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Research Analysis of Player Expertise

Uthgar·11/13/2014, 8:25:02 PM·3 votes·747 views

Hello everyone,

We have spent the last few months working very hard on some of the content in the following two videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_mVkg1fVbE - This is the most recent one that came out two days ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvRiA3aCgPI&list=UUcrVRnQZC3jifQW30dHVThA - This is the first video we made a few months ago, you may have seen it.

Our goal is to use cutting edge research techniques to try and understand player expertise. What makes the pros so good? What can we do to learn from them and improve our performance? You may have seen similar things for traditional athletics, and you would be right in thinking the inspiration comes from there.

I am starting this thread simply because I want to measure the interest in this kind of content and the method of delivery. In addition to the poll, a few major questions that would be helpful if you care to elaborate:

  1. Is there too much detail?
  2. Do you get bored because of the length (especially in the case of the second video)?
  3. What types of analyses can be added to make the content more valuable to you? Sometimes I see things through such a scientific lens that I need to hear the view of others, no sugar coating. How can I help you enjoy/understand the content?
  4. What types of additional media would help accentuate the dissemination of this information to you?

4 Comments

GeeiJoe11/13/2014, 8:31:42 PM1 votes

I think it would be really interesting to in a single episode get some insight from a pro player looking at a low-level game, from the perspective of someone trying to climb. Particularly in a situation where the role being examined is not doing terribly (but iwth a few mistakes to point out improvements) but how to "carry" the game, or play a teamfight better knowing there are disadvantages. One of the things that has always interested me is comeback victories, which can happen quite suddenly in pro games, but usually take much longer in soloQ. Why is this? Also, it would be ideal to determine how to best analyze your own weaknesses.

Vagh11/14/2014, 1:15:51 AM1 votes

League, being the ever-evolving game that it is, will always have room for improvement. Pro players are always looking for ways to improve, this in itself shows that good mechanics are not the pinnacle of 'skill'. Skill is more associated with future planning (Monte's famous rotations), impromptu decision making and foresight of the subsequent consequences.

This could involve simply trading a Support's flash for enemy ADC's flash so that it would not be available next team fight or focusing the enemy jungler in a losing team-fight in order to deny the enemy any additional risk-free objectives (doing baron with smite vs baron without smite).

In spite of these decisions appearing to be the 'obvious' choices, once the team fight begins, most of the time, all hell breaks lose. Plans are abandoned and some people would rather save their own skin than sacrificing themselves for an ally who can potentially swing the fight back into the team's favor.

This is where we all need to improve. No one is flawless in this game and we all know the temptation associated with landing a Lee Sin Q (My mind is telling me noooo). Uthgar has provided a means to take our 'improvement process' to the next level. That eye tracking software will allow you to critique your own play, decision making and map awareness. We all know that sometimes we just don't want to be critiqued by others, especially if we feel that we made the 'correct decision'. Now you can pay attention to where you were focused during the fight and why you didn't notice the Lee Sin inSec kick straight to the face till it was too late. You can tell if you are prioritizing your own life rather than dealing damage as an ADC or if you were too focused on the enemy that you didn't notice how low your AP Carry's HP was as u continued the fight.

As for your questions:

  1. Is there too much detail?
  • Too much detail is never a bad thing for people like me but maybe a TL;DR (TL;DW?) section at the end to summarize everything? You could go over everything really quickly and just outline main points so that those interested can go back and watch the whole video.
  1. Is the video too long?
  • No (see question 1)
  1. What types of analyses should be added?
  • You could go over certain scenarios like "if person X was paying attention to this instead of looking here than they could have possible avoided scenario Y"
  1. What types of additional media would help accentuate the dissemination of this information to you?
  • Consulting dictionary brb

I personally think this is a giant leap in the right direction and I would love to see more content from you. Thank you for all the work you have put in and I look forward to future episodes!