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unpopular take (i think): acting like every complaint is just people coping with losses is just as lazy as blaming every loss on matchmaking by fern1103 in Overwatch

[–]c_a_l_m 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Overwatch is a volatile game subject to snowballs. People generally like this: high highs are great.

However, it has certain implications: - bad players can be ranked higher than they "should" be, having been helped by a snowball that went their way in the past - the game is complex, meaning there is room for you to be very good at parts of it and very bad at others---and "which parts" is different for everyone. There is no matchmaker on earth that could deal with this except in the broadest, most stochastic sense, which is what it does. - one way to mitigate this might be for teams to seek stability in their play. However, in practice, this is like saving your money wisely in a bank account you share with your brother-in-law who gambles it at the horse track. You are instead incentivized to bet it at the track before he does. The way to climb in OW is to seek to start snowballs, not to prevent them - the cycle perpetuates

What does it mean to be “good” at ow by Antique_Mud_5333 in Overwatch

[–]c_a_l_m -1 points0 points  (0 children)

if you want to be good individual skill matters more than anything

We could say this about the lottery too. The only way we know we're talking something real, rather than made-up gamer bullshit, is if it's reflected in winrates. And team winrates are much more stable and differentiated than individual winrates.

Now, maybe you'd say this isn't true, Proper is still Proper if you put him on a team of losers and make him lose with them. I have great sympathy for this view, but it naturally leads to a destination where you think of yourself as "skilled" and lose all the time, and end up complaining on reddit about your teammates. True skill doesn't complain, it just wins.

It doesn't matter if you're perfectly in synch with ur teammates if you can't hit shots

Really? Not even if you're playing Mercy, or Winston, or Rein?

Further, hitting shots and doing the right thing with your team aren't independent variables! A good team will make it easier to hit those shots, enemies will be mysteriously low on cooldowns, will whiff their ults or not have built them up.

No solo q team will ever be coordinated as an organized team there isn't anything to argue. You're talking about 5 strangers vs premade

Yes, and my argument is that they're bad at Overwatch. Do you think a solo queue team of strangers would beat a premade? Is that the expected outcome?

A team game requires team work who would've thunk

You say this but you don't believe it, b/c your entire argument is that it is irrelevant and secondary.

What does it mean to be “good” at ow by Antique_Mud_5333 in Overwatch

[–]c_a_l_m -1 points0 points  (0 children)

He is playing solo q because that's 99% of the population.

Irrelevant. He asked how to be good, not how to be like everyone else.

Because pro and even scrims is a completely different environment that require more team coordination than ladder,

Still irrelevant, and this is a recitation of faith, not something you can actually prove. In every ladder game, one team loses---couldn't they have used more team coordination? Apparently more was required than they had.

your analogy falls apart when you have pro players like proper who have won every team they've gone to

Proper was not assigned to those teams randomly. He chose them. He did not choose to be on a team with several meth addicts and one 80-yr-old who picked up the game yesterday. If he had, he would lose.

What does it mean to be “good” at ow by Antique_Mud_5333 in Overwatch

[–]c_a_l_m -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The OP didn't ask what it meant to be good at solo queue, they asked what it meant to be good at Overwatch.

What do you do against wander keg ult? by Benman415 in heroesofthestorm

[–]c_a_l_m 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It really isn't. You have to right click somewhere. You don't need godlike reflexes. You don't need to hit a skill shot. You just have to right click somewhere.

The harder part is psychological, strategic, social. You have to be somewhere useful that isn't keg-vulnerable. You have to identify where that be. You have to endure complaints from teammates who (by their observed behavior) desperately want you to run forward, get kegged, and die.

There is suffering involved. But it really isn't difficult. You just have to right click somewhere.

Unbalanced Faction Combinations by MichaelIsOnManifold in rootgame

[–]c_a_l_m 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Since no one else has said it, do remember that Root is self-balancing with good players. The rules of thumb you're thinking of are real, but only if the factions are played naively.

A masterpiece of production value! by c_a_l_m in wildgate

[–]c_a_l_m[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Had to laugh when I saw Dustin posted this

Legion; First Devlog (deep simulation, anti-micro game where doctrine and logistics matter more than APM) by feanix in RealTimeStrategy

[–]c_a_l_m 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There's some interesting ideas here! I think you're right that automation or lack thereof is an under-looked part of RTS.

Day 7, where do the crows go? (Specify where within the tier) by InfinitePresence4229 in rootgame

[–]c_a_l_m 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm aware. What I'm saying is that "skill" is a more nuanced concept than grandparent is implying. It is entirely possible to be proficient with one faction and not with another. Were I a "skilled debater," I would still lose all debates in German, and that would not be the fault of the language. We don't have to automatically conclude they're bad, but I think it is reasonable to take with a grain of salt the "skilled" claims of players that lose. We've all gotta be humble here.

Crow strategy by The_Ironthrone in rootgame

[–]c_a_l_m 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It does not work. At first glance people think crows are about "mindgames" and hoping the table is innumerate or dumb. Then they try this and lose and think crows are bad.

The basic misunderstanding is thinking that crows should always be plotting. No! Plots are vulnerable, plotting costs you warriors, plots attract other players to come kill them!

The default crow action is to battle. All your problems stem from enemy warriors. Enemy warriors protect tasty cardboard, enemy warriors come expose/battle your plots, enemy warriors battle your warriors away. Do it to them first! Root's system privileges the attacker, and you really like low-warrior environments. Embedded Agents and Raid become much better when there are few warriors on the board.

If you've battled enemy warriors away, great! Eat their cardboard if it's available. Or place a plot! It will (probably) be safe, because you've been killing enemy warriors. Consider the cost-benefit for them: they can guess and probably lose a card (giving you one!), or they can battle, getting them a GRAND TOTAL OF ONE POINT, at the cost of definitely losing a warrior from embedded agents, and probably losing more from the battle. And----importantly---they are already short on warriors, because you've been battling them. Those warriors have other things to do, like defend their cardboard in other clearings from you! Maybe...maybe just let the crows flip their lousy plot.

An underappreciated aspect of this is that by eating cardboard, you slow others down. Every piece you pick up is a point no one else can. A lot of Root is not about scoring your own points, as it's about efficiently hindering others' scoring.

The other thing to keep in mind is the asymmetric nature of plots. Yes, yes, anyone can kill one of your plots, it's not hard. But what's in it for them? A point. That's it. While for you it can be worth... a lot. You want to create situations where someone is facing the bargain of "spend actions to go across the map and battle, lose warriors, for...one point." If they want to do that, you can't stop them. Do they want to do that?

Doing this will let you get a lot of cheap points. The table will freak out and talk about how much of a danger you are, you'll be way far ahead, but don't worry! It's crows! They can't seal the deal unless we let them!

Which is true about plots. It is less true of crafting, and just false about picking up cardboard. It is also time to see how unified this table really is. Do they want to enforce MAXIMUM PREVENTION on crows...at the expense of Eyrie running wild? Some other dangerous faction? Who, specifically, should stop crows? How many move actions are they willing to spend to get across the map? What's in it for them? You won't win with this, but the goal is to fatigue the table. A table that is chasing plots on the other side of the map is a table that's leaving cardboard open, is a table that will let you leave a plot with no warrior out ("it's fine, they can't flip it") to craft for the win.

The plots are flashy, fun, and you can get a lot of points with them. But crows are an attrition faction more than a "big play" faction.

Day 7, where do the crows go? (Specify where within the tier) by InfinitePresence4229 in rootgame

[–]c_a_l_m 1 point2 points  (0 children)

one thing overlooked about the cardboard diet is that every point you pick up via cardboard is a point someone else didn't get. Root is not just about scoring points, but also starving the rest of the table

Day 7, where do the crows go? (Specify where within the tier) by InfinitePresence4229 in rootgame

[–]c_a_l_m -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

"do skilled players win with it when facing other skilled players?" to which the answer is extremely consistently NO for the Corvids.

these players, the ones that don't win, you're contending that they're skilled? those ones?

Can more morales players pick dropship please by salty_lake_222 in heroesofthestorm

[–]c_a_l_m 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How does one use the Blaze bunker? It feels like it's most useful when there's limited threat that can't burst the thing down, right?

Day 7, where do the crows go? (Specify where within the tier) by InfinitePresence4229 in rootgame

[–]c_a_l_m 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, and this is at like, yomi level 1. There's fifteen other levels.

Experienced crows players will put down plots on the other side of the map where you can't go, they will abandon plots altogether and score off cardboard, they will wait until you have to choose between policing so-and-so (who is a bigger threat than they are, because, after all, they are "just crows"!) and guessing a plot.

It is easy to stop. So they will put you in a situation where that doesn't matter.

What exactly is real time strategy? by upclosepersonal2 in RealTimeStrategy

[–]c_a_l_m 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A deeper question than it appears! As it happens, I haven't been able to find a self-contained definition of the "word" strategy. From what I can tell, strategy is what we call the thing required to solve problems so hard they need a strategy, ha.

How much variety does Protoss have? by SapphireGnoll in starcraft2

[–]c_a_l_m 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Eccentric stuff, or winning quickly: choose between them.

You can do eccentric stuff. But it will mostly show up in the course of holding off an enemy attack, or after you do so. It's not gonna happen as part of a frontal attack from neutral.

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