'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study • Hacker News Board

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#51

Post by karl_gluck » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:24 PM UTC

EthanHeilman wrote: post #38

dmead wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you say that, until you get proxy everything'd

I haven't been successfully proxied in a very long time and I'm an awful sc2 player (you see many more proxies in bronze than silver). A standard build order will crush a proxy 99/100 assuming the players are vaguely close in skill.

If you really believe that, I'd suggest you check out the WCS Season 2 Grand Finals from last night. Really, all of the WCS event. Proxies do quite well against standard build orders--that's one of the things that makes pro play so much fun to watch.

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#52

Post by durin42 » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:24 PM UTC

niuzeta wrote: post #47

rfnslyr wrote: post #39

Top 100 world ranked grand master here. The amount of time I have poured into this game is absolutely unreal, I could have probably raised a family of 5 in the time I spent playing StarCraft. I found myself better at a lot of games after being so intense in SCII. Co-ordination, decision making, a better understanding of strategy, all improved. I got better at Chess, was able to pick things up quicker. Great experienc…

> What other games REQUIRE you to have 300APM sort of tangential point here, but this usage of 'require' is exactly why I dropped starcraft 2 and possibly will never come back. When a game stops being a game and starts being a... work, it loses all the fun. Back in the days of WoL I toyed with the idea of playing with less APM and winning with more strategy, like pincer-attacks or enclosure; it worked up till Diamond…

I play probably 4 or 5 ladder games a week - I slowly have improved (although moving last month made my ability drop noticeably), and I'm investing about as much time per week as watching a movie each week.

Then again, I'm in Gold and happy to stay there. The ladder system seems to do a good job of putting me up against reasonable opponents.

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#53

Post by rubiquity » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:30 PM UTC

rfnslyr wrote: post #39

Top 100 world ranked grand master here. The amount of time I have poured into this game is absolutely unreal, I could have probably raised a family of 5 in the time I spent playing StarCraft. I found myself better at a lot of games after being so intense in SCII. Co-ordination, decision making, a better understanding of strategy, all improved. I got better at Chess, was able to pick things up quicker. Great experienc…

SC2 does not require you to have 300 APM. Maximizing APM is to SC2/BW as pre-optimizations are to programming in my opinion.

I do agree with the rest of your points though. I never got much into SC2 (became #1 in my Diamond league within the first month of the game being out) as it lacks several playability characteristics that the first SC had. I played BW for about 8 years and went to several tournaments and was B or better in a few early WGTour seasons.

I have kept in touch with some of the other top players from my time and it is interesting to see a lot of us have moved onto things where skills we gained from playing BW definitely translate. Finance, poker and programming seem to be a common theme among most of us.

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#54

Post by rubiquity » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:33 PM UTC

Finster wrote: post #46

hueyp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing those analogies miss is that starcraft is an imperfect knowledge game. You don't know everything about your opponent as you would in chess and fencing. It is similar to poker in that regard. This is probably my favorite part of the game -- watching pro level players react perfectly to even the slightest tell.

That's not true. Starcraft is a game of perfect knowledge. For instance, good scouting and/or good observer placement can reveal what units are built, what is being produced, and what technology has been researched. There is nothing that a player can hide from well-executed scouting. Unlike poker, where you can never see the opponents hand, in Starcraft you can see everything your opponent is doing if you scout well.

This is 100% incorrect, sorry.

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#55

Post by baddox » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:34 PM UTC

rfnslyr wrote: post #39

Top 100 world ranked grand master here. The amount of time I have poured into this game is absolutely unreal, I could have probably raised a family of 5 in the time I spent playing StarCraft. I found myself better at a lot of games after being so intense in SCII. Co-ordination, decision making, a better understanding of strategy, all improved. I got better at Chess, was able to pick things up quicker. Great experienc…

What do you mean by "world ranked grand master"? What region do you play on?

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#56

Post by baddox » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:38 PM UTC

niuzeta wrote: post #47

rfnslyr wrote: post #39

Top 100 world ranked grand master here. The amount of time I have poured into this game is absolutely unreal, I could have probably raised a family of 5 in the time I spent playing StarCraft. I found myself better at a lot of games after being so intense in SCII. Co-ordination, decision making, a better understanding of strategy, all improved. I got better at Chess, was able to pick things up quicker. Great experienc…

> What other games REQUIRE you to have 300APM sort of tangential point here, but this usage of 'require' is exactly why I dropped starcraft 2 and possibly will never come back. When a game stops being a game and starts being a... work, it loses all the fun. Back in the days of WoL I toyed with the idea of playing with less APM and winning with more strategy, like pincer-attacks or enclosure; it worked up till Diamond…

> When a game stops being a game and starts being a... work, it loses all the fun.

Unless your only aspiration was to play professionally, this isn't a reason to stop you, and even the professionals don't need 300 apm (and many don't have it). I was pretty comfortable playing Terran in Diamond league in North America (I stopped playing about 6 months ago) with 90-100 apm, and I never specifically worked on increasing my apm.

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#57

Post by rfnslyr » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:40 PM UTC

rubiquity wrote: post #53

rfnslyr wrote: post #39

Top 100 world ranked grand master here. The amount of time I have poured into this game is absolutely unreal, I could have probably raised a family of 5 in the time I spent playing StarCraft. I found myself better at a lot of games after being so intense in SCII. Co-ordination, decision making, a better understanding of strategy, all improved. I got better at Chess, was able to pick things up quicker. Great experienc…

SC2 does not require you to have 300 APM. Maximizing APM is to SC2/BW as pre-optimizations are to programming in my opinion. I do agree with the rest of your points though. I never got much into SC2 (became #1 in my Diamond league within the first month of the game being out) as it lacks several playability characteristics that the first SC had. I played BW for about 8 years and went to several tournaments and was B…

I have to respectfully disagree. When you get into the upper top X of world player, you won't find many without a high APM.

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#58

Post by cloverich » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:40 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #55

rfnslyr wrote: post #39

Top 100 world ranked grand master here. The amount of time I have poured into this game is absolutely unreal, I could have probably raised a family of 5 in the time I spent playing StarCraft. I found myself better at a lot of games after being so intense in SCII. Co-ordination, decision making, a better understanding of strategy, all improved. I got better at Chess, was able to pick things up quicker. Great experienc…

What do you mean by "world ranked grand master"? What region do you play on?

Maybe something like: http://www.sc2ranks.com/

They attempt to rank across regions - not familiar enough with their ( / SC2's) ranking system to know how reasonable it is.

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#59

Post by rfnslyr » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #55

rfnslyr wrote: post #39

Top 100 world ranked grand master here. The amount of time I have poured into this game is absolutely unreal, I could have probably raised a family of 5 in the time I spent playing StarCraft. I found myself better at a lot of games after being so intense in SCII. Co-ordination, decision making, a better understanding of strategy, all improved. I got better at Chess, was able to pick things up quicker. Great experienc…

What do you mean by "world ranked grand master"? What region do you play on?

Top 100 global highest ranked players on sc2ranks.com. I'm top 15 in NA.

Re: 'StarCraft' Gameplay Boosts Mental Flexibility, Says Study

#60

Post by bitwize » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

rubiquity wrote: post #53

rfnslyr wrote: post #39

Top 100 world ranked grand master here. The amount of time I have poured into this game is absolutely unreal, I could have probably raised a family of 5 in the time I spent playing StarCraft. I found myself better at a lot of games after being so intense in SCII. Co-ordination, decision making, a better understanding of strategy, all improved. I got better at Chess, was able to pick things up quicker. Great experienc…

SC2 does not require you to have 300 APM. Maximizing APM is to SC2/BW as pre-optimizations are to programming in my opinion. I do agree with the rest of your points though. I never got much into SC2 (became #1 in my Diamond league within the first month of the game being out) as it lacks several playability characteristics that the first SC had. I played BW for about 8 years and went to several tournaments and was B…

All the top guys in SC I'd heard of had APM in the high 200s at least.

Maximizing APM is more like agility drills in football: a basic foundational skill whose lack will prevent you from executing even if you have a great meta game.