here) had achieved back in like 2003 or something.

Raziel was a top level player before 2k1 along with most the other people I refer to in these posts. Just because he probably hasnt given even half a fuck since say 2002 or so hardly makes him any less of a successful player.
He was a successful and top level player back when more than 100 people used to play the game.
Players who are suddenly considered good or something 9 years after myth2 had anything resembling a large active community are the least qualified to judge an old-school players level of success on this game.
Raziel probably has more myth2 tournament success in the head of his cock (when it's flaccid even) than you have managed to acquire in your entire myth2 "career".

and quite honestly because myth2 has maybe 50? decent active players and no more coming in that means he has more success at myth than you can ever achieve no matter what.
- Flatline in a response to some one liner by Chengis.

Ever so often the debate about which era had the best players pops up. It happens at least once year, usually during the MWC season. Sometimes it can occur more than once during a winter time tournament, but most of the times it's just MWC that is graced by this discussion. This year the debate happened in my M'fame thread, which was rather weird since it didn't really have anything to do with that topic and was meant to be a light hearted thread about myth fame. Last year it was deliberately started by Homer with the original thread title "Were people really better 10 years ago?" etc, you get my point. The argument always pops up every year.

The curious thing about it is that the same people have actually been arguing about the same thing for years on end now. The argument flow chart is pretty much always the same as well. The only variation comes from few individuals, who usually are the new up and coming stars or those that feel that their myth stardom happened at a fairly late stage of myth history.

Phase 1) Someone makes a claim in the forum that they are better than someone else at this game.
Phase 2) This person or someone else in his stead takes the bait and starts disputing what the first posters said.
Phase 3) A 3rd party individual jumps in to state his opinion on this matter, usually it's against what the first poster said.
Phase 4) A rebuttal from the first poster, in which he makes more claims and says that the previous two posters are wrong.
Phase 5) More people get sucked into the argument.
Phase 6) The "people used to better" statement pops in full force.
Phase 7) Someone jumps into point out how pathetic this argument supposedly is and people care too much.
Phase 8) Someone, usually a new up and comer says that people (by which they mostly mean themselves) are better now than what people used to be at this game.
Phase 9) This gets disputed by those that claim the opposite etc - . it goes on from here.

The phase 1 is just an example, it can be different like last year was the case with Homer's thread where he just posed the question and then someone jumped in to make a claim about something etc. The argument can jump from phase1 to 6, but most of the time this argument pops up semi-unintentionally and then the flow chart goes like described above.

GKG accused me of me only writing articles about "Myth cool", which is not really true. My first two articles from 2004 and 2005 could be described as rather similar in nature, but that's only two out of the 10 articles and one review I've written. I don't really see what nerd rage scales or writing about heroes and villains has got to do with myth cool. Anyway, the aim for this article is to show you through case examples and (and mostly speculative) reasoning that people were in fact not better 10 years ago. They were not better 9,8 or 7 years ago either. I am trying to show you here that people who makes claims like this have their own, selfish motives for doing so. On top of that there's also some heavy nostalgia going on in their minds, although Myth nostalgia is a very heavy and important influence for all of us, but that's a topic for another article.

I usually try to stay out of the argument when it pops up. I have sometimes made some Bombay flicks regarding it and I did write a review out of the Mwc 2000 finals with a similar goal in mind as this article has. That review appears to have been cited quite frequently when this argument happened in the previous winter time tournament. However, I feel I only scratched the surface with that review, so I'm making a more in depth analysis about it now.

Of course there is also the issue about the writer's bias. People who partake in this argument accuse each of other having heavy bias for arguing what they are arguing, and no doubt these accusations have their merits. I my self have played this game since 1999. My most active mything period was from 2001 to 2004. After 2004 I have mostly only showed up to play during Mwc time. If I was to have a bias in this matter, it would be to argue that 2004-2007 would be the pinnacle of myth gaming skill wise, since that was the time my team either won or was in the finals of every tournament held. I'm not going to argue that though, as I know that would be silly and not really true as I'm 100% sure that me and the people I teamed with then are better players now than they were 6 years ago.

The two sides

Whenever the skill argument comes up, there is a clear two way division between players who participate in. I am going to name these groups with a (hopefully) neutral names. I am going to call them "Loyalists" and "Revisionists". The "not so very neutral" names for these groups would be "regressionists" and "progressionists". Below are the explanations to what I mean with these groups:

Loyalists.

Examples: Myrkridon, Flatline, Tirri, Rabican, Cave, Zaramis, Nineball - (Tirri would like to add that he doesn't actually think that people were better 10 years ago. This is what he said a few days ago)

All of these people I have seen expressing opinions that people used to be better at this game than what they are now. Sometimes they even claim that people these days just suck. Many of those names you also see arguing for this point year after year. They do have individual stance changes however, like for example Tirri and Nineball usually only have in common that they think people used to be better, but the people who they mean by this are different. Nine for example was the last remaining Civil loyalist, while Tirri usually highlights how he himself used to be much better than what he is now.

Revisionist

Modern examples: Adrenaline, GKG, Cu.
Older examples: Anyone from team BME basically, since they were the new powerhouse team in the post bungie.net Myth world.

Revisionists are the people who argue the opposite to what the loyalists say. They tend to highlight that the current state of myth skill is the highest point achieved so far. Revisionists also have their individual differences to what they say, quite often they too tend to bring up their own greatness to the table (which ultimately of course is their motive for arguing in the first place usually). I guess the main problem with this group is that these people don't really get along with themselves in the same way the loyalists do. The loyalist side always seems to have a rather strong back2back thing going on when the argument pops up, while the revisionists tend to argue among themselves as well.

I myself belong to neither group, but I find myself agreeing mostly with the revisionists, as this article should show you. That doesn't mean I think that Adrenaline or Gkg are the best players of all time though.

There is some middle ground between these groups however, but most of the time people tend to agree with one or the other. Limp for example seems to place somewhere in the middle these days, after being a rather stern loyalist back in the days.

"Skill development"

Today, there are many things that are required from you in order for you to be considered as being "good" at Myth. You need solid unit control and fast clicking skills which form your "BC power". This Bc power is actually one of the biggest slow and gradual developments we've had over the years. The changes and improvements to BC power requirements have been so extremely subtle that you probably haven't even realised the changes that have occurred over the years unless you watch yourself from older films few years back. The improvements are subtle and small and almost unnoticeable, like how do you block pus from incoming ghols with mauls and a mortar dwarf while playing proving grounds, or how do you fight with soulless against warlocks etc. Numerous small things that don't happen at once. There is of course also the "gaming intelligence", which is a much rarer thing to have. It basically contains the understanding on how to react and adapt to situations that happen in the game, instead of just tunnel visioning on something. Here's an incomprehensive list of "inventions" that happened over the years.

1998-1999

Activity and care was sky high, but skilful players were not. Even the people were hailed as being leet would be considered as total newbies that got the game yesterday if they were playing today with the 1999 mindset. You were basically considered "good" if you realised that dwarfs and archers gain hill advantage. Hardly anyone had edited formations, hardly anyone used pus and those who did didn't do it very efficiently. Actually they just fucking sucked with pus just like they did with every other unit type. Strategies didn't really exist and even in the mwc99 finals people were basically just running around like headless chickens.

2000

Clear improvements to 1999, that's for sure. Still, the top players from this era would be sub par worse than Father Xmas level players today. I went this through in my review about the mwc2k finals. People hardly ever used pus, although these teams did. They gave one guy 8 pus and even if they didn't do that, they completely sucked ass with it. They also picked up wrong pus pieces, but that's not really relevant. Mistakes and accidents happen. Hardly anyone had edited formations or tried spreading much while rushing. Archer dodging was done by going back and forth with fairly tight formations instead of sideways with wide formations. The strategies and "adaptations to situations" used would be completely laughable these days, like having 25% of units defending the flag. The old ctf scoring just doesn't explain the stupidity of that. The all around BC'ing that went was just incredibly sloppy and looked like it was IX vs TFS today.

Clearly, boasting about victories during this time period when the skill requirements to be good were what they were is completely and utterly meaningless, just like this:

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2001

In 2001 there the strategies were almost fully developed to what they have been ever since. At a glance when you look at the unit distributions and player placements in the games, you could first think that the films are from today. People spread around the map with reasonable set of units mostly etc. There was however, still oddities like having one guy have a 27 warrior rush in a DE4 game (and this was a 5 trow team), fetchwalls actually working and stuff like that. Hidden rushes still worked like a charm in desert and people (and by "people" I mean players that would be considered as 4+ balls that time) played maps like kg and pg like morons, like trading for many warriors, hardly making any use of herons and pus bombs having almost 100% success rate.

This actually brings up the first "major" difference in gaming from 2001 onwards. People didn't even use the heron guard heroes healing trick, aka make your herons heal themselves during the fight if they are fighting other herons and it's applications. This didn't really start happening until 2003. I specially remember this as not even Tirri or Chohan used it, so I managed to screw up both a few times doing it in Kg. I even remember Tirri's exact words, because I had the film from it when he first saw it "Ooh luulin etta&ü hero kuolee joke tapauksessa jos kolme heroa hakkaa sit&ü". "Ooh I thought a hgh dies anyway (if healing) when 3 hgh's attack it."

While when it comes to strategies, the Mwc2001 one's aren't that different, they still weren't on the same level as they are today when it comes to adapting to situations and whatnot. The bc skills of people were also very low compared today and all of the people from the 01 finals would get reamed by the 4+ ballers of today.

The case points

I have selected three individuals for closer study. These individuals are Flatline, Myrkridon and Tirri. Why did I choose these three? They are all still active (or appear during tournaments anyway), have been considered as being good at this game for a long long time and are all prominent loyalists. They all make the claim that they used to better. Flatline in particular has his infamous "Prime" thesis, which will have it's own closer inspection in another part of this article. I will be doing a mini review of how they used to play in the year 2000 and 2001. Observing how they play now is redundant, as you can witness it yourself, as can the individuals themselves. I selected the years 2000 (if I find films) and 2001 because these are the years that tend to pop up in the loyalist jargon most of the time as being their "best" myth time skillwise. Both are fallacious statements however, but the reasons why that is so and why these people keep claiming this I will be going through in another part of this article.

Flatline 2000

MWC 2K = Big participation and lots of players/teams that are actually quite good at the game. 2K also had lots of high quality ranked players making the jump from ranked games to Tournament Style games and you could tell. The ranked players making the jump individually had the skills to compete at the top level in tourney play but got beatdown by teams that actually had the concept of TEAMPLAY. Ginslingers were the ultimate example of what I'm talking about here. There was a reason they were in the final vs SF/Civil even if looking at their roster you may think they were a team of nobodies. None of their players were what you'd typically think of as a power player but they were perhaps the best team in the tourney at playing as a team (they beat MOR who at the time were regarded as excellent as a TEAM). I practiced a lot vs gin in practice games and as a singular player i was a better twitcher and powerplayer than any single person on that team but their teamplay was miles ahead and thats why they made the final). - Flatline

Mwc2k. Flatline is playing for an Australian team named 9coh. This game is from a QR match of 9coh vs some team abbreviated DA.

The game is Drowned empire Lmoth. Flatline is captaining 9coh and trades for a pusles gholpack.

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The other team trades for one wightful of pus and also a gholpack. Muchos duffs as well, just like flat. This is not that unusual these days though, you could get away with this in a tournament game as well. You do need more pus usually however, but 10 years ago pus was not that commonly used. However, what you would not get away with these days is this:

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One guy has all 16 soulles. The other team also had one guy using 16 soulles. Is that smart, Flatline? Flat himself has two stygians and two dwarfs, a nice compatct striking force in Drowned empire lmoth. Most people would recommend a couple of more stygians these days though, as blocking pus is gonna be difficult with just two stygs.

Both teams, Flatline included reaches the middle, 9coh gains the advantage on it. Flatline is soon facing the dilemma of being pussed, but before that Azazoth of 9coh walked his melee straight towards the enemy dwarfs and makes 9coh go down in percentages quite badly.

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Anyway, the pus is going towards Flat's two stygs and two duffs, while Pagan god is showing us that professionals don't need edited formations.

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Much to my Flatline's amazement, the pus was actually two satchels instead of pus, which was only to come later. Flatline did actually spread the two duffs when he saw the ghols coming in. The guy with the 16 soulles decided that he's too cool to shoot the incoming ghols though.
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Flatline lost one duff to two satchels and a pus, they lost two ghols while doing it.

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However, one ghol still remains, but since Flat's duff is surrounded by melee and the soulless are right next to him, he should be ok. Well, no.

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That one ghol killed the full health duff through the soulless and melee. This ends Flatline's involvement in this game. However, the mighty Henry is still going strong and buggering the mount soulless with his two stygians, while 9coh is down rather bad.

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DA decides to rush 9coh, while the remaining 9coh duffs keep shooting at them and their own duffs also keep shooting at the DA melee group, so DA blows their advantage completely. After the rush, Henry points out that he "killed all there souls".

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After this point DA just runs with their remaining units and the camps out the remaining 6 minutes.

Well ok, sure. This was just one game. Everyone has bad games, but is giving 16 soulles to one guy and not trading for pus in Drowned empire smart, Flat? Is that what you would do now in a tournament game?

Well ok, maybe I'm being unfair here. It's just a QR game, no one tries in those, right? Well, lets a look at a bottom bracket double elimination game, where everything is at stake. 9coh vs Munki. Shuffle of this mortal coil dark.

Flatline is captaining again and trades for only two fetch (wut?). Although the other team only trades for two fetch as well.

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This would make sense if you are rushing, but neither team is doing that. Flatline's confidence in in this "Death" person is strong again, as he has 30% of the units in the form of having all myrks, while as both teams have people with only 4-6%. Henry has two warlocks while one guy has all myrks. Is this smart, Flat? Would you do this in a tournament game now where elimination is imminent? In the other team, there's a guy who has nothing but 10 mauls. Can you imagine name changers doing splits like these when there's elimination incoming?

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Stuff starts to happen when Death with his full Myrk pack crosses mid and meets up with poor fullmunki with this full maul pack. Fullmunki surprisingly gets killed.

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No worries though, munkies. As Death, who doesn't use edited formations by the way, cos he has enough microing skills to get away with normal formations, starts running away and gets his myrks blown up by a warlock from the wall.

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Omg indeed. Blocking lock shots with one melee is for sissies. But hey, this was supposed to be about Flatline, not Death. Flatline is south with his archers and 4 zerks, coupled with Henry's two locks. No fetch needed south, as neither team really traded for any. Munkies did send one south though.

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That "Gj rm" came after Real munki sent his lone fetch to face Henry's lone warlock and he zapped the lock ball in a fetch vs warlock 1vs1 encounter. Flatline and Henry of course "rape" this south as Munkies make no effort to run, even though their south is muuuuch smaller and they go not chance in hell to win it.

Now 9coh has a fair lead and continues to swoop up the remaining munkie forces. Flatline gives his archers to Henry a moment later and Henry gets the north flag, which was defended by two mauls. Later in the game Henry also gets served by that pesky wall warlock.

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9coh wins the game, but loses the match eventually and gets eliminated. Shame. Anyway, Flat. In these games you don't trade for pus, you give one guy 16 soulles or all myrks, make totally uneven unit splits and show that you hate fetch for some reason. Seriously, Flat? This is your prime? Is this the Flatline you'd want to have GKG built a time machine for so he could play against you? The body count skills displayed in these games would barely even qualify as borderline three ballers these days, as most people don't even seem to have edited formations or know how to block lock shots with melee. In general when you look at these games, they're just - Jesus Christ.

Drizzt 2000

Now lets move on to Tirri. Here is a match from DE1 Mwc2k, Poop vs Fhota. Poop lost this game was sent to bottom bracket. You could of course say that it's just DE1 and not about elimination yet, but lets see. Clash FR.

The young super star Tirri captains for Poop and wishes the other team good luck.

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However, if this trade was used today the other team wouldn't really need luck because um - . Well see for yourself.

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Mortar dwarves in Clash? Preposterous.

Drizzt leaves the other upper side flag open, while putting a massive 50% juggernaut at flag 3. Middle is an exciting battle with the combined amount of two morts on the hill. Tirri also feels like he should only keep 3% himself, while Fhota feels like having one guy have 47% in the form of trows and all zerks is the way to go. Seriously, is this what your Clash flag rally strat would be now, Tirri?

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Tirri however notices the error of not having a second flag defence and sends Shaggy to go to that flag at the 8 minute mark. It's of course too late at that point. Doesn't really matter though, as Poop's middle gets heroic and fights the larder Fhota middle for no apparent reason.

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So the rest of the game was a blow out with the guy who had 47% of the units getting 414 damage in the game. Great game.

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But sure, in the interest of fairness lets look at another game. Bad games happen and Drizzt only had 3% and just displayed careless captaining in this game and the lack of knowledge about what a good unit trade for Clash fr would be.There was also a second Clash FR played right after the first one, which Poop won. Tirri used the exact same strat with one mortar dwarf. This time he himself took a trow though, and got it trapped by melee bunch near the end.

Anyway, the last deciding game was a Desert Lmoth with a 10 minute time limit. Usually this turns out to be a 3 prong, but not always not even today. Tirri's trade would seem fairly normal with max archers and mix of all units, but only 3 wights of pus. However, one guy has 14 archers. Yes, 14 archers. Is this smart, Tirri? Tirri also went for the handicap style captaining and took only 3% himself.

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As you can see, Tirri went for a two way strat, which is not that uncommon though. He did however split the units so that one dude has all the archers and the other has only melee and dwarfs. Seriously? Nobody splits it like that anymore. As the minimap shows you, Fhota went for all mid strat with dedicated pussers (lol) and one guy having all warriors. Yes, that's our beloved Fire there with 27 warriors. Fhota also has shitload of thralls, so maybe it's a thrall wall? Nope.

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As you can see, Fire just takes his 27 warriors along side with the dedicated pussers across the river and slutrushes middle in a nice wedge formation that should be fairly easy to blow up since he's not spreading his warriors much. Poopers mostly walk their duffs towards the pus however so that doesn't happen. The thralls just go swim in the river and only get up after Fire's warriors are already killing stuff, so basically they did absolutely nothing. Or well that's not true, Heineken did manage to lose his duffs to thralls when it already over.

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Tirri had these things to say after the loss was evident.

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Ah, Desert. That exotic map that requires a lot of practise, cos no one ever plays it. Although in the interest of fairness, Poop was an FFA clan so maybe the others in the team just did really need the practise. Not really Tirri's fault in that sense.

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Yep. These are the types of wisdoms you could expect from a modern day 5 baller.

Recap: Tirri displayed in these games that captaining games this way surely would completely fail these days. Captain who does completely moronic unit splits coupled with equally moronic unit trades is something you would never see from a 5 baller in a serious situation anymore. There is seriously no way you, Tirri, can claim that you were a better player in this game in these films than what you are now.

At this point you could of course point out that Tirri was mostly known for his FFA prowess these days and team games weren't really his forte, but isn't that just basically admitting that Tirri wasn't as good then as he is now? Because nowadays he surely is a great team player as well. He's good at all aspects of this game now and has been for years. Just most certainly not 10 years ago compared to today's standards.

Myrkridon 2000

"Go look for them yourself. MWC2001 finals, lots of films from 2001 and 2000 and even 1999 on dark maps all have better playing than today. These days name changers is considered the #1 team, and they lost to the inactive tcox team in the top bracket finals of mwc09. If you guys were really as hot shit as you say, that wouldn't have happened." – Myrkridon

"oh jesus" - Cu


Myrk played for team Gtm, like he did a few times after Mwc2k. Now here's a classic match from Mwc2k, Gtm vs Civil. The examples for Flat and Tirri were from –not-so-very-powerhouse-tean'ish teams, but surely these two behemoths would show us some quality mything? We have Two powerhouse teams engaging in an excitingly epic battle of the titans. The game is Lichen territories with legendary difficulty, meaning there will be reinforcements.

Lichen is known as one of the most rushyest light maps out there, specially when the game is territories and you don't need to protect so many places. This memo seems to have not arrived to Street fighter's or Gtm's tables however, as both teams go for normal unit pack splits.

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The mighty Myrkridon is clearly the heavy hitter there with his 21%, while the even mightier Kap, who is one of the best players EVER, DUDES, is holding 28% while captaining while poor Zep has 1%. Our orange hero here is heading south, where Myrkridon's feisty reputation must have preceded him, as those SF pussies seem to just run away from him when they see him.

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Meanwhile in north, one of the most bestest players of all time is losing the general, a duff and all his archers to ghols. SF uses 4 pus to freeze one general. Although, granted, they were planning on a satchel pus attack, but the SF ghol users were too skilled to remember which ghols had pus and which had satchels, so the satchels always came after the pus. The ghols then charge in for the kill while Kap's duff idly watches by as the General is getting molested.

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Anyway, back to Myrk. SF pussies are still running away from Myrk as he struts around the southern flags. Now he finally meets up with ZAK in a heated archer battle, that goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, but never sideways.

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The archer dancing is crudely interrupted by Chun li with his pus flank, which Myrk didn't notice.

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BAM. That's one duff and one archer gone. After this there's some heated backing and going forward archer battle between ZAK and Myrk again, until Myrk is faced with the dilemma of a menacing thrall pack.

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The thrall pack pushes onwards with the aid of some warriors and a pus ghol that dudded.

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Myrk decides to try to hinder the unstoppable thrall packs movement with fire arrows. Those clumped archers down there surely would have been a pointless target for that.

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In the end, however, after Myrk kept shooting at the thralls, ZAK's warriors eventually catch up with Myrk and Myrk goes down. Game over.

I must say though, even if this playing is completely terrible by today's standards, out of the three individuals I'm inspecting here, Myrk surely has been playing the best. So if there was a contest about who was the best in the year 2000, Myrk, Tirri or Flat, my vote would go to Myrk. Sill, Myrk is not playing anywhere near good enough as he does today. Not even in the same league.

Anyhoo, here's another game for Myrk as well. Caer dark flag rally from the same match. Unit splits are fairly normal, but Kap the almighty only trades for 12 souls. Is Gtm rushing? Hahah, no. So the unit trade is basically handicapping the team by taking units that will leave the team undermanned everywhere. These are the kind of trades you'd expect to see from Father Xmas today.

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Myrk is once again trusted with the heavy hitting role.
Both teams go for a completely brainless even split on all flanks approach on this map, as evidenced in the mini-map. Even the massive south water flank has small melee groups coupled with two fetch and few souls. Seriously?

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Myrk is once again facing his arch nemesis, ZAK. As you can see, Myrk is professional enough not to need edited formations either. Then, exciting shit starts to happen middle when SF starts pushing.

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WATAH!!! What's going to happen?! Myrk wins! Hurray. Zak lost all his fetch at once while Myrk lost two and a bunch of melee.

After this, nothing all too exciting happens. SF got pooned on every flank, while Chun LI from SF kept bouncing between south and middle on their side, between Myrk and the south GTM guy. Chun Li is kind enough to make mini-rushes towards Myrk so he gets to zap Chun's herons many times, while Chun makes sure that he heals them so that Myrk's fetch are still in range to rezap them. This leads to Myrk having some handsome damage in the end.

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This game further assured me that Myrk was the best out of the three dudes 10 years ago. Still, the hardest par to show from reviews like this are the body count skills. Watch the films yourself, people were just incredibly inept in the BC arts 10 years ago, when you compare it to today.



So recap, all three players played in teams that used strategies that would be labelled as completely newbish today if they were used in a serious tournament match. Flat and Tirri displayed that they made completely lunatic unit splits when they were captaining along side with undeveloped strategies as a whole. All three had ridiculously low body count skills 10 years ago.

But hey, I am barking the wrong tree here, aren't I? 2001 was the magical year myth skills peaked or something. People just tend to say "I was at my prime 10 years ago", when they really mean "I was at my best 9 years ago", right? Right. Well if this is the case, then what exactly is the point of bragging about tournament success before that year? If the myth skills hadn't developed before that year, then surely the people from 2000 would get smashed by people from the year 2001? That means that tournament winners from that year were automatically worse than the people from 2001.

But was 2001 really that magical compared to the year 2000? Or better yet, were people really somehow, against all logic, better at this game in the wonderful year of 2001 instead today or some other later time period? Is it really possible that people, who've played this game for only 2-3 years were somehow better than what the same people are after playing the game for 12 years? Well, lets see!


Flatline/Myrk 2001

MWC2K1 = A bit less participation than 2K but the overall skill level of all players + the level of participation/care for the tournament = the highpoint of myth tournaments. The uber rankers with real skills making the jump from ranked hooring to tourney play now actually had the teamplay skills to compete at the top level in a tourney and thats why you saw perhaps the best (arguably) specifically-made-for-a-tourney-rabble-team ever dominate their way to the finals for a 2nd showdown with the best (arguably) order-based-tourney-team and a finals match that was as close as any other.
On the surface you could say 2k1 was a two-horse race between TAF and NP and that most teams sucked (as you infer with regards to cacra).
- Flatline

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I'm doing Flatline and Myrk at the same time as they were on the same team that year. We shall go through a game or two from the Mwc2001 finals. Calm before the storm Ctf is the first one.

Both teams, 12inch and Np take rather standard trades what you might expect people to trade for today, except that basically always this map is totally rushy these days when it's played with top teams. That didn't happen in this game.

Myrkridon captains for Team Angry Face and decides to do a rather unique split with the units. Unit trades themselves are normal if you're not rushing. Both teams decide that using dedicated pussers is a good idea. However, in addition to dedicated pussers, Myrk decides that having a dedicated thraller is also a good idea. In Myrk's mind it's also a good idea for the captain to take the heavy hitting clutch units, aka the three herons and a ghol pack to himself, as opposed to poor Ramirez who is stuck with the thrallin' duty.

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Although Ram did also have three ghols too, so I guess he was a dedicated thrallin' pusser. Another note, don't you just love the matching tags on everyone? Why don't we have that anymore?

Anyway, nothing happens for ages as there's mostly just mad staring contests going on. If one of the teams was capped by Ska these days the other team would probably be down by 30% after 4 minutes. Flatline is staring at Migraine from a 3 mile distance in the south with his unedited long line formation.

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Then nothing happens for ages until Flat decides to push a little bit, which ends up with him getting pussed by Crème and then eventually rushed by Migraine, after Mig lost all his archers to Henry's pus.

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While this happens, Rattle snake is staring into nothingness at middle with his 20% while south is being rushed.

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And poor Ramirez is still on thrall duty.

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After Flat was rushed, Angry face just retreated to flag and eventually got killed in a slow archer/duff fight. It came down to an epic flag contest race though which ended up with Rp's herons healing all Ram's dedicated thralls, after Myrk lost his herons without trying them heal himself.

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Anyway, while it is fairly obvious that both teams would just get reamed by the finalist teams today in both game IQ and more so in body count skills, gaming surely took a big leap forward from the previous year. People are using edited formations and know how to use pus somewhat well and take normal unit trades. The body count skills are just somehow slow and sloppy compared to today, but that's kind of difficult to show from screenshots in a review. Watch the films yourself.

GAME TWO

Cracks in the cloudspine flag rally. I chose this game mainly because I could add a funny screenshot to it. It was a tough choise between the second Great divide game and the flag rally on fosgarach ruillick. Anyway, on to the match!

Np goes for a semi-standard strategy with the silly "take normal units but don't try to get the middle hill" strategy, which pretty much always leads to a loss. Seriously, I've never seen that work. Rab decides that getting pus in a light map is for sissies as well and decides to not take any. Luckily for Np, Myrk decides to trade for 0 archers and create a Duff fortress in the 12inch base.
Myrk himself takes a ghol pack, which leads to a disaster later.

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Myrk does prove that he is clearly the super unit distributor compared to Rabican. This is certainly something he has actually gotten worse at. In Tws2 he was captaining us against Name changers and didn't manage to give Karma units until 3 minutes in the game. Even then it was something like 3% or something.

12inch takes the mid hill with their fairly light melee force middle, since Np never even tries to get it. They start to rush the small Np middle and the heavy Np sides are naturally unable to help.
Things look bad for Np at first as 12inch pusses two duffs, but Myrk's pus got shot and it flung to the 12inch melee force. After that Myrk suicides his entire 9 ghol pack against one duff, as Migraine's stygians kill the ghols.

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Thor had this to say:
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Anyway, this is why the duff fortress will pretty always fail as well:

In this case, neither 12inch upper side flag even put their duffs up on the hill. Even if they had done so, one duff/some melee defense has no chance in hell of ever actually holding the upper flag vs archer and pus backed attack force from both sides. This strat would require your team to capture 6 flags first, which is also unlikely when such high percentage of units are kept at home. The home fortress is also penetrable, since Myrk didn't put any archers on the fortress walls.

Eventually Np wins, even despite their strategy being pretty bad too! However, you could still see either one of these strategies today. They would just contain some archers for the 12inch side and pus for the Np side. Small variations, but they make a big difference.

Tirri 2001

As an excuse for Tirri I must point out that he still played with a 3 trow team then, so some of his actions are probably credited to that. Anyway, here's a game of Poop versus a 5 trow team Cirque do soulblighter.

Both teams do normal unit trades with fairly normal strategies, cept Cirque goes for a two prong and Tirri tries to make a hidden rush in desert. However, this is somewhat strange.

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Tirri's 22 warriors and ghols versus Jeff's 27 warriors. Seriously? A 5 trow teams gives one guy 27 warriors, without trying to be ironic? Both Jeff and Tirri decided that leaving some of the warriors out of the fight is the thing to do, Now lets see how this pans out.

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Pretty good for Tirri, since Jeff lags out and Mobitz took small pus. Poop wins! Giving people rush units like that certainly is something you wouldn't see today, certainly not from 5 trow teams unless they're out to make a point.

GAME TWO

Barb valley dark Lmoth. Both teams trade for normal units, but -

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Yep, that's a fetch wall. 5 trow team, one guy with 8 fetch and 10 zerks.

Tirri himself took two trows as a captain, while the 5 trow team captain decided to take 0 units himself and leave his team handicapped in a bottom bracket match where they are down by 1 game. Tirri decides to split his two trows in two places, with the results that he first gets one of them to less than half health by doing this:

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And then sending the trow further south and do this:

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In the meantime the fetch wall somehow manages to rape everything in sight, since the Poop south sends nothing north to help it out. Cirque wins by a landslide.

Seriously, Fetch walls are absolutely terrible in acts of cruelty and are hilariously easy to beat.

Analysis from 2000/2001

First of all, I'd like to say that I did use many reviewer tricks while reviewing these games. I pointed out general mistakes, which can be done from any game from any time period. Everyone gets wighted sometimes or pusses himself. People also tend to play passive in the Mwc finals even today, simply because it is the smart thing to do usually. You can't really expect to overpower other good players so easily. I did this to make the reviews a bit more fun to read. However, there was also another reason why I included that stuff. It was to show you that you made a lot of general mistakes even back then. You hear loyalists blaming their mistakes today to a lack of care or whatever, but you made the same mistakes in the same volume back in the days as well. You weren't any better in that sense 10 years ago either.

The main theme I'd like everyone to focus on while reading the reviews though, is to focus on things that certainly have changed with time. The obvious changes are in the strategies. There is a giant leap from 2000 to 2001 when it comes to improved strategies. Same goes to body count skills. Based on that you can clearly say that the 2001 finalist teams would wipe the floor with the Mwc2k finalist teams. You can also say that the Mwc2003 finalist teams would wipe the floor with the 2k1 finalist teams.

As far as strats go, I'd say that they were about 85% done by the year 2001. The biggest differences are in the way units are distributed. While Rabican can argue that using dedicated pussers would be good even today and that it's peoples egos that just get in the way, or that it was smart because Np had players like Crème on board. There is a reason why using those isn't very smart though. If you use dedicated pussers, you no doubt end up with 2-3 people having shitloads of units, which are going to be a pain to control when you are being pressured from several directions with pus and other units at the same. It's much easier if those units are spread between two players.

A good case of using dedicated pussers backfiring is the Fosgarach game in the 2001 finals. Dante had a mixed group of warriors, archers and duffs. 27% when put together. He was trying to push middle, which failed and wasn't able to compete against a two player group pressuring him from two sides. He got killed and the pushing failed. This wasn't because Dante wasn't able to control that kind of a group versus several players, it's just that no one can really do that. It could have been Tirri but he would have ended up with the same problem.

In 2001, people split trow units like they do now, same with most other dark maps. Stuff like fetch walls on one guy or 27 warriors to one guy were fairly common those days though, and the basic strategies were still modified to be better later on.

The biggest difference when looking at old films and comparing them to modern films, or films from few years back is the way people control their units. 9 or 10 years ago it was just so slow. When people actually got into fights, the way they fought against pus or controlled their artillery was just slow. They reacted slowly to things and clicked in a way that would be seen as slow today. The good players today just click much faster than people used to. The 4-5 ballers from that time simply would not be a match to 4-5 ballers from today or any other later time period. This applies to Myrk, Flat and Tirri as well. All three of you are much better at body counting now than you were in the 9-10 years ago.

This is something that's kinda hard to show you via a review however. Watch the films yourself. I sincerely recommend this to Flat, Myrk and Tirri in particular. Watch your own play and compare it to later times, even today. Specially for Tirri, if you consider that you're just sucking now, watch the last game from the Mwc07 finals. You were playing incredible in that game. It was really impressive. Compare that to your performance in any game from 2001.

Why do people become loyalists?

I don't believe in any games since 2k1 or maybe even before that up until now that I can say I have really seen anything totally new or unique or some undiscovered special tactic that I hadn't already seen back in 2k1 or before 2k1.
Unless of course you are talking about something on a map that didn't exist before 2k1 and thats a whole different story altogether and not relevant to this discussion.
List me some special tactics or something NEW thats been discovered or never done before 2002 in myth2

- Flatline

2 words.
Activity and care.
The players that were at the top back then really dont have anything to prove now. They proved they were at the top when there was actually a decent playerbase. The top players back then had to be better than 500-1000+ other players playing the same game rather than be better than 50.
Fact is whoever is the best player of myth2 today is like being the president of cuba thinking they are some hot stuff until they look across the water and get jealous of the president of the usa.
Hey the best player on myth2 today *may* actually be BETTER than the best player in 2001 was at their peak. (when the 2001 player cared as much at the time as the best player today cares).
But the best players today will never be able to prove this and it gets to them.
All the best players today can actually prove is that they are the best players in a community of 50 players.
Well players like myrk rabican etc were the best players in a community of 500+ when they actually cared and were active and unless a miracle happens thats never going to be any different no matter how many times this comes up.

- Flatline

There's several reasons why people become loyalists. One of the most obvious one's is the E-fame. Myrk and Flat (And Rab too) were in the 2001 finals. They hadn't been in the Mwc finals before that year. Naturally it's good for them to say that people were better then, than to for example say that people were the best in the year 2000 because that's when they reached the top. Tirri however does not usually highlight that 2001 was some magically good year, since most of his FFA tournament victories actually happened in the year 2000, while all of his Team tournament victories happened after Mwc2001.

Same thing can be applied to revisionists. It's better for Johnny come late to highlight that people are better now than what people were before, because that's when they started to have success.

It's also better for loyalists to say that people used to better and they are just shadows of their former selves, because it's damn good post excuse as well as a pre excuse. The Johnny come lates could never possibly fairly beat them, because they just aren't in their primes anymore. They won't be as good as they were before in the future either, so naturally this explains their future losses to Johnny come lates as well. Funnily enough, this line of reasoning was invented when BME started dominating. Most of these loyalist excuses that I'm about to list were also invented during the BME reign of terror and then carried on later.

Nostalgia is also a powerful too. Naturally this game seemed to be better and more fun when you first got this game and back in the bungie days when we had more players. We have things saying in Finnish "Aika kultaa muistot", from which the literal translation would be "Time goldens memories" or "Time silver lines memories", which means that people tend to think of days past as being much better than what they actually were.

The excuses

"I'm not in my prime"

The reason for using this excuse is simple. If you lose, it's because your prime is gone. Similarly your future losses are explained by this as well. You're not gonna reach your prime in the future either, so we'll never know who's really better.

At this point I certainly hope that this excuse is shot down by the reviews. You guys weren't better strategists or better clickers back then. Even if the difference isn't gigantic, it's still a noticeable difference. You are better than now than you were 9-10 years ago. This applies to everyone.

So the next time you are trying to justify your loss to someone by explaining that used to better, just don't, ok? If you can't beat him now, you most certainly would not done so as yourself from 10 years ago either.

The "care" excuse

Of course I probably suck now.
Probably because I don't really care to NOT suck now or even to ever play a game of myth2.

- Flatline

The care excuse is probably the most known and most used excuse we see. We hear it in the tournament forums about tournament games and we hear it in Myth games in general. I didn't care, so that's why I sucked. This excuse saw it's heyday during the BME times, when players from Np and Bia were explaining why they are losing to BME based on their care levels. We didn't care as much so we lost. Same excuse has been used several times since then.

The care excuse naturally is actually the best excuse in the sense that it actually holds some merit. Nobody, except Adrenaline and GKG according to Dantski go on with 100% effort in every random game that they play, nor really care that much about the ending results of them. In this sense the care excuse is very valid.

It's not a very valid excuse for tournaments though. If you don't care, you're not playing or signing up. If you actually sign up to a tournament and show up to play, you care. You are playing and unless you are intoxicated or your house is on fire, you are just as good as you ever were. The low care in tournaments manifests as a low participation rate and those teams usually end up getting eliminated because they forfeit or suffer from low participation rate.

I myself sometimes say "I don't care". The difference however is that I don't use it as an excuse to claim that that's why I sucked in a tournament game or that's why my team lost. I can for example say that the last time I really cared was in 06 when we played BME. I really didn't want to lose and it would have bummed me out a lot if we would have. I can say I didn't care that much in 09 finals, but that doesn't mean it would have affected my play in a negative way. It just wouldn't have bummed me out as much to lose. If I show up to play a tourney game, I play to win. I like winning more than losing so I'll do what I can to win. Sometimes I care about winning more, but it doesn't affect my play.

The number of teams/tournament competitiveness excuse

If we go by the number of teams entered, the best and most meaningful (whatever that means) tournaments would simply go by the number teams entered. Nobody does that though, this excuse just popped up in 2006 when some people were trying to belittle BME and say they were in fact better players, because the tournaments they won had more teams in it. Excuse me? How does the number of teams affect your play? It doesn't make you play any better or worse. You make your play, not the other teams.

This of course brings us to the other related excuse, which is the tournament competitiveness. Ok, this depends on what you mean with that. Surely tournaments could be considered as being more competitive when they had more teams in them. However, lets again look at the magical year 2001, shall we?

1) Northern paladins – was still around as a whole till 2006. Some of them still play.
2) Angry face – Most were still around till 2004. Some of them still play.
3) MI – Some were still around until 2005, some are still here today.
4) Cirque: Was still around till 2003
5) GTM: was around till 2003.
6) CI: Ok, these guys went away after 01, except for Aginor, Hitlow and Wight slayer.
7) MoR: Still around till 2002.
8) Cacra: Most were still around till 2004, quite many still play.
9) Loa: Still around till 2006
10) Tcox: Still around.

So even after 2001 the majority of the top teams played. Quite many are still here today. When we jump to Mwc2003, almost all were still around, just in different formations. The tournament had 25 teams less than 01 (although prolly would have gotten over 40 teams if I would just kept the registration open), so hence it should be less competitive. Competitive in what sense, though? The teams that disappeared were in the bottom and middle section of the myth hierarchy. The top players were still there, just in a different order. BIA (a new team) jumped into the top from the 10-20 placings as a new team as did BME. The players on those teams just improved a lot during those years and became better players than the some of the other teams. The teams that previously placed above them didn't get worse, the others just became better than them.

The competitiveness excuse depends wholly on what you mean by it. Certainly 00 or 01 is more competitive than 2010, that's just a given. It doesn't mean that the teams that won those tournaments are better than the team that wins this tournament however. It certainly is not an excuse to be playing bad or good. If you lost, you lost. If someone is better than you, he is better than you. The number of teams or tournament competitiveness doesn't affect that.

I guess one could argue that they play better if there's a larger audience present, but I doubt anyone's gonna say that. That's just silly. I mean, audience of what? A group of 1-2 ballers?

"I'm rusty"

This is valid, but only for a little while. Rust wears off quicker than Paris Hilton wears off pets. Only takes a couple of days or weeks of gaming at best. It is possible to forget your mything skills if you quit playing in 2000 or 2001 and then made a total myth blockade. I mean you haven't played a single game of myth at all or even thought about it. If you did keep playing on and off however, like showing up for tournaments, you are as good as new after playing a bit. I myself have only been showing up for tournaments since 2004 and I'm certainly not worse now than I was then. Neither are you.

Think about that the next time you are writing a threat assessments and are about to type in the words "He is rusty".

Skill development. Do I believe there's a myth skill peak?

You know what, I don't know if there's a myth skill peak for the 4-5 ballers. I do know that it most certainly did not happen in 2001. 2001 was surely a year where myth strats and such were about 85% done and myth basic knowledge, like "get pus in light maps" or "spread your units while rushing" were much the same as now. They most certainly were still not fully developed and body count skills and clicking certainly are much better now. However, the jump from the year 2000 to 2001 is bigger than the jump from 2001 to 2005, or the jump from 2005 to 2010. That's for sure. However, these jumps do excist and therefore the people from 10 years can't be better players.

There's still some problems with the peak theory however. When I or anyone who isn't blinded by nostalgia goggles watches films from a top player from 2000, like Phod, the playing seems laughable compared to top players today. When you look at Chohan vs Erik from 2004 however, it's not much different at all. Both players would clearly still be excellent by today's standards. Would Chohan beat today's Tirri or GKG? I don't know, but he'd still be great. In his time Chohan sure was unstoppable when it came to duels and he certainly wouldn't be worse now. The time difference between 2004 and 2000 is shorter than the time difference between 2004 and 2010. Weird.

Here's a crude graph of what I mean by skill development.

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Please ignore the numbers, they aren't relevant and I just had to type in some numbers to create the graph. What I'm trying to illustrate here is the pace which myth inventions were made and what it was required to be a top level player. While most of the stuff was done by 2001, it didn't stop there. Myth kept on developing, just not as fast as it did before with the larger community. These developments were just less radical, but still significant when considered as a whole. Certainly more than enough to ensure that a modern player would kick the ass of a 2001 player. The difference just wouldn't as big as a 2001 player kicking the ass of a 1999 top player, when the requirements for a top player back then was to realise that mortar dwarfs are better in Clash Lmoth than warlocks and that artillery gains hill advantage etc.

One thing that should also be noted about the graph is that it doesn't take into account people that simply just improved by a lot during some time compared to the rest of the community. Chohan for instance certainly was neck above others in 2003-2006. Some people just take fast giant leaps from 3 ballerness to 4-5 ballerdom, instead of slowly and gradually improving like the most of us. Tirri, Flat, Myrk have been considered 4-5 balls for a long time now and are good examples of gradual developments. They are players who've kept up with the requirements for that, while as people like Adrenaline or Ducky just suddenly jumped from oblivion to what they are now, after a long period of gradual improvement.
Giant Killer General
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

well god damnit, I wish I had just read this before I got into my annual argument with flat/myrk/tirri about this after mwc12 (I guess it's just like a mwc tradition though or something). The article sounds vaguely familiar, I probably have read it before and just forgot. I can't believe no one linked to it or referenced it and just watched me make an ass out of myself talking about shit that has already had an article written about it.

Anyway, my 2 cents: Of course I have a bit more of an extremist view on this than even this article does, and I acknowledge that. It is a good article though.

A few things I would just comment on:
In talking about well-defined, concrete tactics and whether or not they weren't used until later, I think the article is suggesting that those were all established by 2001 (correct me if I am wrong). However, one that really comes to mind for me is heal trapping trow. I can't really prove this though one way or another as I don't have films of it. it would be nice if someone could research it a bit though, finding top-tier mwc matches / games on maps that had trow and heals on it and see if there were any clear opportunities for a heal trap on an enemy trow and if it was used/attempted or not. I am trying to think of other very clear tactics, but I guess one would just have to do some research in watching a bunch of the older films, make a list of tactics, and see how prevalent they are. That sounds like a lot of work though and a much bigger scope, so it would just be really cool if someone at least looked into the trow heal trapping.

About the Chohan vs Erik retirement match films: I watched them expecting epicness because of the grandiose way this match has been talked about for years. I was left pretty disappointed. Certainly they were good, but I don't even know about 5-ball level good. Personally I thought my matches vs Tirri circa 2009-2010 were better. Of course I am biased, and I am not sure if I was just imagining things or not since I only took a quick glance. It would also be interesting to see someone do an objective comparison/analysis though of these matches because it could support an even longer time frame for the supposed "peak theory" of myth skill, or abolish it completely (or show nothing, who knows, but we should find out). Of course I am also additionally motivated for someone to do this because it would compare myself to them back then as I never really got ample opportunity to play with either Erik or Chohan back then, and this would be about as close to that as I could get. However, I only mention it because all of that aside, I still think it would be an interesting comparison and read for a lot of players in the myth community. Comparing different eras in sports in general is always a hot topic for debate and generally interesting discussion.

About the distributions: Wow were those distributions terrible. Of all the arguments used in every discussion on this topic, the most clear-cut of them all is the distributions. Care, competitiveness, # of teams, internet connections, lag/delay on international hosts, and every other argument ever used in this discussion over the last 12+ years, nothing can explain the distributions except for lesser skill. There is really just no other way to explain it. You can manipulate the arguments about the strategies, BC abilities, etc. all you want (even though I think that is pretty clear cut as well), but the distributions still leaves a huuuuuuuuge gap in that argument that is left completely unaccounted for.

About the strategies: Yes they were bad, but I see some pretty bad shit even in the most recent mwc's (hi Ducky, NC). Between strategies and distributions, I think distributions has seen the most consistent improvement over time. People still do shitty strategies for some reason, though they are of course still of better quality in general. I still feel that these things are not mastered even today. Even I still have to correct my mistakes on these things sometimes even though I have probably given them more thought than anyone.

I wonder though Grim, for further discussion on this article, would your statement about the development of myth strategy being 85% done by 2001 change at all today, or stay the same? Would any other statements you made in this article change today compared to when you first wrote it?

Edit: I just saw your summary comment for the article, Grim. Can you elaborate on what you don't agree with anymore, and why?
NewMutator
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by NewMutator »

I'd like to chime in and say that, while I generally would agree that overall level of skill has improved over time, I don't know if it's really a fair comparison to make. It's kind of like comparing a modern human with our neolithic ancestors. While we would, I presume, like to think our capacity of intelligence is much more refined, our ancestors actually had larger, more active brains. Why is this? Because part of the perks of living in a cooperative city-environment is that most of the heavy-lifting is already done for us. We are free to specialize in various areas and excel in them, but our ancestors had no such luxury. They had to learn the hard way, and they had to figure it all out themselves. So it's only natural that today's level of play builds on the lessons of the past.

Also, I would like to point out that I'm a bit skeptical of the assertion that there is an objective criteria for determining the relative goodness vs. badness of unit trades. Certainly some trades are more reliable than others. I know that, in general, you have a pretty good system for identifying optimal trades. But I think a lot of what makes a trade work or not work is tied into the distribution. It is absolutely conceivable that joke trades can be made to counter optimal trades, depending on the unit distribution and other captain "intangibles" (such as faith in the captain/team, something resembling morale). So I think this point, for me anyway, is objectionable. Having said that, I think you're right to say that some trades generally work better than others on certain maps. But I would say that there is always some wiggle room regardless.

I think unit distribution is probably an area that can always be improved and may be a greater factor determining the outcome of a game than the chosen trade in many cases. Those are my impressions, at least.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Vantobia »

Very nice Grim, I have never read this before. Enjoyed it and alot of what you say is bang on the money. I have watched some films of myself from the 1999-2000 years and it was pretty average. I did play alot more then so I guess I made less newbish misakes. You are very correct when you say that the benchmark for being better back then was lower.

Cheers,
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Vantobia »

NewMutator wrote: But I think a lot of what makes a trade work or not work is tied into the distribution.
Very good point mate, I agree with this also. You see this in rabble, random 2T games all the time. You get 1 team with a noob Captain Vs other team time an expirienced Captain. Lets say the teams have a dead even amount of player skill.
Even with similar stock trades - the newb cap distributes the units in a way detrimental to the team, weird splits of melee, no melee support for arty on flanks, trow inbalances to flanks or too many trows to 1 player etc etc - not to mention they would hadly ever give any directions to the team.

The other cap however would have clear directions for each player and knows how to distribute units which set up an offense with good balance of arty and melee backup.

This dosnt have too much to do with old school vs new school players etc but ties into your unit distrubution importantness point.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

Well of course LN. I am not really following the whole neolithic ancestors thing, but I think a better analogy would be how athletes in competitive sports tend to get better on average over time from era to era. Olympic records do not last forever, it is not a matter of if they will be broken, but a matter of when. How long they stand the test of time, how they measure up against the rest of history, is the true measure of its greatness. Of course like you say it only makes sense as the future generations have the advantage of lessons of history to learn from. Look at some of the late-coming-but-quick-to-rise myth players, most notably Ghengis. He was the quickest to rise to his level of play, but of course that doesn't mean he could have risen that fast had he started playing from the beginning like many others. Obviously he benefited from the knowledge already accumulated through years of experience by all of the players around him.

As far as unit trades, the discussion of counter-strategies has been debated for many years. I really recommend you look at my "Push Factor" article. Basically it states that the fundamentals of all myth strategy is control of the map. Generally speaking, he who controls the map wins the game. Control of the map comes from the "push factor" of the forces. Push factor can come from player skill, distributions, unit trades, strategy, and everything else that goes into good myth playing. But given that the quality of all of the other factors are equal, there is only 1 strategy/unit trade that can possibly have the most optimal push factor.

Now you can argue that if they are not all equal, that certain combinations may yield higher push factor. An example would be if a player is stronger with a certain type of squad. The squad may have a lower push factor in the hands of almost any other player, but this player just does better with those units instead of a better squad that would have a higher push factor in the hands of almost any other player. However that is a cop-out of the argument, it should be thought of in terms of when all else is equal. I am here to tell you that while those considerations are real, they are very negligible. Instead of adjusting the trade to meet your players, adjust their roles within the same unit trade / strategic framework. If that still isn't a good fit, then your players have significant deficiencies in the quality of their skill and they need improvement, but you should never sacrifice the integrity of your unit trade / strategic framework for anything. Everything starts with the unit trade. From the unit trade you make the strategy, then the squad distributions, then considerations for your players individual abilities. A lot of times when talking about a bad distribution, a big part of why it may be bad is because it is derived from a bad unit trade to begin with. A bad unit trade will not have all good distributions.

So of course there is wiggle room. The quality of the teams is never going to be exactly the same, nor anything else. However in a competitive setting they are going to be close, and it is important to give your team the best chance as you can to win. This is such an abstract game, but when you get down to thinking of the few best trades on a map/game, they are going to be very very similar to each other, you might as well lump them into the same category and call them the same. If you take two strategies that are very different from each other, I guarantee I can identify one that is definitely better. It is simply going to be the one that has more push to it.

Honestly I don't really understand the line of thought in the theory of supposed counter-strategies. First of all, in this game, you don't know what your opponent is going to trade for and what their strategy is going to be. So how can you devise a counter strategy to it? To try to follow that line of thought is foolish.

Second of all, even if you knew exactly what your opponent was going to do with their unit trade / strategy, it would be pretty damn difficult to create a counter-strategy based off of that information. Like I always go back to, it is only about having more push, not countering the opponent's trade / strategy.

Third of all, even if there is a nice example of a map / game where there is 1 good strategy and 1 good counter to it, who is to say what the opponent is going to do in the middle of the game? It is as if you are assuming that the opponent is just going to blindly run into your countering forces. Versatility is key to any good strategy. You don't have some single blueprint for how your strategy is going to pan out in the game from start to end like its a rehearsal. You have an initial play, several backup plans, and then you think of all the different scenarios you might run into, how to adapt to them, what your options are, etc. It is all about the versatility. If you have 1 countering force, a quick adjustment might just counter that countering force.

To try and predict the psychology of what the various players on the other team are going to do in the middle of the fight given this very specific situation is even more foolish. No two games in myth are the same, it is impossible to predict such things. It is as if you are assuming that the opponent is just going to blindly run into your countering forces.

I think this line of thinking about counter-strategies is a very dangerous trap for myth captains to fall into. Ducky, for example, would argue this a lot as justification for his wacky strategies, and in turn it has ruined a lot of what could have been potentially good myth matches. This is why I feel the need to be outspoken about this.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by NewMutator »

Fair enough, I understand where you're coming from. But those same criticisms can be applied to an "optimal" trade. And that's basically where my idea of a counter came from: a trade distinct from the optimal one.

I don't know how a game will play out, which is why I'm skeptical that a "best" trade can exist. Your response was just to classify different trades as permutations of the same one, which is kind of arbitrary as there are only so many possible trades to choose from.

I agree that there can probably be a "best" trade that wins x% of the time. But there are a lot of variables that effect that especially with a game like Myth where there exists a degree of randomization, and also a smaller pool from which results could be culled. Obviously players are not all equal so that hypothetical might not bear out in practice. Different people play differently; some players have a tendency to tunnel, in which case they'll feel more comfortable with fewer unit types, whereas others are more comfortable with an independent microcosm or a mixed squad. I think your perceptions are shaped a bit by the fact that the players you tend to team with are of a higher general skill level than the average Myther, and in such a case there might be greater consistency in their skill level.

Again, I'm not trying to dive into the psychology of being a Captain. My point was that in the case of an optimal trade, it's conceivable that, since everyone will take that trade, someone might stumble on a trade that adapts to that trade's prevalence, perhaps quite by accident. Whether or not is conceivable is, ultimately, a matter of opinion, as you can't really predict that which is unpredictable by definition.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Vantobia »

Myth - Action, random events, deep strategy, history, competition, customisation, rivalry, individual flair, team work . . . why the fuck are there only 50 of us playing ?
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Dantski »

GKG you're aware GK has played in every MWC from 2006 right? He also played in 03, so he hardly picked thinfs up fast!
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by c⁄J⁄Iılk c⁄J⁄Iån ◊§t◊ »

GiantKillerGen wrote: I think a better analogy would be how athletes in competitive sports tend to get better on average over time from era to era
So LeBron > Jordan?

Also I'd like to point out that, while I agree with the article, noob grim doesn't seem to know that back in the b.net days there was controversy over whether or not custom forms where ethical or chetz, which is why a lot of top level players, especially unrankers, still weren't using them. I know it might seem ridiculous now but it there was a lot more miff decorum and subculture back then.

Also I don't think ppl have improved at TFL If I Had A Tro BC since 97-98.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Renwood »

Why are there only 50 of us playing myth?

Because the masses FLOCK towards mediocrity. Myth is high art in the realm of video games.
From talking to a lot of modern video gamers, and watching trends in the video games industry for the last few years, it is clear, people want fast easy rewards and validations in the games they play. Myth certainly is not easy, The learning curve is very high, and the speed at which things move on the screen really is not very fast. People (younger genertations) want more and more INSTANT GRATIFICATION.

"Gratification is the pleasurable emotional reaction of happiness in response to a fulfillment of a desire or goal.

The disparaging term instant gratification is often used to label the satisfactions gained by more impulsive behaviors: choosing now over tomorrow.[1] The skill of giving preference to long term goals over more immediate ones is known as deferred gratification or patience, and it is usually considered a virtue, producing rewards in the long-term.[2]"

I say in games if shit is easy or impercise (COD series) I do not get any gratification out of achieiving its goals, I like to take my time and be tacticle and forge a cunning plan in an enviroment that is extremely difficuly. People now want to earn cool unlocks and get grear abilities and weapons other people do not have so they have an advantage and win more often. I like the old FPS games whever everybody had the SAME great and weapons and abilities, it was the SKILLs of the players and how they fought that made them a cut above the rest, because they all had the same tools to work with.

Just imagine if you were playing in FFA games of Myth and people had some damn unlocks or upgrades to shit because they play 12 hours a day, or even worse and the NEWest trend that is running and ruining modern gaming, " free to play" A.K.A PAY TO WIN, where you spend real money for better gear that others do not have so you have an advantage Players with 5 ball ratings like GKG have the same units, and warrios and archers as everybody else on the battlefield, its how they USE them that makes the difference.


I think if bungie got myth back and did a reboot, they could sell it and market it properly to the masses. Myth is the giant bloody wargame everybody SHOULD be playing, but there is NO other game like it in the entire history of video games. Maybe there is a good profit based reason for that... Or maybe if Bungie made a new myth it would just get sales due to billions of midless Halo fanboys. I wonder if the generations of fans Bungie has post myth, Love Bungie, or if they just really love Halo. You would think we would have gotten many players from the HaloSphere of bungie fans, wanting to try out more of Bungie's past products and works.....I dont know about you guys, but I have not met 1 person ever on myth that said they found out about myth after playing halo and being a halo fan and looked myth up.
I played my first Bungie gamne GNOP in 1992, and with 1993's Pathways Into Darkness, I was a life long bungie fan....untill they abandoned the entire myth franchise, the Myth community, and as a final betrayl shut down Bungie.net the Myth server.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

LN - yes there is randomization, but like in real life, you need to make decisions based on imperfect information. You try to predict the unpredictable. All you can do is mitigate the risk as much as you can. And in that context, there is one best trade that mitigates that risk the best. It is the one that has the most push to it like I said before. If you want to further the discussion on this, then you have some homework: give me a solid descriptive example of a viable trade / strategy and then another one that counters it, and explain why it counters it. Everyone who argues this just wants to throw around their arguments without giving any examples and it is just weak. I gave examples, so give me some examples, otherwise continuing this is like pissing in the wind.

Dantski - I am not aware of the exact dates or whatever, but I still think he learned fast. When asked about players that caught on quick, the first one in my mind is Ghengis. Another one that comes to mind is Absolut.

Milk Man - Perhaps by intuition, I knew that that statement would immediately get someone to counter with the Lebron vs Jordan argument. Hence why I carefully included the words "on average". A sport like basketball can't be quantified quite like Olympic records can be which is why I preferred that analogy. But in this context it would be applied that Jordan is the greatest, and how long he remains the greatest will ultimately measure his true greatness in history. Another analogy is to look at the sport of MMA. Look at UFC 1 and compare it to some of the more recent UFCs. There is a pretty distinct improvement over time. Really I think you knew what I meant and are just trolling with that comment.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by c⁄J⁄Iılk c⁄J⁄Iån ◊§t◊ »

But LeBron has more muscles, thats kind of like BC power right?

Trolling aside the comparison is more interesting than it looks. For instance, when MJ was playing zone defense was still forbidden in the NBA. Today's defense is also much more active and intelligent, particularly the tactic of flooding the ballside half of the court with an extra player or two. I know we all idolize MJ because most of us belong to that "dream team" generation, but the these distortions effected by our nostalgia are pretty similar to our nostalgia for the turn-of-the-millennium era of miff. I wonder, though, GKG, if your strats would have even worked with the skillsets of that era of players? MJ was great, maybe the greatest ever, but also was mostly a pure scorer and was helped by the particular milieu in which he played.

That said, I think people were already heal trapping in 2001, but not many. Not sure, its kind of... fuzzy. Admittedly raid was still the h00r map of choice rather than PG, which might explain this phenomenon... I wonder how ppl would stack up against 2000-2001 raid h00rs at MG duels? Ugh, vomit. I do have a clearer view of these things sometimes though because I was afk between 2001 and... 2006 I think? One thing I really notice is using taunt to stop warlock blasts... now adays even pretty shitty, nub players do this but I think it was an elite, maybe even nonexistant skill in 2001. Now adays people taunt fake with everything... I don't think using taunt fakes in clutch arc/soul duels was even thinkable in 2001.

Here's a decent article on the LBJ/MJ thing:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1371 ... el-jordans

Also myrk was definitely the most dominating player in 2001, according to my hazy memory.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by NewMutator »

GKG: What's an example of an optimal trade? That would have to be made explicit since a counter would be contingent on knowing that.

My disagreement with you is on a really minor point and like I mention before a matter of opinion. Besides it seems like there's some weird form of equivocation going on where you say something like it's ridiculous for me to think I can anticipate the opposing captain's trade or the course of the game, I counter that I'm inclined to agree, and then you say that any good captain tries to predict the unpredictable.

I'm inclined to agree with your analysis for the most part, but I'm also inclined to think that unit distribution can be improved as well (perhaps in conjunction with an optimal "pushy" trade). I agree map control is a huge factor in Myth, just as board control is huge in chess. But as with chess, a team can overextend and lose a game as a result. Synergy between pieces, or units, is clearly how games are won.

What's your stance on ghols when they are offered? For instance, look at the trades from The Barrens film of last week's kickball series. Ratking dumps a bunch of points in a pushy trade with maximum ghols. Those ghols are then used to secure the midfield. Are ghol packs optimal in your opinion?
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

MM - I am not an expert on basketball. MJ is the greatest for me, my opinion. Doesn't bother me one bit if you think Lebron is the greatest. The article you linked is really not all that interesting, there are dozens of them out there. This particular one has a bias towards Lebron, and it is in the interest of media circles and other interests to spin it that way because it sells better when the debate is really close like that. Really the only way we are going to be able to see a definitive answer to this debate is until after Lebron retires so we can see his NBA career in full. Everything is speculation until that point. Anyway I am not here for an MJ vs Lebron debate.

My strats would have worked back then just fine. I had to teach them to my teams too the past couple years. I have to teach them to anyone I am captaining, that is the captain's job. If there are any skillsets that are lacking, then you help to improve them.

Seeing a heal trap on rare occasion in rabble games is very different than seeing it being used/attempted properly in a tournament setting. That is what I want to know. That is what would show that people truly understood that tactic, how to use it, and if they were defending against it. If we see trows just going in kicking herons around and they aren't being heal trapped in a top mwc match, then that is a good indicator.

LN - look at any of my trades / strategies from either of the last 2 mwc finals matches that I won. Work off of that. However like I said before, in a reality, you would never know this information on what the opponent is going to trade for. Just for the sake of argument though, please try too find good counter trades / strategies to any of my strategies for those mwc finals games. You really should read my article though. No matter what counter you try to come up with, it is going to be less pushy than my strategies which means I can either run the timer out while taking minimal damage and then rush at the end, or make adjustments and open up weaknesses elsewhere using the greater speed and push of my forces.

When talking about the unpredictable, the difference is that when you were talking about it, you were trying to act on your predictions before the game even starts (like trying to come up with counter-trades to a known trade by the opponent, which would never be known really). When I was talking about it, I was talking about making predictions for possible mid-game adjustments on how to deal with various scenarios. You should try to think through everything that the opponent might do still, but it is something you just keep in your mind, you don't act on it until you see it. In the mean time, you execute your own plan that hopefully sets everything else up from there. When you finally see what the opponent is doing you should know what to do from there because you should have already thought it out.

And yes, being overly extended can lose you the game, but that does not mean map control. I am talking about map control. control meaning you can prevent the opponent from controlling it, not just having some units randomly scattered all over the map where the opponent happens to not be there yet. That isn't map control.

Whether ghols are worth it or not depends on the map, other available units, game type, etc., so I can't really answer that question. Read my article. If you want to look at particular films, map/games, or whatever, I will oblige. But I think this discussion should be continued elsewhere since it is starting to get away from the topic of Grim's article. I really just want to hear grim's response.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by c⁄J⁄Iılk c⁄J⁄Iån ◊§t◊ »

I do not think LeBron is the greatest wtf!

We can wait for them to retire, sure, but its near 100% that his stats will at leat near-equal MJs at the end if you're more of a stats person, which I am not.

Besides you are more of a LeBron than an MJ at miff... LeBron's edge is that he is both a scorer and a passer, and that he can play just about any role on the court, whereas MJ was just a god at what he did best, score and defend ppl in his own position, which was great back then because it was more about 1v1 at your position.

If only miff were as interesting as basketball.

What about a military analogy? Iraq wars US army would demolish any ww2 power... does this mean that late 90s/early 2000s armies are "better" than those who fought truly world wars?

Would Nietzsche dominate Plato at philosophy, if they were both rappers in 2013?

btw Paris must have truly miff-died not to get in on these metaphorz.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

I am definitely more MJ than LeBron at myth. Do you not remember the mwc11 championship team, The Chicago Bullz? I was the literal Michael Jordan of myth, duh!

Jokes aside, you can look at that comparison in that light, or you can look at it in another light, that I am a team captain. Which one was more of a team captain in basketball? Hrmm...

Not following the rest of your response...please do not feel the need to elaborate though.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by NewMutator »

Surely you're not challenging me, GKG? :shock:

The example I gave was the CTF, The Barrens game we played last Saturday. I was asking your opinion on Ratking's trade.

By the way, I have read your article. I'm pretty sure I wanted to comment on it earlier, before that feature was enabled by Toxyn.

I'll let everything slide, though, since, as you say, this may not be the proper place for this discussion.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by grim »

Milk Man wrote: Also I'd like to point out that, while I agree with the article, noob grim doesn't seem to know that back in the b.net days there was controversy over whether or not custom forms where ethical or chetz, which is why a lot of top level players, especially unrankers, still weren't using them.
My azz. I didn't really played unranked in 99 and the biggest rank whores were editing their formations already in 99. Melee formations, that is.

@GKG

There's a few bits and pieces I don't agree with anymore, but the biggest difference in my mind these days is in regards to the fact that one can't get worse at this game. These days I tend to think it is possible to have been better in the past, just not in the 01 era for obvious reasons. Personally I think this is due to mental commitment one has to this game or tournaments he plays in. I found my self being royally pissed about losing in tournaments years back, but in the past few or so years not so much. I was hell bent on winning in, say 05-06 era and that certainly had an effect on how I played. Same thing applies to everyone. When you don't really fear/care about losing, you don't strive hard enough to win.

But as for the strategy part, it was maybe 80% done in 01. 20% is still a big difference. But anyway, this article is 3 years old and we had a 15 page discussion about this then.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by c⁄J⁄Iılk c⁄J⁄Iån ◊§t◊ »

grim wrote: My azz. I didn't really played unranked in 99 and the biggest rank whores were editing their formations already in 99
Yea, it was considered whorish by many that's what I was saying. You were h00rish mb? There was a big thread/article about it on CP townhall and an article on it attttt... tru7h.org I think? Come to think of it though I think I'd come around to editing forms by the summer of 2001.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Vantobia »

hah, i still remeber using several side by side rows of shallow encirclement for large archer battles in Desert. It worked great back in the day, especially when alot of others were using wide box formation for archers, or 1 massive line which spread archers out so far away from the action they ended up being forgotten about for the rest of the game :P
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

LN - Challenging you to what? If it is challenging you to find counters to my mwc finals strategies, then yes I am challenging you.

About the CTF Barrens game that I barely remember, you are asking my opinion, not giving me an example. I asked for an example. As far as my opinion on that particular game, I am too lazy to go dig up the game in question, but I seem to recall that the trades were fairly similar and the main reason we caved in was poor distributions. My squad for example, had 2 dorfs when I really would have only needed 1, or even 0. I think I even asked if anyone else wanted a dorf but no one replied. Our flank caved because it didn't have a dorf or not enough dorfs, and then we all caved in and got pinned to our flag and surrounded. I am not sure how relevant any of that is to the discussion on counter strategies though.

Grim - I think I have been saying for years that mwc06 was the peak of competitiveness and care. I was in Iraq during mwc06 so perhaps this makes me the most neutral and objective observer of it as well. Just looking at those forums, hearing about it, and looking at the high number of high quality teams leads me to that conclusion. So I will agree with you there, and trust me I wish I could have been there. As far as skill, I think this is something more on an individual by individual basis. It is certainly possible some people have dwindled some over the past few years. Others haven't. I think though that those that have dwindled due to "less care" are making it out bigger than it really is. It is factor, just not as much as some people make it out to be. As far as the overall skill of the communitiy since 06, I think it is a rather dumb argument to get into, let's just say that it is obviously going to be very similar. I think the community as a whole is pretty much fully matured with the skill and has been for some time, probably since 06. Instead the differences are more on the individual by individual basis, for better or worse, and each person has their own personal reasons for that. I think we are in general agreement though.

p.s. - does anyone have the mwc06 finals films or any good matches from that mwc for that matter?
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by grim »

All the film links on the site still work I believe.

http://www.mythgaming.net/mwc2006/match.php?id=104
http://www.mythgaming.net/mwc2006/match.php?id=103

These were pretty good. The finals were terrible.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by punkUser »

NewMutator wrote: I don't know how a game will play out, which is why I'm skeptical that a "best" trade can exist.
The same thing struck a nerve when I read GKGs article last year (or whenever it was he posted it) as well, but I've softened on it a bit lately after participating in and observing a few more tournaments.

My thinking used to go that rock, paper, scissors balance implies hard counters, and Myth definitely has these unit trade-offs. Thus, one would think, for any given trade you should be able to construct a "counter" trade that shifts the selections towards the hard/soft counters for the reference trade, and therefore these is no "optimal trade" for every situation.

However, there are a number of problems with that line of reasoning that have become apparent to me over the past few years:

1) While Myth definitely has hard counters, it doesn't really have pure "rock, paper, scissors" balance in that it's not really cyclical in a lot of cases. Units like Trow, fetch, HG and so on are strictly better than some other units. i.e. there's not really a situation in which a thrall is going to do better than a myrk. Thus the only question is, is a myrk really worth as much a 4 thrall in this situation? The key is that the answer to that isn't really dependent on what the other teams trade is to a large degree... it's more dependent on the map.

2) The ability to choose when and where to fight is extremely valuable. Thus, fast units are really important, and you can't really substitute "counters" to them or you'll just get picked apart bit by bit. This is doubly-true since one place that Bungie strays from rock, paper, scissors balance a bit is that the fast units are generally very powerful melee units as well, excepting perhaps ghol (w/o pus) and spiders.

So really, I'd argue that trades are primarily determined by the map (how open it is, how many units you need to control it effectively), obviously the game type and to a large extent, the game time (i.e. how much time you have to screw around and do damage). To a large extent the game time is fairly standardized at this point based on the game mode, so it really just is map/mode dependent.

I think beyond that the other stuff that you mention - distribution, team-play, etc. - is obviously all very important, but the fundamental point about there existing "counter" builds to the optimal one I just don't think is true any more. And it's not just an argument related to probability and ability to handle unknown enemy trades, I don't think even perfect information would matter much. I mean, GKG basically has posted his strategy for trades and such and it was out there before the last MWC, so any teams playing against him pretty much knew what he was going to do, but still I didn't see any really solid "counter-trades".

At this point the burden of proof is squarely on the shoulders of those trying to prove that trades really are a sort of rock, paper, scissors balance. I tried for a while to prove that (to myself and others), but I no longer think it's the case.

Interesting discussion in any case, and was fun reading your article again grim, although I do recall reading it a few years back.
Milk Man wrote: Also I'd like to point out that, while I agree with the article, noob grim doesn't seem to know that back in the b.net days there was controversy over whether or not custom forms where ethical or chetz, which is why a lot of top level players, especially unrankers, still weren't using them.
Yeah this was always sort of surprising to me since Bungie very clearly made custom formations (and observer constants) work online, whereas any other modifications result in out-of-sync. Why would they have put so much effort into synchronizing formations in multiplayer if it wasn't intended? I'm surprised there was anyone to whom that was not obvious even at the start.
grim wrote: When you don't really fear/care about losing, you don't strive hard enough to win.
That's obviously true, but it's also pretty stupid when people bring it up as an argument of... well... anything. It's fundamentally just an excuse for sucking, of which there are many :) "My past self could have beaten your current self" is a typical vacuous, unprovable statement. It's just an attempt to shift the performance metric towards "best per unit care" or "best per unit time played" vs just "best", and a stupid one at that. But basic human psychology compels people to try and justify failure externally rather than taking responsibility, and that's especially true for people who derive a lot of their sense of self-importance from the matter at hand (i.e. Myth skills), so those are usually the ones that you'll see making those arguments :)
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by NewMutator »

I feel like I got shoehorned into a position I don't really hold, which is that for any given trade there exists a counter-trade.

My response is more directed at the suggestion that there is one trade better than all others given the game settings. GKG actually caved on this without realizing it when he said that "you might as well lump [good trades] into the same category and call them the same."

I asked GKG about that particular CTF on The Barrens game because I have it casted and my thoughts on it are already made known: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a1ofCG3lbM[/youtube]

My analysis is basically that while Ratking's trade is quite pushy (using the ghols to take map control), I am not sure if it's the best possible trade or even if the best trade would resemble it, though it served his team well this game. Part of the reason that it worked had to do with the unit distribution of Dantski, in my opinion. The archers were spread to too many players, and some players had more units or unit types than they probably should have had as a result of that distribution. For instance, GKG had multiple dwarves, Spartain Ken had perhaps too many unit types to be able to use them effectively, and Vie and myself were unable to protect ourselves because we're noobs. Players like Arzenic probably should have been where Vie and I were, while V and myself could have been rallied around GKG's core force. You might say that that isn't distribution, but in my mind it is since location to me is an essential component of distribution.

As far as "optimal" trades, there is some evidence that that might change with time, if only minimally. Ghol bombs, for instance, might be a viable strategy on certain maps that justify taking wights, journeymen, and ghols, even dwarves. But a strategy like that might not be considered optimal because it lacks the reliability of a melee-based trade. An innovation in gameplay that changes an optimal trade might include for instance, using dwarves with generals (relatively recent discovery, I think), or something like Adrenaline's satchel rain technique. Their highly-variable results do not seem to make these trades optimal, but they can and often do defeat more reliable trades.

Trades are, in my opinion, altogether less important than unit distribution and player location on the map. Like I've been trying to emphasize, that is merely my opinion. But I do think that a team with good synergy can defeat a better team with a better trade. I don't expect you guys to agree because it's something that can't be objectively verified, only corroborated by specific instances that are subject to interpretation.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by punkUser »

I don't think I actually disagree with anything you said there really LN. I was speaking more to the concept of "counter-trades", which I'm just not convinced really exist in any sort of viable way in Myth. Beyond that, yeah definitely trade isn't everything and player skill and team synergy are probably an even more important part of who wins than the trade.

Stuff like ghol bombs and adrens satchel flinging are awesome in their own right, but they were done with standard trades. i.e. they didn't have to take a risk on some strategy by trading for suboptimal units, thus I consider them sort of tangential to that discussion. Tricks and strategies definitely shift a bit with time, I just don't see a strong "trade metagame" in Myth, and I think that's at least partially due to the points I noted.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Dantski »

LN wrote:My analysis is basically that while Ratking's trade is quite pushy (using the ghols to take map control), I am not sure if it's the best possible trade or even if the best trade would resemble it, though it served his team well this game. Part of the reason that it worked had to do with the unit distribution of Dantski, in my opinion. The archers were spread to too many players, and some players had more units or unit types than they probably should have had as a result of that distribution. For instance, GKG had multiple dwarves, Spartain Ken had perhaps too many unit types to be able to use them effectively, and Vie and myself were unable to protect ourselves because we're noobs. Players like Arzenic probably should have been where Vie and I were, while V and myself could have been rallied around GKG's core force. You might say that that isn't distribution, but in my mind it is since location to me is an essential component of distribution.
Honestly there's one very good reason why we didn't win that game, Father Xmas. You've pointed out pretty much everyone else on the team without realizing this which is kinda bad TBH. The basic flow of that game was south got rushed and died terribly, mid then got pinched by their south and was forced to retreat while north had to retreat to flag to help out. Why did all this happen? Quite simply because we had 1/3 of our warriors off on a field trip to the edge of the map, now sometimes this can work out and it very nearly did in this game if Ratkings team had been sloppy and not contested. However by taking 1/3 of our warriors out of the fight it left our 2 remaining players with warriors with 3 flanks to cover. Arzenic correctly moved N to block Cruniac, Browning stayed middle to keep Adren in check, however we didn't have our 3rd group to keep south safe. Our south may have died if Xmas stayed by his team still but it would have been down to poor individual play than a tactical error and even losing in that case would surely have hurt Ratkings team more.

As for the unit splits *shrug* I think you're misunderstanding to a degree. If I was to do what was best for the team and make our chances of winning as good as possible, I'd pretty much give Spartain Ken Thrall for flag defence and a couple of other players 2 pus ghols while 4 of us held like 80% of the units. However this is meant to be fun for everyone so I'm not going to do that. I disagree that giving a bad player 4 archers a dorf and like 6 thrall is too many unit types because any units to a bad player is too many if you follow that train of thought.

I'm not going to be keeping 20-25% to myself if I can split 90% of the units between other players, I'm not trying to be a nice guy or a great captain by doing this, I just don't like having many units when I cap so I can at least make sure our thrall don't walk off flags and I can "borrow" odd units from people. Heck the biggest thing I've noticed in the KB games is that I'm incredibly wary of taking peoples units when they are busy fighting. Maybe if I had taken one of Saspers morts in the FR game we might have held on, maybe if I took one of GKG's dorfs earlier in the CTF game we would have won. Maybe if I had yelled at various players at various times I'd be sitting on a 10-0 record so far, but goddamn paying attention to everyone and yelling at them every 10 seconds is tiring. I think Arz saw my all out captaining once and I just yelled at my team constantly until we won.

Uhhh... anyway Xmas sucks 2013
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by NewMutator »

That's a pretty good breakdown of what happened that I didn't think to speak to. By trying to be a hero, Xmas took himself out of the game (until he could reach the enemy flag) and seeing an opportunity, Ratking and Co. pounced.

I didn't mean to imply you did a terrible job, Dantski! I'm pretty aware of some of the challenges of being a captain and openly admit that you are probably better at it than I. I think it just goes to show that a game's narrative is ultimately subjective to a degree. There are different ways to read it, and in the end it may or may not be futile to speculate if it could have turned out any other way.

That said I disagree on Spartain Ken: I think he could have done better minus the thrall. But I don't really fault you for that because as you say, it's mostly for fun. I was just using that game of an example, hope you don't mind my being blunt. I fully acknowledge that my POV is not always exhaustive.

And Punk, that's a good point about stuff like ghol bombs in standard trades. I actually thought about that, but a lot of that is done as a kind of afterthought whereas in some places it's the centerpiece of a given strategy. One example is that map with the forest giants and thrall elite (can't remember the name offhand). Do you sink unit trading points in wights to manually pop in the chance that you get some extra puss? Or do you dump the points in something tangible like extra melee. This might be a bad example (because I think most players would choose the extra puss) but the principle is essentially the same, and that is that some trades that can confer an advantage, though that advantage is subject to chance, might over time outperform trades that are, for lack of a better word, optimized in a reliable way for the game settings.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

Punkuser - great follow-up commentary on counter-trades, you get an A+. Working off of your points, here are all of the key points that deny the theory of counter-trades:

-Fast powerful melee units which allow the faster forces to pick the time and place of fights
-Imbalanced unit trading costs which constrict the variety of trades
-Diminishing returns on force multiplier units such as dwarves which further constrict the optimal range and variety of trades for artillery units
-Having a finite map space which allows you to pin the opponent to imaginary "out of bound" limits
-Having a finite game clock which allows pushier forces to run the timer out and rush at the end

None of these things exist in the context of a real-world military situation. I think that is what makes it to be such a hard concept for people to grasp, because of course counter-strategies exist in the real-world. So there are counter-strategies in the real-world, just not really in myth.

LN - I didn't countradict myself. I never said lump all "good trades" into the same category. I said if you come up with a few subtle variations of the same trade you might as well put them in the same category (instead of considering each as separate and different) since the differences are going to be completely negligible. There could be some very different "good trades", but one will always be better.

Also as punk said, I don't think anyone is suggesting that better team synergy cannot defeat a superior trade / strategy. If that was the case then I would win many more of the rabble games I captain. I am pretty sure we went over this already, obviously there are multiple factors that contribute to victory, but that doesn't mean that that one factor (the unit trade) wasn't better. They are all factors, and maximizing all of the factors is the key to victory. Also, better unit-trades contribute to better distributions, team synergy, strategies, and everything else. Like I said before, everything starts with the unit trade. It is the very first thing the captain does before anything else takes place in the game. How do you think mwc's can be won in such dominant fashion as they have been the last 2 years? It isn't necessarily because of that much better of player skill and team synergy. You have to set your players up for success so they maximize their own potential, and thus the team's potential.

Dantski - I am sure you are right. I never looked at the film and saw what happened really. I thought the trades of both teams was pretty similar, yours certainly seemed fine. What you say with trying to accommodate the newbies is certainly valid. I guess I was only pointing out that my squad wasn't that great but every other one could have been fine and it could have been negligible. (btw plz feel free to grab my dorf, look at the film and watch me desperately trying to task that monstrous squad of mine in like 3v1, 4v1 situations. I wanted to cry for help but too busy to type.)
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by NewMutator »

No you didn't contradict yourself, but I never said you did either. I agree with you except for where you say "subtle" and "negligible" to describe differences in trades. Those terms are relative, and I'm inclined to see them as kind of arbitrary. You can argue that point if you want, it doesn't matter. My feeling is, though, that there is less variety in trades possible than we might think, due to maximum values for unit types--those points have to be used up somehow. As such the "minor" differences between trades are more important than it might appear, and in fact Myth is a game where one fewer warrior can turn the tide of the battle in certain situations.

That said, I certainly appreciate your point of view and find a lot of value in your perspective on the mechanics of Myth. I appreciate your willingness to speak on the subject at length.

Also, the trades on that Barrens map were similar, but also very different in some key ways. For instance, Ratking took only 9 archers, maxed out on ghols, and took 2 journeymen, whlie Dantski took 1, less than half max ghols, and nearly double the archers. In all other respects the trades were nearly identical.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

Well you said that I caved on something I said previously without realizing it, when I didn't. So if you weren't implying me contradicting myself then you were just putting words in my mouth. Whatever.

Well I didn't see those differences in the trades. I would be inclined to say Ratking's was certainly superior then based off of your information. CTF is the rushiest gametype in the game. Trading for too many archers is the #1 reason people handicap the push factor of their forces. Again, I didn't look at the film though.

Umm, I said if the trades are very slight, for example plus or minus a few standard melee or something like that, then yes it is subtle and negligible. I am not sure how you can argue that point. Given the vast variety of other factors that weighs in on which team wins in a particular game, that is going to be very negligible.

This discussion is starting to remind me of the time I tried to convince Sormiron that archers are not good on whatever really pushy map we were shoutcasting at the time. I don't really understand the stubbornness of players, and the general lack of willingness to listen to others who have vastly more tournament experience. I guess that is why they stay at the level of play that they do though.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by NewMutator »

Is there something more to be learned from this discussion?

By saying "caved" I meant that you conceded the point I was trying to make, without acknowledging it. I just assumed you were unaware of doing so, though I guess it's possible you were. Poor choice of words on my part, my apology.

The archer thing is really valid and I remember you did mention this in connection with Sormiron which was a conversation I loved btw. I don't know if I see it the same as you, that's all, and it certainly doesn't seem fair to say people are stubborn for seeing it differently. I'll even go so far as to say that your success in the game indicates that you do have a unique perspective and that if it weren't unique, your skill set wouldn't be either. I don't know if decrying other players for being stubborn suits your reputation but I suppose at your level you can get away with it.

My intent with these posts is to disclose my opinion in the hopes that someone finds it useful in formulating their own. I'm sorry if they're interpreted otherwise.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

Fair enough.

But from my point of view, I didn't concede anything. So not sure if you are still misunderstanding what I said.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by tirri »

grim wrote: There's a few bits and pieces I don't agree with anymore, but the biggest difference in my mind these days is in regards to the fact that one can't get worse at this game. These days I tend to think it is possible to have been better in the past, just not in the 01 era for obvious reasons. Personally I think this is due to mental commitment one has to this game or tournaments he plays in.
so basically what grim is saying here is that i have been right all along, ie i was at my best during 02-04 when i won all my tournaments and really cared. meanwhile stupid people read grim's article back when he wrote it and were like lolz tirri you so stupid, look how badly you played EVEN THOUGH GRIM ANALYZED FILMS BACK FROM WHEN I HAD NOT WON A SINGLE TOURNAMENT. this really grinds my gears grim, its in the top 10 of myth things that have ground my gears
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by c⁄J⁄Iılk c⁄J⁄Iån ◊§t◊ »

tirri wrote:that have ground my gears
Wow this is very advanced grammar for a non-native english speaker.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by grim »

Milk Man wrote:
tirri wrote:that have ground my gears
Wow this is very advanced grammar for a non-native english speaker.
Eh?
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by switch »

I'm typing this as I watch the half-time show. Beyonce is dancing around in high-heels and leather, while fireworks explode in the background. There are two patterns of doctrinal thought in this thread, GKG and his supporters are advocates of super rationality (type one analysis- "strategists"- in the Graham Alison model) and everyone opposing are advocates of meta realism ( "sociologists" - type two or type three advocates- some stress organization others personality).

GKG explains the core of his myth philosophy, supported by the record:
How do you think mwc's can be won in such dominant fashion as they have been the last 2 years? It isn't necessarily because of that much better of player skill and team synergy. You have to set your players up for success so they maximize their own potential, and thus the team's potential.
I'll call these groups school A and school B. School A advocates acknowledge that some degree of information imperfection exists. Both sides will attempt to maximise the precision of their information, so that neither side can be caught acting in an irrational manner. The role of the myth captain is to acquire the information needed to win and process it as it comes in from the nodes in the hierarchy (the players, the units, internal/external communications, map strats...). The myth captain here is constantly running OODA loops and delegating updates to the team which reacts in turn. No plan survives contact, so if the opposing captain is acting in a super rational manner game skill (bricolage) becomes increasingly important. Getting inside or disrupting the enemy's decision loop is a common teaching of this doctrine. School A advocates tend to write articles about how to improve player skill because player awareness is integral to skill and the School A captain cannot captain effectively if game awareness is low.

Dantski explains why super-rationalism is not always viable or desirable:
I'd pretty much give Spartain Ken Thrall for flag defence and a couple of other players 2 pus ghols while 4 of us held like 80% of the units. However this is meant to be fun for everyone so I'm not going to do that.
In school B it is assumed that random elements in the myth game (duds, break out players, lag, morale,"fun", dumb luck, drunk mythers who don't show up, real life commitments, ) mean that school A has over-stated the significance of superrationalism. Different advocates stress the importance of elements which address the random elements: team cohesion, individual skill, dynasties, superior technology, and so on. The myth captain in this school is effectively a team manager: establishing organizational or team norms through trades / distributions / practices. Watching player reactions, focusing on the building of morale, confidence (through strats perhaps). School B advocates tend to write articles about game history and metagame because they assume that skill varies radically year to year, player to player. Metagame is also correlated with carefactor. School B captains cannot captain effectively if their players are not interested in being managed "scientifically". They feel motivating towards myth care is crucial to success.

I really liked Grim's original article which IIRC argued that myth "skill" modernity emerged in 2001 once all the "moves" were known and has improved only in marginal increments since then which is a typical School B position. GKG's response is of course that more skill/awareness is needed because the assumption that skill has "peaked" means intrinsically that his own captaining won't continually improve. Nevertheless, school A clearly holds the high ground in 2013 because, as things stand, the bricolage OODA loopers have won several MWC championships in undeniably decisive fashion.

However, I don't think there is as much difference between school A and B as this debate implies. I think you wankers are creating controversy because you're bored and there are only 50 players left, etc.

Football again. Jones ran 108 yards or something. The Ravens are crushing San Francisco and now the power is out.
The system, is down.
The system is now up. San Francisco is back in the game!
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Myrk »

You guys really love overanalyzing Myth
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

well Sam an archless trade is going to be best for gimble ctf. However for an ffa, you might want archers because as soon as you expend your pus you have no other good way to kill an enemy dorf when you go to fight the next team. So that is a gamble, more archers increases your chances of losing the first fight, but also increases your chances of winning the rest. Vice versa for the archless trade. Also you can usually have a better shot at more dominating wins conserving more of your % from winning artillery based fights as opposed to melee ones.

I don't really like thinking in terms of FFA though, it is a crapshoot and full of politics that dilutes the emphasis on actual skilled fighting.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Flatline »

Oh jesus

err uhhhhhhhh

In this uhh hatchet job or such from a few years back now.

Firstly - Grim of course only picked out games people did horrible , stupid stuff etc etc in. But that's the point of the article. Pretty sure theres films from same era , say 2001 which dont look much different from films from today. ie. Decent strats, Unit distribution, Clicking, Teamwork and also horrible mistakes by players (people make horrible shit mistakes every game i think i've ever been in).

Secondly - It's indeed possible to be terribly worse at this game than you used to be......Even in a tournament setting.
Best example is I don't remember which exact mwc....Umm maybe mwc11? Yeah ok whichever mwc i was on tcox team or something that GOD COPS captained all of our games and we ended up eliminating grim'/ducky/karma/enc team in the de.
Holy fucking lol jesus shit did anybody see my play that particular year? Maybe 2 years ago?

I was absolutely playing worse than in 2001 or maybe even 2000!. My play was uhh ,,,,,,, it makes me laugh to think about it. I remember getting locked by NC or something 2 minutes into dun caric fr or somethign really bad. Like losing 18% units 2 minutes in to a single lock shot and all sorts of shit. Pretty sure i played completely terrible every game that year. Like more terrible than 99 and stuff even.

Few excuses for this.
(a) Pretty sure every match was like 3 or 4 am my time that year. Thanks to fallbacks.
(b) Complete lack of care. Think i played mazz demise only besides showing up for mwc games.
(c) Rust. Dint play enough normal myth to make it go away
(d) I think i was probably doing some cool drugs and stuff too.

But yes you can definitely be much worse now than you were back then. Pretty sure i proved that in mwc11 and it wasn't that everybody in mwc11 was so much better, but that i was so much worse.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

well flat, it still doesn't explain those terrible distributions. Nothing can explain those horrendous distributions except a lack of knowledge of the game. The archering in clumped line formations back and forth is also amusing. If there are some good films though then let's see them.

As you just pointed out, you can be worse at the game from lack of care, lack of sleep, drugs, alcohol, rust, etc. That hasn't changed since the dawn of time with regard to any kind of game, and really any kind of mental task. It is a very mental game, so obviously if you compromise your mental capacity then you will play much much worse. However the point is that something had to have caused you to be playing worse because you don't just unlearn things in this game. It doesn't say anything about player skill or player knowledge of the game.

Had you done drugs, had lack of sleep, etc. in 2001 which made you play worse would you then start arguing that 2001 was the worst year for myth? If I pull an all nighter partying before a final exam the next morning for a math class, and then do poorly, does that mean everyone in the class must have gotten worse at math? Does it even necessarily mean that I forgot how to do math? Your individual life situation at some specific point in time has 0 relevance to this discussion regarding the community's progress in skill at large.

Since you seem to discuss them both as they are same thing, I think that explains why you have always had some kind of difficulty in separating the two and why you cling to this perspective. Keep in mind also that you are older and that back then you would be younger and quicker which would further contribute to this illusion. It is entirely possible that 2001 was the year of your personal best myth skill, that doesn't mean it was also for the entire community at large. This would only make sense as you were certainly closer to the top of players back then, than you have been at any point since then.

Also as grim mentioned, lack of care (while prevalent) is the least relevant excuse because it is a competitive tournament that requires you to sign up and show up for. Lack of care in random rabble games just bullshitting around? Sure, that happens much more often. However if one didn't care to compete then one wouldn't bother signing up and showing up, especially at some ridiculous hours that you had to wake up for. It is possible to care less, but to claim to not care at all is a complete exaggeration and clear defense mechanism that lives in denial to justify a poor performance or loss. The other excuses of lack of sleep, not being sober, etc. are certainly way more valid when they are actually true. But who's fault is that then? You certainly can't take anything away from those that beat you because of your own lack of readiness for a pre-scheduled match.

Also just looking at you talk about your performance in mwc11 which you have brought up multiple times within the last year, seems to demonstrate some level of embarrassment over it. I am pretty sure no one even remembers or knows what the heck you are talking about as those were mostly irrelevant matches over a year ago. That is showing some level of care, while you are simultaneously claiming you don't or didn't care.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Flatline »

Don't really understand the difficulty of grasping the care thing.

So anyways.

Last few or more mwcs (before mwc 12) = Didn't really give a fuck (care level low) = Hardly played any myth = Generally played terrible if i showed up.

MWC12 (at the start of it) = Didn't really give a fuck (care level low) = Hardly played any myth = Generally probably played terrible.

MWC12 (Mid to end of it) = Cared more (care level medium) = Played quite a bit more myth = Generally played quite a bit better.

Draft Tourney = Cared (care level mid-high) = Played quite a lot of myth = Played fairly well

Not sure what is difficult to understand about this really?
Not saying every game i played towards the end of mwc or draft tourney i played brilliantly, but yep i definitely played a whole lot better when my care factor was higher.
Sure I signed up for mwc's in last few years, and often showed up for matches. That in itself really doesn't mean you care all that much besides maybe you want to have some fun on an old game that you like, a game you really don't play anymore besides the annual mwc or whatever.
If I had real care to play excellently or do really well in past tourneys I would probably log on a month or something before mwc started and actually play some myth so that I'm not jumping on in QR1 and realizing i've forgotten half the key commands and shit again.

Not that interested in debating it but I dont find the care concept difficult.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

well it is always convenient to say whenever one plays bad it is because one didn't care. and when one happens to play well you can point at it and say, "look! that was because I cared" in an attempt to further prove your previous excuse of not caring. it is further amusing when these same individuals are the first ones to bring it up. sound much like an excuse? you don't think people use care as an excuse sometimes or as a defense mechanism in their own mind? I guess it is impossible for anyone in the myth community to happen to have a bad game or play poorly on their own without a lack of care.

Also why do you keep bringing up your performances? probably no one remembers them.

You chose to only respond to the care thing, the least interesting part. so I presume you do not have a response to anything else I wrote?
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Flatline »

GiantKillerGen wrote:well it is always convenient to say whenever one plays bad it is because one didn't care. and when one happens to play well you can point at it and say, "look! that was because I cared" in an attempt to further prove your previous excuse of not caring. it is further amusing when these same individuals are the first ones to bring it up. sound much like an excuse? you don't think people use care as an excuse sometimes or as a defense mechanism in their own mind? I guess it is impossible for anyone in the myth community to happen to have a bad game or play poorly on their own without a lack of care.

Also why do you keep bringing up your performances? probably no one remembers them.

You chose to only respond to the care thing, the least interesting part. so I presume you do not have a response to anything else I wrote?
Only brought up my own performances because that's the easiest one i can think of on the spot. Well it's probably the only one that makes sense since I have a pretty good idea of how much i cared at the times I mentioned and how i rate my play at the times. Seemed fairly logical. Pretty hard to gauge someone's real care level unless you are gauging your own.
Basically was just an honest appraisal of my care level / play level at the times I mentioned and I think it's pretty much accurate.
Pretty much ... the more i cared = generally the better I played.

Yeah sure care is used an excuse sometimes when people have a bad game. No need for me to be doing that. If i had a bad game or did terribly in say "the draft tourney" then it was because i fucked up or made mistakes or got outplayed, not because I didn't care. Yet again, generally i played fairly well there and I myself attribute it to actually caring about playing well and making a lot more of an effort to play this game again well. Hasn't been the case for a while.

Other points I'd have to reread your post closer. Although if I was to debate i'd sooner debate this stuff that comes up every year (LOL) during the mwc season when more people could get a laugh about it or something.

Is there going to be another mwc?
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Giant Killer General »

Well to me at least the most interesting part of this discussion touched on the fact that Myth requires a lot of mental focus. In all of the excuses of lack of care, sleep, sobriety, or whatever else, what justifies them all is their hindrance to mental focus. Even with "care", that really is just the additional effort it takes to really focus mentally. The same as you would need to while taking a test or something.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Flatline »

GiantKillerGen wrote:Well to me at least the most interesting part of this discussion touched on the fact that Myth requires a lot of mental focus. In all of the excuses of lack of care, sleep, sobriety, or whatever else, what justifies them all is their hindrance to mental focus. Even with "care", that really is just the additional effort it takes to really focus mentally. The same as you would need to while taking a test or something.

Well yes focusing well certainly improves your play (unless you actually just suck real bad at the game).
If i care more i certainly seem to focus better with better results.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by Renwood »

That is why I no longer Drink And Myth.

Its fun, but a horrible idea.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by tirri »

it's a shame myth is dead because playing myth drunk or just tired and dying badly was usually pretty fun. now the only game i play is sc2 and playing it tired is just highly annoying
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by grim »

I've played myth sober like twice in the past 3 years.
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Re: You were not better 10 years ago

Post by punkUser »

tirri wrote:it's a shame myth is dead because playing myth drunk or just tired and dying badly was usually pretty fun
Gore physics always make dying more fun :)
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