I see a number of posts reducing arc's level to just aim... This game is about much more than just being a good aimer. Commanders and, very importantly, players with good game awareness do so so much to win games than just pure aim (which also helps, of course, you still need to win the engagements). Just swapping commanders can make you win games with the same field players, for example.
Exertus was the only team that has ever given good competition to arc (in my opinion). It's not like there's no players that could give Arc a good run for their money out there, but I think they're scattered in different teams right now, making lots of good, div1 teams, but not arc-level-good teams. Makes the competition a little boring... the situation right now is, with HG picking up momentum, they will be in a position to pick up more good players to be in a better spot to beat Archaea -- the only problem is this could reduce real competition by a lot, but this is just wild speculation.
So we'll see where we stand in a few months with Season 2 and all the clan movement that is happening lately.
To maybe steer this thread more in the direction I intended for it to go, a clarification may be required.
Instead of asking "why are Archaea so good", what I should have asked was, why are Archaea so good when compared to their competitive counterparts.
Yes, Archaea players have very good aim, fair point, and this factor makes them very good. But why is their aim better than the other competitive players? Natural-Selection certainly has a fairly distinct aiming style to it, but it definitely can't be considered the single most demanding game in existence, aim wise. So why aren't other players, possibly with experience in other demanding games, as good?
The NS1/NS2 crossover point is a good example of what I'm looking for. It clearly highlights concrete differences that are based on a sequence of events that lead up to this point.
To maybe steer this thread more in the direction I intended for it to go, a clarification may be required.
Instead of asking "why are Archaea so good", what I should have asked was, why are Archaea so good when compared to their competitive counterparts.
Yes, Archaea players have very good aim, fair point, and this factor makes them very good. But why is their aim better than the other competitive players? Natural-Selection certainly has a fairly distinct aiming style to it, but it definitely can't be considered the single most demanding game in existence, aim wise. So why aren't other players, possibly with experience in other demanding games, as good?
The NS1/NS2 crossover point is a good example of what I'm looking for. It clearly highlights concrete differences that are based on a sequence of events that lead up to this point.
TF2 probably requires the most aim out of popular FPS currently, but NS / NS2 isn't that far behind IMO. every lifeform except Onos moves erratically and has the ability to instantly 180 so it's actually reasonable that players that have played NS for a while (as opposed to playing Quake / CS and then switching over) would have the skillset necessary
Are you trying to get your post count up on these forums or are you just bored? Noticed a fair few pointless one liners from you. Not a crime just a bit weird.
On topic: There isn't exactly a lot of competition out there in the NS2 competitive scene. Arc are one of the few teams that have actually stuck it out, probably to do with the fact that they are winning all the time. As people have already mentioned the only team to come close were Exertus, who in my opinion were the more intelligent players tactics wise, just a shame they only had a couple of shooters that could compete with the Arc guys.
Managed to watch one of the games last night and all I can say is it's in desperate need of a first person spectator, would be a hell of a lot more fun to watch, at the moment I find it gets a little bit boring after watching 1 or 2 games. Excellent job on the commentary and camera work by the way.
Something else I noticed is the respective speed of players as aliens.
Now I thought I was a pretty average walljumping skulk (not an average skulk, an average walljumping skulk). I could get pretty fast, but not that fast, and I never really put much time or effort into learning how to do it because its not my style. After watching HG, my feelings were reinforced, with some of them going a little bit faster, but most of them maintaining the same kind of speed I'm used to seeing.
When Archaea went aliens, I was surprised to say the least. They all move twice the speed I ever could. They move faster with carapace than I do with celerity, much faster. The speed at which fana flies with the Lerk is mind boggling to me. I consider myself quite a bit above average, but I could never fly at that speed, no matter what I did. I can't even think how you go that fast.
This honestly make me think of one thing. Exploitation.
They're doing something to get those kinds of speeds. They're abusing some sort of mechanism to get those directional changes. Something that isn't supposed to be there, or shouldn't be there. If you watch them when they attack as a team, every single one of them does it. Its basically mandatory, and I don't like mandatory things.
While Aim is certainly an important factor to arcs success, saying that is all there is to it is ignorant.
Although I don't have first hand knoweldge, I think its safe to say from watching the team play that every single player on ARC knows how to react to most situations without being told. To be honest even among some of the higher tier teams I know that this is not the case. On the midtier teams, teams typically have 1-3 people who tell the others what to do and without those people, they tend to run around like chickens with their heads cut off, and this reduces optimization. Sometimes player need to react instantly to save an RT, or to kill an RT and you can see how quickly ARC does this, you just can't react that quickly if you need to be told what to do. RT based decisions need to be made lightening fast, and retreating when your needed to pressure can be just as bad a decision as not retreating when you needed to.
NS2 has a significant amount of strategy involved tactically. It doesn't have the type of strategy you might see in sc2 lets call that hard strategy, where you follow particular tech paths and can try to counter the other players tech path, or you can go for a rush to try to counter economic strategies but it has a TON of tactical strategy. You spot 3 skulks on the west side of the map, now's a good time to push hard on the east side. You spawn flight they spawn atrium, send 2 to pressure from reactor core and send the rest of your team straight through cross to get the crevice RT that you can predict they will be getting quickly. Where should you scan for common drifter placements? If you apply pressure from one side of the map are you able to get a phase gate up on the other side of the map? If your losing RTs from your back line which marines do you dispatch to deal with that, is there a spawning marine that can get there in time? what health did that RT start at, is it even worth trying to save.
Marines/aliens on the field need to be making these decisions especially regarding RTs and they need to be communicating to their team to help their teammates make the correct decisions as well. The commander can't deal with every single decision for every player although a truely good one can make most of them.
One problem is that becuase being commander in NS2 is not very fun (my opinion as a strong rts gamer) there are not too many players who WANT to be commander and many commanders are incapable of making all these decisions at once. They then get overwhelmed and players start making calls which happens very often below the top tier and you can get your chain of command mixed up easily which can result in alot of confusion.
Are you trying to get your post count up on these forums or are you just bored? Noticed a fair few pointless one liners from you. Not a crime just a bit weird.
I'm just bored, and unlike some people, I don't need more than one line to get my point across all the time. Sorry if some of them went over your head.
I'll also note that the post I was referring was equally pointless, sorry if people having fun is a problem for you.
If we go back to the topic and commanding in particular, I think at least in NS1 you needed a lot of experience with a consistent top level lineup to be exceptionally good. It's much easier to command when you know you don't need to push the advantage at all points of the game.
One of the things that impressed me the most in Peach's commanding in NS1 was how rarely he forced things during a round. Many times you saw commanders (including me, probably more than most others) that were eager to hit early with heavy pressure and kind of overkill the aggression. Meanwhile Peach might play a slow 2-man pressure and put most of the emphasis on marine economy. It was not the end of the world even if the push died as long as it tied the aliens down to defense. All this gave the marine rounds wonderful stability and versatility.
All this might be one of the reasons why Scrajm is such a good commander. It's a treat watching a commander who feels comfortable and doesn't feel urgency push every advantage all the time.
About six years ago I was working on a project and a similar situation came up with a small group of people who were really good at the game. I coined an axiom back then that I think applies today. (I'm sure many will recognize the inspiration for it.)
Any sufficiently advanced gameplay is indistinguishable from cheating.
There exist some people and teams, through whatever means, that reach a level of gameplay far and above what the developers imagined. Regardless of how it presents itself, the end result is that - through observation - it seems there is no logical explanation for how these people are able to do what they do. In such a case, some people - for lack of any other explanation - assume that since the gameplay can't be explained that it must have been achieved through illicit means. While that is potentially possible, it's usually pretty easy to spot.
That's not the case here though.
This team is just really really good. Heck, I would almost go as far as to say that they have 'beaten the game',
If anything, I would say this is a great example of just how far you can go in a game like this. It raises the bar for everyone, and that's not a bad thing.
Arc is good at NS2 partly because there's a lot of skills in NS1 that transfer over to other FPSes. Xensity and Exigent did very well in TF2 and L4D when those games just came out, but NS1 players have managed to stay in the top because somebody who plays at the top level in any game has the natural talent for that genre and mindset for self-improvement. There's a ton of people in any game who play it for a long time but never really get good at it because they don't have that ability/drive to learn. Some people do, which is why Pain User and Syckness did well in SC2, where aim and movement play no role.
It's not just aim and movement that transfer over, there's teamwork, situational awareness, and gamesense. NS1 required all of this in spades (and I honestly don't think Flayra realizes how much depth his creation had). NS2 is similar enough to NS1 that almost everything carries over. Even game knowledge like whether to chew res, hit base, set up for an ambush, etc carries over.
Edit: I think the people who are saying aim is the reason Arc is winning are the players who only see the surface of the game. It's certainly a factor, but I don't think it's THE factor. For example, see the infamous Evo 2004 Justin Wong vs Daigo Umehara video. It's an impressive feat of technical execution (Every parry is an individual button press)... but if you don't play SFIII, you'll probably miss the fact that Justin is practically telegraphing what's coming next, which allowed Daigo to prepare himself for it.
Yes, the first game was super awesome, blind, i totally agree. ARC was awesome. But... did you see any super awesome move from Mercury ?
Good games don't need to have this "wow nice base rush" moves. Because good teams don't fall to them. A high-risk high-reward move stops working once you reach a certain level of game understanding of both teams. Mercury made super awesome moves all the time, reacting properly to almost all threats and cleaning out marines while Archaea had amazing pushes towards the harvesters. It is the high-level gameplay from both teams that makes me smile. To explain: Usually when I watch a game, I can tell pretty fast what went wrong or when a team did wrong calls / missing stuff they should have done. In this game however, I was looking for a mistake a long time and had to talk to both commanders of the teams after the game to find it. Strategically, Mercury only underestimated that 2 marines in mezzazine between the 15 and 17 min mark and let them build a PG. And this minor issue led to Archaea's victory. It was like watching two chess grandmasters battling out a real close positional fight - it might look more boring, but when you see the details and that every move the players do is almost perfect, you can enjoy that game alot. But this is a different viewpoint
My brother and I watch the stream, and even if we liked it, few cameras moves were frustrating. Like, we see two marines getting engaged by two skulk and suddenly the camera switch to a marine alone killing a RT; We know it was a good choice to show this and that, but we lose the excitement when you cut a move from ambushing skulk in the middle.
And one of you lost his voice, it happen, it's winter, it's a hard job, but that made my brother angry. He said "Why the hell is he casting like that, did he forget the people he is casting for ?" Somehow he pointed an interesting fact, but I can't agree. You are making a good job, and you just need to do it even better !
Yes, Wasabi and me were casting this match with camera work from NS2HD. Unfortunetaly, I don't quite understand what you are trying to say with your last paragraph, but thanks for the cheers
@Koruyo
I left zeikko out because he went inactive so I had to refer on you as secondary leader
Scrajm typed that and paid you to post it, didn't he?
Ssssssh. You got enough fame already, let others have some, too
We all know that the whole team is frikking amazing, and that it's far more necessary to be the best than just aim. But I didn't want to repeat what others already posted :P
Learning to aim well in NS2 requires you to learn how NOT to aim in other games to some extent. Its a sad but true fact, input irregularities and also the current movement of aliens (skulks especially) really defy logic and reason. You can really only overcome it via extremely high levels of aim, or insane amounts of practice. Most people with that level of aim are going to be playing other games where their skill level is more rewarded, or are still waiting for the next big FPS shooter that they like.
okay lets take the tone down a couple notches. I have watched so many arc games and I know the players, they are very skilled and you would be hard fought to say that are exploiting anything. Point of fact is that they are great shots and everyone knows to win as marine you have to win early engagements and pressure alien res to win as marine. Stop the higher life forms from coming onto the field or have enough tech to make them null and the game is yours. They did just that yesterday, so dont discount their win by saying they exploit. Its not their fault they play countless hours a day or week and scrim more than any other team to hone their skills.
Holy shit I could not echo xDragons point enough, learning to aim in NS2 and learning to track specifically felt so unnatural compared to every other FPS I've played, I went through a week or two of reaching maximum frustration in 2-3 deaths in game and alt F4ing and playing something else, not even supermeatboy or I Wanna Be The Guy made me feel as frustrated as learning to shoot skulks with default settings. I've nearly beaten Dark Soul with kb/m and it's nowhere near as frustrating, these games were made with punishment and frustrating mechanics as features.
Most of the top AU players in NS 1 came from other games, CS 1.5, DoD 1.3 and UT in that rough order, I've seen about 10-15 people from previous AU super clans (hybrid PSi everlast R18+, Boost don't count) play NS2 but none of them stayed longer than a week or so, performance and 'it wasn't NS 1 with better graphics' were the main reasons they weren't coming back.
you're totally right, out of the 3.7k views 25 people agree with you... so thats something like .006%, so keep up the good work!
Agree with what? What exactly is my standpoint in this thread? What point of view is it that everyone is agreeing (disagreeing) with?
The only assertion I made in the OP was that Archaea are disproportionately more skilled and organised than their competitors. Are people disagreeing with that? Even after the 4-0 result of last night? Even after all the whitewashes of the past?
The OP was primarily a question. In fact, the OP was essentially only a question. Yet so many people disagree with it? How does one disagree with a question? It truly confuses me.
Also, note the number of question marks in this post, and how it is essentially entirely a question as well. Now lets see how many disagrees and troll flags I get.
This data set provides a very interesting glimpse of the dynamics of the Season 1 final game between Arc and HG. They both had similiar K/D ratios up until the final minutes of the game. What this tells me is that Archea aren't necessarily better than their opponents because of aim. They simply have better Macro abilities. They basically were getting the right kills in the right place. Kills don't mean much unless they are at an area that matters like a resource node or tech point and Archea's Macro and positioning abilities are much better than the competition.
They can be beat. They aren't some magical team that has pinpoint accuracy or making superb wall jumps. They just know where the key points to be fighting are. It also is telling of how skilled the Archea's commander is. It isn't the Fana and Tane "pain train" getting wins for Archea (although I'm sure it helps), it's their commander. If teams can come up with better strategies and fight smart they will win.
To be fair WasabiOne, that statistic of 25 people agreeing with |strofix| is based off of every single post he has ever made on the forums, not just this thread.
@|strofix| : I think alot of the people in this thread just got fed up with your posts, and instead of going to the one that made them break they just went to the OP and vented there. If you go through the thread again you've basically asked why arc is good, disagreed with aim being a factor, disagreed with the commander being a factor, called for other high level players input - after alot of names even I recognise posting - and then disregarding them. Called their whole team out for exploiting when if you've been around the FPS genre for as long as you say then you should understand 'exploiting' from the FPS terminology not the dictionary terminology.
It just seems like you get an idea in your head, anyone that disagrees or offers an opinion you require them to provide huge amounts of evidence when you yourself provide little.
I'm pretty sure you are a troll, but if you aren't maybe you can read some of the stuff you post from a non-biased point of view and try to actually take some advice or listen openly to others opinions.
On topic: I would love to see some more recent FPV commander videos from any competitive team! As fun as blind's casts are it's also awesome to see the communication and decision making used by the teams in the game.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Many are waiting for first person spectate to 'spot' cheaters.. hah, as if that works.
I am waiting for it to spec someone like Fana, so I can learn by mimicing a bit, even a fraction of the skill involved in such play. (my fade is so suck I often wonder if its worth the res for me haha)
That would be great.. seeing a comp match in spec as it is now, from above, and after that some first person streams..
It would show to a bigger extend how certain players play, transfering such knowhow to more players.
I am sure arch likes there wins just like many other comp players, but I hope they also like the idea of contributing there knowhow to the community to improve overal skill.
Right now the skillgap between a newb and a 'experienced' pugger is already quite large.
The skillgap between a 'experienced' player and a truly experienced player is even larger. (the latter would easily be amongst the top servers players in matches)
The skillgap between experienced players and mid to highlevel comp players is so huge I am still amazed when I watch vids. (no doubt, that previous top server player would be decimated_
Anything to smooth out the gaps without losing the tops quality is something to work for.
Comments
Exertus was the only team that has ever given good competition to arc (in my opinion). It's not like there's no players that could give Arc a good run for their money out there, but I think they're scattered in different teams right now, making lots of good, div1 teams, but not arc-level-good teams. Makes the competition a little boring... the situation right now is, with HG picking up momentum, they will be in a position to pick up more good players to be in a better spot to beat Archaea -- the only problem is this could reduce real competition by a lot, but this is just wild speculation.
So we'll see where we stand in a few months with Season 2 and all the clan movement that is happening lately.
Covered in the OP.
you need to stop posting.
But it could be!
On topic: There isn't exactly a lot of competition out there in the NS2 competitive scene. Arc are one of the few teams that have actually stuck it out, probably to do with the fact that they are winning all the time. As people have already mentioned the only team to come close were Exertus, who in my opinion were the more intelligent players tactics wise, just a shame they only had a couple of shooters that could compete with the Arc guys.
Managed to watch one of the games last night and all I can say is it's in desperate need of a first person spectator, would be a hell of a lot more fun to watch, at the moment I find it gets a little bit boring after watching 1 or 2 games. Excellent job on the commentary and camera work by the way.
shut up
Although I don't have first hand knoweldge, I think its safe to say from watching the team play that every single player on ARC knows how to react to most situations without being told. To be honest even among some of the higher tier teams I know that this is not the case. On the midtier teams, teams typically have 1-3 people who tell the others what to do and without those people, they tend to run around like chickens with their heads cut off, and this reduces optimization. Sometimes player need to react instantly to save an RT, or to kill an RT and you can see how quickly ARC does this, you just can't react that quickly if you need to be told what to do. RT based decisions need to be made lightening fast, and retreating when your needed to pressure can be just as bad a decision as not retreating when you needed to.
NS2 has a significant amount of strategy involved tactically. It doesn't have the type of strategy you might see in sc2 lets call that hard strategy, where you follow particular tech paths and can try to counter the other players tech path, or you can go for a rush to try to counter economic strategies but it has a TON of tactical strategy. You spot 3 skulks on the west side of the map, now's a good time to push hard on the east side. You spawn flight they spawn atrium, send 2 to pressure from reactor core and send the rest of your team straight through cross to get the crevice RT that you can predict they will be getting quickly. Where should you scan for common drifter placements? If you apply pressure from one side of the map are you able to get a phase gate up on the other side of the map? If your losing RTs from your back line which marines do you dispatch to deal with that, is there a spawning marine that can get there in time? what health did that RT start at, is it even worth trying to save.
Marines/aliens on the field need to be making these decisions especially regarding RTs and they need to be communicating to their team to help their teammates make the correct decisions as well. The commander can't deal with every single decision for every player although a truely good one can make most of them.
One problem is that becuase being commander in NS2 is not very fun (my opinion as a strong rts gamer) there are not too many players who WANT to be commander and many commanders are incapable of making all these decisions at once. They then get overwhelmed and players start making calls which happens very often below the top tier and you can get your chain of command mixed up easily which can result in alot of confusion.
I'm just bored, and unlike some people, I don't need more than one line to get my point across all the time. Sorry if some of them went over your head.
I'll also note that the post I was referring was equally pointless, sorry if people having fun is a problem for you.
One of the things that impressed me the most in Peach's commanding in NS1 was how rarely he forced things during a round. Many times you saw commanders (including me, probably more than most others) that were eager to hit early with heavy pressure and kind of overkill the aggression. Meanwhile Peach might play a slow 2-man pressure and put most of the emphasis on marine economy. It was not the end of the world even if the push died as long as it tied the aliens down to defense. All this gave the marine rounds wonderful stability and versatility.
All this might be one of the reasons why Scrajm is such a good commander. It's a treat watching a commander who feels comfortable and doesn't feel urgency push every advantage all the time.
this game is so easy from an rts perspective i would expect them all to be the same
just throw your crappiest aimer in there
Any sufficiently advanced gameplay is indistinguishable from cheating.
There exist some people and teams, through whatever means, that reach a level of gameplay far and above what the developers imagined. Regardless of how it presents itself, the end result is that - through observation - it seems there is no logical explanation for how these people are able to do what they do. In such a case, some people - for lack of any other explanation - assume that since the gameplay can't be explained that it must have been achieved through illicit means. While that is potentially possible, it's usually pretty easy to spot.
That's not the case here though.
This team is just really really good. Heck, I would almost go as far as to say that they have 'beaten the game',
If anything, I would say this is a great example of just how far you can go in a game like this. It raises the bar for everyone, and that's not a bad thing.
It's not just aim and movement that transfer over, there's teamwork, situational awareness, and gamesense. NS1 required all of this in spades (and I honestly don't think Flayra realizes how much depth his creation had). NS2 is similar enough to NS1 that almost everything carries over. Even game knowledge like whether to chew res, hit base, set up for an ambush, etc carries over.
Edit: I think the people who are saying aim is the reason Arc is winning are the players who only see the surface of the game. It's certainly a factor, but I don't think it's THE factor. For example, see the infamous Evo 2004 Justin Wong vs Daigo Umehara video. It's an impressive feat of technical execution (Every parry is an individual button press)... but if you don't play SFIII, you'll probably miss the fact that Justin is practically telegraphing what's coming next, which allowed Daigo to prepare himself for it.
Yes, Wasabi and me were casting this match with camera work from NS2HD. Unfortunetaly, I don't quite understand what you are trying to say with your last paragraph, but thanks for the cheers
@Koruyo
I left zeikko out because he went inactive so I had to refer on you as secondary leader
Ssssssh. You got enough fame already, let others have some, too
We all know that the whole team is frikking amazing, and that it's far more necessary to be the best than just aim. But I didn't want to repeat what others already posted :P
Most of the top AU players in NS 1 came from other games, CS 1.5, DoD 1.3 and UT in that rough order, I've seen about 10-15 people from previous AU super clans (hybrid PSi everlast R18+, Boost don't count) play NS2 but none of them stayed longer than a week or so, performance and 'it wasn't NS 1 with better graphics' were the main reasons they weren't coming back.
Oh man, I'm laughing so hard right now.
How about now:
"You earned the 25 Agrees badge.
You received 25 Agrees. You're posting some good content. Great!"
Even I had to chortle a bit at that. This is what happens when you use "moderation by like".
Agree with what? What exactly is my standpoint in this thread? What point of view is it that everyone is agreeing (disagreeing) with?
The only assertion I made in the OP was that Archaea are disproportionately more skilled and organised than their competitors. Are people disagreeing with that? Even after the 4-0 result of last night? Even after all the whitewashes of the past?
The OP was primarily a question. In fact, the OP was essentially only a question. Yet so many people disagree with it? How does one disagree with a question? It truly confuses me.
Also, note the number of question marks in this post, and how it is essentially entirely a question as well. Now lets see how many disagrees and troll flags I get.
This data set provides a very interesting glimpse of the dynamics of the Season 1 final game between Arc and HG. They both had similiar K/D ratios up until the final minutes of the game. What this tells me is that Archea aren't necessarily better than their opponents because of aim. They simply have better Macro abilities. They basically were getting the right kills in the right place. Kills don't mean much unless they are at an area that matters like a resource node or tech point and Archea's Macro and positioning abilities are much better than the competition.
They can be beat. They aren't some magical team that has pinpoint accuracy or making superb wall jumps. They just know where the key points to be fighting are. It also is telling of how skilled the Archea's commander is. It isn't the Fana and Tane "pain train" getting wins for Archea (although I'm sure it helps), it's their commander. If teams can come up with better strategies and fight smart they will win.
@|strofix| : I think alot of the people in this thread just got fed up with your posts, and instead of going to the one that made them break they just went to the OP and vented there. If you go through the thread again you've basically asked why arc is good, disagreed with aim being a factor, disagreed with the commander being a factor, called for other high level players input - after alot of names even I recognise posting - and then disregarding them. Called their whole team out for exploiting when if you've been around the FPS genre for as long as you say then you should understand 'exploiting' from the FPS terminology not the dictionary terminology.
It just seems like you get an idea in your head, anyone that disagrees or offers an opinion you require them to provide huge amounts of evidence when you yourself provide little.
I'm pretty sure you are a troll, but if you aren't maybe you can read some of the stuff you post from a non-biased point of view and try to actually take some advice or listen openly to others opinions.
On topic: I would love to see some more recent FPV commander videos from any competitive team! As fun as blind's casts are it's also awesome to see the communication and decision making used by the teams in the game.
I am waiting for it to spec someone like Fana, so I can learn by mimicing a bit, even a fraction of the skill involved in such play. (my fade is so suck I often wonder if its worth the res for me haha)
That would be great.. seeing a comp match in spec as it is now, from above, and after that some first person streams..
It would show to a bigger extend how certain players play, transfering such knowhow to more players.
I am sure arch likes there wins just like many other comp players, but I hope they also like the idea of contributing there knowhow to the community to improve overal skill.
Right now the skillgap between a newb and a 'experienced' pugger is already quite large.
The skillgap between a 'experienced' player and a truly experienced player is even larger. (the latter would easily be amongst the top servers players in matches)
The skillgap between experienced players and mid to highlevel comp players is so huge I am still amazed when I watch vids. (no doubt, that previous top server player would be decimated_
Anything to smooth out the gaps without losing the tops quality is something to work for.