4663,"cbadb930bf","","1100 is way too much man. 950 is good. this is the new ratpads gs surface isnt it? because the old ratpadz damaged mouse feet very badly i think"
4664,"8b5a098878","","haha i too accept this
but it would be proved sooooon by gladiator"
4672,"e06091705a","Reflection vs. Reflexes","this post was actually copy pasted frm esreality.com,the article was good all about Reflection vs. Reflexes ...(plz read it )
***********************************************************
The recent column by Lotus is a very interesting read, because it discusses a question that I think is quite interesting: How much do you consciously think about what you do while playing? I myself play rather intuitive (even though not half as good as Lotus), and everything gets messed up, the more I try to think and control. However; whenever I watch demos of the top players, I get the impression that some of them are approaching the game quite differently: They control consciously what they are doing. Just to get rid of the cheesy stuff in the beginning, what I want to compare is the wild, barbarian hordes to the civilized roman legions, the thought-through schematic to the unpredictable frenzy. Ready to go?
For the time being, simply assume that intuition is a feeling of what to do, which is based on experiential knowledge and unconscious information processing. You cannot verbalize what is going on in your mind, i.e. you're not aware of why you are doing a certain thing. Controlled, or civilized play is the opposite in some respects, as it is based on conscious decisions and analyses: remain calm in the face of danger, stick to a tactic. Simply assume that a controlled player controls his actions by explicitly thinking about the available options (either before a match or while playing it; the decisive factor is: explicitly).
Just for the record, I don't claim that this as a strict dichotomy. Roman calmness and barbarian frenzy are two poles of a continuum. Most players will be somewhere in between. On one day, you calculate that \""amp respawns in 7 seconds\"" (examining the clock), while on the other day you just feel: \""jump there\"", and - ooops - got it. Same holds for aiming. On the one day, you just click when it feels right (and the force is always with you), while on another you extract movement vectors and calculate where your mouse has to be for a hit. You can, of course, neither win a match without thinking, nor make hitscan shots without intuition and reflexes ... but there seems to be a strong predominance of one type of approach, for most players. Before discussing in more detail what drawbacks, strengths and tactical implications these two approaches have, let me name some players I consider to be typical examples.
Intuitive Players
First of all, and this might be the motivation to writing this column, I was very impressed by Lotus incredible style of play. To me, it was clear in almost every match I watched that what he did emerged from some kind intuition, rather than a predefined plan (which is confirmed by Lotus' column). The way he aims, the way he moves, and the way he controlled the maps all showed a high level of intuition and internalisation of a certain style. Because of this, he dominated most matches quite clearly. There are other players that I consider to play highly intuitive (correctly?). Among them are Lauke, Stevo, and Mr. Frost, to name just a few, who own a match with incredible reflexes and intuition. They own due to a love for confrontation, and a their ability to do the right things automatically. Unsurprisingly, all these players tend to play very aggressive.
Controlled Players
The second type of players is playing more consciously controlled. The roman style. Stay calm in the face of danger. These controlled players tend to play a much more defensive style. The most obvious example for this approach is GitzZz. He always plays it safe, and is rarely seen to make a dumb move (more on that later). While his aim is amazing, he is not winning matches because of superior aim, but because of other things to be examined below. A few other, highly controlled players are: Fatal1ty, Zulg, and Virus. All of these players perform consistently at a high level, keep it safe. You see them making tactical mistakes, as rarely, as you see \""incredible hits\"". But are there more differences between controlled and intuitive playing? Read on.
Aim
The aspect of gameplay, where intuition is most important is obviously good ol' aim. All of the intuitive players can make incredible hitscan shots, if they are on top of their game. Controlled players make much less \""incredible\"" hits (ones where you don’t even get what happened when the opponent got fragged). With controlled players you can see a clear cut strategy in aiming that is used for almost every shot. There is a nice old demo from ut99 where virus makes headshot after headshot with a very structured technique. He moves his crosshairs approximately to where his opponent is moving, uses the strafe keys to fine adjust ... click, headshot. All done very calmly. All done the same way, very consistent. Another example is GitzZz aim in some older WCG demos. His crosshairs always point at where the opponent is, before he is even there. There is one occasion in a Deck match where you can almost see him calculating the line his opponent is going to fall, move his crosshairs to an arbitrary intersection of this line, and hit at the appropriate millisecond. Seeing this, I was sure he knew what he was going for in this specific moment. An amazing shot - incredible, but no black magic involved.
The \""incredible hits\"" tactic of an intuitive player works differently: Jump around madly. Let the force be with you. Click. Headshot. Pure frenzy. Watch demos from Stevo, Frost, or Lotus and you see what I'm talking about. There is no single aiming technique, but a bunch of raw intuition. The downside of this approach is, that intuitive players seem have much more variance in their aiming. On day X all the impossible shots hit (black magic you can almost hear the opponents think), on day Y even quite simple shots miss. The really good intuitive players - e.g. the ones mentioned above - have very very few bad days; the normal intuitionist sucks every second day (I know what I'm talking about). Nevertheless, the residual inconsistency makes winning a long tournament less likely even for the top players, because even less skilled opponents can kick an intuitive players ass on a bad day. Thus, intuitive Players are more likely to win short tournaments, because bad days are less likely.
Priorities in playing a match
Another important difference is that most intuitive players play quite aggressive, while the controlled players rely a more defensive style. I already said this. More interstingly, the reason for this might be a different set of priorities set in advance of a match. Most intuitive Players have the highest priority on fragging the opponent (priorities are: 1) frag opponent, 2) frag opponent, 3) get powerups). This becomes obvious, when a powerup respawns while in a significant infight. Intuitive players go for the enemy, even if low on health, controlled players go for the powerup (watch the GitzZz versus Lotus demos to get the point). Thus, the highest priority for controlled players seems not to be fragging the opponent, but controlling the powerups (priorities are: 1) get powerups 2) stay safe 3) frag opponent). In some older WCG demos you can see GitzZz making his enemies priorities into a tactic, when he starts an attack before a powerup respawns, just to distract his opponent. This has the side effect that the damage received in the attack can be directly compensated for by taking shield or armor. GitzZz also attacked opponents just to keep them away from a powerup. I might be wrong with this, but it seems that intuitive players always chose the type of attack that does most damage to the opponent, rather than one that more effectively forces the opponent away from a certain key location. You can, for example, either use rockets/shock combos to damage your opponent, or to force a certain move. Which is something completely different. Controlled players prefer the latter, losing some easy frags, but keeping the risk low.
Strategy of movement
Besides the superordinate goals of getting frags versus controlling the map, there seem to be other differences between intuitive and controlled players that concern the subordinate moves a player makes to achieve these goals. When not on their way to a powerup, the controlled players prefer to stay in certain key-areas of the maps. These locations have certain preferable properties (for example, that all possible entrances to the area can be in the FOV of the player constantly, or the presence of a lift that allows escaping when low on health). I imagine that controlled players like GitzZz, Zulg, and Fatal1ty explicitly examine which areas of a map are suitable. This might also be the reason, why none of these players ever seems to be surprised by their opponents: They completely evade locations where a bad surprise is possible.
While controlled players keep a list of safe places, and exclusively move between these locations, intuitive players seem to keep a list of no go areas, but move freely in the rest of the map. This increases the probability of surprising your opponent - and is maybe a consequence of how you learn to play intuitively - but also leads to an occasional dumb move. Also, Intuition leads to taking unreasonably high risk from time to time, just to get that one frag (LOL! I know this quite well). It may turn out (and does quite frequently) that making the 8:1 was not worth losing map control.
How to improve
Cognitive psychology has shown, that intuition is based on implicit learning processes (Implicit learning is a process that leads to unconscious knowledge, which can guide behaviour and decisions, but cannot be verbalized). Experience is the prominent basis for improving your intuition. You cannot control what you learn, and you cannot easily change what you have learned, as a downside. The most important way to improve is playing the game, for an intuitive player (Just for the record: Who hasn't seen Lauke on a FFA Server, please show up? Who has seen GitzZz on an FFA Server, please show up? The correct answers are: \""I have\"", and \""I have never\"" in the given order).
For controlled players, experience is not the only basis of gaining skills. I would imagine controlled players to study maps and damage charts of the various weapons, and explicitly think about what to make with it. While such knowledge will become common sense sooner or later, I expect controlled players to start the study, even before they play their first match. This studying for possible exploits can lead to an innovative style that heavily relies on some specifically strong weapon. Fatal1ty, for example, has surely tested the effect of the shieldgun before using it excessively in the last WCG. Likewise, GitzZz was surely aware of the fact that pulse damage in UT99 depends on the tickrate before most other people knew it. Word has it that the russian Quake3 style is very controlled in this respect, as well, but I'm not a quaker. However, once you know what style you're playing (or would like to play), chose the way you're learning appropriately.
Conclusions
Both types of play have their strengths and limitations (LOL: who would have guessed it in the beginning?). Intuitive players are unbeatable on a good day, because they can do \""incredible\"" shots in row, make their decisions faster than anyone trying to actively think about what to do next. On the downside, the occasional dumb move, or a bad day can make them lose an otherwise easy match. Controlled players in contrast have a constant - though less amazing - aim, are hard to surprise and can make up something, if their intuition is failing. The downside is, that a controlled player can be overrun by very aggressive play (watch the Lotus comeback versus GitzZz on Antalus), or play too safely to get frags from a good position. An optimal balance between the two will make a player unbeatable, but I think this will be hard to achieve. Again: don't get me wrong, I have seen quite barbaric Flak-ownage by GitzZz, and very civilized and thought-through play by Lauke, but usually they prefer a specific, yet very different style.
To conclude these lengthy considerations: I'm quite curious which type of gameplay will dominate future events and games. One thing is sure though: From a spectator’s POV, aggressive and intuitive play is much more fun to watch, but the controlled players FPS-catenaccio wins them more tournaments...
Erm, we'll see, muppets...
Btw.: I would be highly interested in what the Top players - the ones I mentioned as well as the others - think about themselves. Are you more intuitive or more controlled?"
4673,"cf2541a4d1","","wtf? ut2k3? sux"
4674,"37f93efba9","","who you dude?"
4675,"a5349b32bd","","jus another guy who plays a lotta games and
likes to bullshit about stuff in this site...
:lol
................"
4676,"fd3d67d78c","","Q3 sux"
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