I don't feel like it's talked about enough but I really do think anticipation is also part of what makes that ceiling when it comes to mechanical play for a player because being able to mechanically perform only gets you so far in exchanges between different characters but being able to do that while simultaneously anticipating your opponents move is what puts them a clear cut above
I think that is actually included in what is meant by mechanical ability. It doesn't matter how fast/precise they click if they don't know where to click. Just watch Berserker...every skill shot just misses, while he's still putting out damage.
i mean that's still mechanic lol. 80-90% of insane outplay mechanically are only possible because the players anticipated what's happening and not pure reaction.
Yeah, and that's what Theshy said in a interview years before. He doesn't consider himself good mechanically, but he can anticipate what his opponent will do in his next move
I mean why not. U get informative content with a side cute cat that has a demon trapped inside it plotting on world domination and destruction I see it as a win-win combo
People place way too much value on reaction speed. It's extremely rare that a millisecond reaction speed is the difference between a kill. More often than not what we perceive to be slow reactions is just a player not anticipating the skillshot, not an inability to react in time.
@@topiastuomisto yea considering the fact u dodge skillshots predictively rather than reactively it makes reaction time even more useless. Now a thing like malphite ult any normal human should be easily able to flash and probably in mid to close range too but u'd probably need a good monitor etc. for it.
This is a concept that is widely known in fighting games, which confused me so much when realizing league players don't know about it. It's referred to as "mental stack" if anyone wants to look it up.
@@topiastuomisto actually its not that important even in fps games. there is 1/1000 situation where pure reaction time affects the situation even in csgo. your "reaction time" is affected by so many other factors that your genetic ability is irrelevant.
I absolutely LOVE this conversation! It is a direct parallel to something discussed in my field all the time. I'm a music teacher and people always talk about a musician's natural talent or affinity for musical elements vs their work ethic or environment they are placed in. Nature vs nurture. I honestly think it takes both to be truly spectacular, but the argument becomes what is the ratio of natural talent to work ethic. 30-70? 50-50? 90-10? All a matter of perspective. In regards to league pros, work ethic/environment is the most that can be controlled, but they must have a natural affinity to gaming to be the best. If Chovy, Fudge, and Darshan all were in the same environment for a year who's mechanics would come out on top? My guess is Chovy, then Fudge, then Darshan. Why? I think it goes back to how their brains developed in adolescence and how they were playing games while their brains were more malleable. Sort of like learning another language, it is easier to learn at a very early age rather than in your teens because of your brain's state. It's hard to judge, but I think there is also a level of natural talent that comes with it as well. For example, I have 11 year old students who have amazing pitch recognition and tempo control with little to no musical training and I have 22 year old student who cannot compete with them while working at it each day for 10 years. So of course, the student who is 11 has a skill higher ceiling than that of the 22 year old correct? Given an infinite amount of time the 22 year old can catch up sure, but in the same environment, no way. TL;DR - fun conversation, I think it takes the player with the most raw talent to grow up and practice with the most optimal practice regiment to hit the ceiling and everyone has a different ceiling.
I could listen to these kind of topics for hours! I'm from a Broodwar background like LS. It always puts a smile on my face whenever a legend like Bisu is mentioned. Thanks for these uploads!
Intent vs Autopilot Environment (skill level of who you're up against) Passion/Desire In love with the process, not just the result Accepting that it'll be fucking boring and shitty to practice this way. But understanding the value of the end result.
This is pretty much it. Also: repetition, i.e. training. This you do not get in league as you do in traditional sports. Say, in basketball, you would repeat a drill or a situation and adjust your performance variables by the result. In league on the other hand the result is affected by so many variables that i tentional feedback loop based practice is very difficult.
This is a really interesting topic if you get the top osu players throughout the years. Ever since the release of osu the top players have been clearing maps and setting scores that would have been unthinkable. Take rrtyui's SS on The Big Black in 2012, people previously thought this map was impossible to clear with a perfect score, yet rrtyui showed it was possible. Nowadays top players are topping his score with ease by getting near perfect plays with double mods. It seems like the mechanical skill ceiling of the top players keeps rising that no one knows at what point it actually is not humanly physically possible to clear certain maps. So is there a mechanical skill ceiling at all? Maybe, but with time the skill ceiling might rise.
It probably comes down to self discipline and being obsessed with improvement over anything else. Many people like to improve, pros have to improve, the best are obsessed with it. There are some people though who can seemingly subconsciously recognize and fix problems in their own gameplay way more effectively than others. That's where having a ton of knowledge about the game comes in handy as they know when something was good or bad when it happens regardless of the outcome in the short term.
it's the mentality of playing for fun vs. playing to improve. since it's not enjoyable for everyone to improve, most prefer to play a game to have fun but then rage/feel bad when someone outskills them. if you're only trying to improve, you wouldn't let your emotions interrupt your learning process. at least that's the typical thing to find in league
I used to think that it was sort of like 'talent' - As in every player has a certain innate level of 'mechanical skill' that isn't really influenced by practice, things like reaction-timing, stress resilience, attention span, etc, which kind of defined your mechanical skill ceiling in a sense. Recently I've reconsidered. I think that if you undergo a massive neurological change it is possible to raise this a bit. For example struggling with Addiction, Personality Disorders, Anxiety, Depression, PTSD. ADHD, etc -> getting therapy/medication/counseling/etc -> resulting in a fundamentally higher potential skill ceiling. I think it would be dope to see an actual study of how this works if a valid experiment/study is ever proposed.
So I am curious, has LS watched veritasium’s video on how to be an expert? Its super interesting, and when you listen to him you will find the one thing LoL does not have repeatable situations past early game. You might get similar situations, but the best way to improve is to repeat a situation and do it over and over until you get it right. The reason why teams keep doing herald fights is that they dont get to replay that game to the exact same point and see how you dont need it to win. Same with items, you dont get to see how much better one item would be compared to another in those same scenarios. I think this is a big reason for stagnation. You rarely get to try something different, so you stick to what you know.
This so much. Another thing which discusses similar viewpoint is the book Art of Learning (chess gm and tai chi black belt). Getting exceptional has (almost) nothing to do with your sphysical boundaries but all to do with the methodology and process you excert to getting better. In league the process of getting better seems very genetic based is because intentional practice is very difficult and narrow. Thus the players who for some reason have some edge in their viewpoint to how the game is played (by luck or by their personality or gaming history or whatever) excel as if they have natural talent, and players that view the game differently from the beginning do not. It is very hard to try new ways to approach the game from new perspective and so it appears as natural talen, even though it isn't. A solution to this would be programmed game scenarios and drills which you could try new approaches and viewpoints and perfect your mechanics in and you would manage to shape your play style according to the results rather than your percieved view of the imagined results - of which you have no actual data on.
@@AsirIset I actually had that very discussion with a friend a few days ago. I was talking about how League's training tool could and should be a massive help to lower mmr players by enabling drills/scenarii to be played within the mode. You could get a wave management drill where depending on how you treat the wave you could end up with a freeze, or a slow push ect... and if you don't get the end result you wished for you could just reset and do it again. It could be done with different minions numbers, with different hp bars, and you could experiment with as many different situations from the same base scenario. In comparison to training in Fighting games or even Rocket League it would be very limited, of course, as League is fundamentaly very different in the way it plays and the room for human decisions (items, pathing, decision making), but it would still have some value in my opinion, as it could at least help with developping solid fundamentals.
@@BIuffs Hard agree! Theoretically there could be more difficult scenarios with more variables for very good players (or performed by real players in a team settings), but this would of course be difficult and would require extensive support from Riot. Practice tools in most esports is very underutilized, due to the extensive developement time it would require.
I can confirm that autopiloting is a huge part of stagnation. As well as keeping up the passion for growth. I personally felt this a good amount being the NA nidalee top mentioned in this video, sometimes when busy with School/Work I'm just trying to vibe and autopilot. You want to climb because of the goal of "I should get this because it will be good for streaming/monetization etc" but the passion has low points where you are just going through the motions and heavily burnt out. Also league can easily be a coping mechanism from irl shit. You had a bad day or family emergencies, play league to get your mind off it while there is nothing you can do. There are definitely high points where I feel my mechanics being way better and playing for growth is fun/enjoyable but definite moments of low passion or just not feeling it while work ethic doesn't justify the down time. I "should" be playing more if I want it etc. Mental health is important.
I think people need to have space from the game in order to improve. It's hard to stay motivated in a constant grind workplace, same as anyone else. It can also help with a change of perspective and enable clearer thinking.
I disagree, having space from the game hinders your improvement more. You just have to fall in love with the process of improvement and not fall into the trap of auto-piloting.
@@CapeSkill The best process of improvement involves breaks and proper space from the subject. Your brain may not be a muscle, but it still has barriers you can't break. In fact overworking will often cause you to lose progress and worsen the overall improvement process. So far in neuroscience, we have seen different optimal levels and schedule of study/practice per individual. Because of this large individuality in efficiency, it is extremely important to individualise the training regimen to fit the individual. That's how you garner as much growth as possible and establish solid foundations. Memory consolidation is insanely important, overworking will fuck with this process. You can have two people who have the same potential in their natural ability, but get two completely different outcomes when assuming the exact same process will work for both individuals. eSports players also underestimate the value of body coordination practice through exercise or even things like piano. Ingame mechanics is essentially body awareness and coordination, these things are trained at much higher speed and effiency when doing exercises like swimming, qigong/yoga, resistance band training and using a pilates ball for overall spine control and awareness. These helps prevent injuries, corrects posture and trains fullbody -- including arms/hands -- coordination. You don't even have to play piano for the musical portion, you can literally do things like daily hanon exercises etc. It's just the act of being forced to be aware of the position and movement of your spine, shoulders, elbows, hands, wrists, fingers, piano unironically has some great passive training for esports players. Space from the game means sacrificing maybe 1 to 1,5h a day for other activities. These activities will actually have massive positive impact on said gaming capabilities, especially in the skill department. It's not magic bullshittery, it's just regular science. Dancers actually have a tendency to be able to pick up difficult games more easily, even if they're not used to playing games, just off the fact that they train this body awareness so much.
@@NomSauce ''the best process of improvement involves breaks and proper space from the subject'' yeah my ass is a better process of improvement than the non-sense bullshit you're spewing. There is a reason why LCK and LPL will always be ahead of the west. Simply put. More games and more time spent on the game. Nothing else.
@@NomSauce we can look at all of the stuff you just said or look at the actual evidence we have in front of us. Eastern teams practice a lot more and are better. If we simply look at who is better at the game, the teams who practice more will almost always just be better. If burnout and other problems related to playing too much were actually making players worse then western teams would be better. There have been some occasions of Eastern teams unexpectedly choking as the heavy favorites, which could be related to playing too much but in the end, more practice leads to better play.
I think that mechanical skill in any game can be trained to the highest levels right now (unless you have some sort of disability or something), esports is still pretty new compared to real sports so I really dont think that most players in any game have reached their mechanical peak. One problem with training mechanics in league specifically is that outside of early game, there isnt really a lot of good chances to try and improve mechanics. Just because of how the game works you aren't fighting all the time, there aren't teamfights all the time, etc. If there was a way to constantly play a teamfight over and over again or play the early laning over again and people grinded that for a long time I think they would eventually have super good mechanics, better than most pros right now. Now when you look at fps games for example, you usually have training maps, there are aim trainers like kovaaks, deathmatch and all these other things to improve your mechanical skill in the game and there are a lot of examples in the fps community of people grinding these ways to improve mechanical skill and just getting absolutely insane eventually. I think genetics also plays a part of course but mostly what matters for improving mechanics in a game is just how you train, how dedicated you are, how healthy you are, and maybe your mental state.
10:40 one player who i can think of would be smeb, when he was on incredible miracle he was fucking garbage, and then from the moment he was on rox tigers onward one of the best tops in the world
League is a game of strategy as well as mechanics. If you can memorize an entire chess game move by move you will do well. You need to be able to anticipate 5 abilities and 2 summoner spells and how fights will play out.
Thanks to this video I've learned about human benchmark I have now confirmed that I have below average reaction time and aim. Glad I didn't quit school to play CSGO
Speaking from a pro WoW side, so a bit scuffed in comparison to something like SC(2)/League/FPS games but.... Reaction speed doesn't necessarily matter. Can it absolutely impact the game? Sure. Like if I'm playing soloq and I'm really on point and playing super tryhard, I will react to things that actually can impact kills or not, but the process of that happening isn't going to be gamebreaking/changing or swing a game into a win by it. Whereas predictions matter WAY more; In WoW, there's a degree of you reacting to something that can impact the game. E.g. a monk can pre port the shadowstep kidney from a rogue and just completely screw them over, but you could also just preport the shadowstep entirely to avoid it completely or put yourself into a spot where that shadowstep can never even happen. The first is your reaction, the second is your awareness, and the third is your game knowledge. Understanding what's happening, and can happen has way more impact than your mechanical skill. The reaction will obviously be super important, but if you don't ever need to be in a position to react to something, you'll be much stronger all together. In League, you can avoid ever having to react to things just by good game sense and awareness in general. If you know that a jayce Q+E is going to be up in 6 seconds, you don't set yourself up to be in a spot where he can hit that in 6 seconds and kill you. If that means saccing a wave, you sac the wave. It doesn't matter how insane your reactions are, or how mechanically insane you are, if you aren't capable of avoiding the situations that are avoidable all together, because the other player is also having to do things that impact their lane through the game knowledge. People have such insane egos with League that they think they can just outplay these things instead of just playing a little patient and trading small losses for massive losses. It doesn't matter how insane you are mechanically if you are consistently falling behind because you want to ego someone and think your mechanics can carry you, ESPECIALLY when you reach the higher echelons of players.
@@turbo6328 Yep, your understanding of the environment and how to respond to it is infinitely more useful than if you can respond to something fast. Both help, but one is substantially more important.
To compound on this, fighting games is another genre where its misunderstood that you need really good reaction and combo execution, but at the end of the day, it comes down to whoever gets the read on their opponent first and being able to convert their combo routing based on the move they hit confirmed with
I'm late, but I disagree. You can try to avoid situations where you have to react quickly, but then you are locking yourself out of options you would have if you could trust your reaction to be fast. Thus, you will be in situations where other players with better reaction times will force you to have to play safe and give up resources
@@geroni211 You don't lock yourself out of any options by lack of trust. You do not suddenly lose any sense of reaction just because you chose to avoid a situation that requires the enemy to misplay, but also you to play at an inhuman level to win. Reaction plays a massive role in predicting an obvious thing, or in better terms, being AWARE of what's happening. Yeah, if you need to dodge a jayce EQ that would kill you, you need to react, but you can also predict WHEN to react by being aware that his EQ will be up in 4 seconds through game knowledge and general awareness. In WoW, I never relied entirely on my reactions to avoid dying at the apex of the arena, I would set myself up to be able to respond quickly through knowing that I have x time before I have to respond. By finding that window, I can prepare myself to avoid the situation entirely by not FORCING myself to have to respond at a ridiculous level. Does that suddenly mean I can't respond to it? No. I still have that skill in my arsenal, but I don't have to rely solely on it. Edit: There's a reason LS gets annoyed when costreaming with pro players dying to stupid situations. Yeah, mechanically you might have won that if you reacted right, but why be in the situation that requires everything to go right for you and everything wrong for them when you could've just read the situation and not stepped into it.
Mechanics are like technique in sports. It is an inherent attribute that simply determines how easy it is for you to do the difficult things. There's many examples of players with high mechanics who are still vulnerable or not as good in other areas. The mechanical celing of a player doesn't exist in my opinion because mechanics aren't limited to age. They are limited to time and what exactly you work on as a player. A lot of high elo players achieve high elo with just good mechanics and so when they get there they start to work on other aspects to climb. What you don't realise is that going from the 90th percentile in technique to the 99th percentile is a very difficult thing to do rather than getting better at generally everything else. LS's example of spending hours playing the first few minutes of a top lane 2v2 or even the first few minutes of a draft on repeat is an exceptional example of how much it would take to improve one's mechanics. It's simple repetition with the goals of both sides known and with outplay potential played to the nearest HP. Think of it like a Point guard and Small Forward playing 2v2s in pickup basketball. There's enough space for the PG to dribble, shoot and basically excel their pick n roll but not so much space that the player can just rely on his preferred moves. There is a lot to be learned from playing out specific scenarios in league, instead of wasting time playing a 35 min game that was over at 5-10min. Even if something disatrous didn't happen in the early game, watching vods after the fact and pointing out that we fuucked up a drake fight doesn't help if we can't as a team immediately redo that moment. Real life teams can playout scenarios in basketball, football even motorsport. Instead teams are content with just playing games and rewatching vods, then sleeping on it and playing the scirms the next day with all the conversations from yesterday forgotten. TLDR; you can improve mechanics to the absolute limit but there are some people who just have better mechanics due to genetics or whatever they did before they played league or what they do in their spare time like being professional typers or some shit. If you were to spend every waking day practicising them then you would likely be as mechanically talented as many eastern players. The unfortunate truth is that for a 1% increase in mechanics you'd spend a lot of time doing the same thing when you would generally improve more doing something else like learning to build like a sentient human being or wave management or comms etc.
I would say not necessarily because you can work on your raw mechanics with any champion, even outside of LoL. What I consider raw mechanics are: mouse speed, mouse accuracy, clicking speed (primarily mouse but also keyboard). Skillshots and dodging are mostly anticipation, game knowledge and reading your opponent. But mechanically intensive champions will show your mechanical skill since it is required for someone like KogMaw or Ashe to be very good at raw mechanics to kite properly, dodge, not miss autos, etc.
As someone who's coached in multiple games and platforms (professionally) its all settings. "Darshan" with better settings would be better than fudge/summit mechanically in a week give or take. Its just annoying to learn so nobody does it. Reaction time will never beat awareness as well. Which means focusing on learning / knowledge is a net positive over improving ones reaction time. (for comp players)
wtf r u talking about? Do u think Darshan hasnt thought about changing his keybinds for optimal speed? oh yeah yup darshan just change ur level up keys to zxcv so u can play on the edge of levels, oh shit bro ur better than fudge and summit now yup. Yeah darshan yup just change ur mouse dpi to this and ull be more precise and better than fudge and summit. 😂😂😂😂😂😂 who is paying u to coach them. settings are preference and dont determine ur ceiling.
1. I highly doubt he has an optimal mouse and keyboard setup. Most pros in every esport i've ever been apart of have sub optimal. So why would i give him the benefit of the doubt 🤷♂ 2. For keybinds i again doubt he uses optimal settings. This wouldn't really change anything however assuming he can accurately hit his keys. My thought process instantly is if SC2 pros dont have optimal settings. Why would any league player have it. 😅😅 3. These things i'd guess wouldn't make him better than Fudge/sum. But they would nudge him closer. Its hard to range how much it would help. If hes using terrible stuff. Its possible hes instantly mechanically better. Most likely it would just make him better as a player. But still > Fduge/sum 4. He for sure doesn't have optimal dpi settings. Or sens, or anything in that realm of things. I doubt there's a single player in league that does. Since that's an incredibly complex topic. He 100% could improve in this area, i'd guess every player could. 5. Nobody is paying me to coach right now. And I haven't coached a team mmm since like 2017/18 or something like that. That was for Quake Champs. I prefer playing / individually coaching. Most people that make it high in any scene are crazy and or just don't care to listen or improve. So being a head coach is more like being a cheerleader. 6. For anyone whos in the top 1% in their respected game. Settings 100% determine ur mechanically ceiling. But again Awareness > mechanics so its a matter of how much time investment will it take to get answers in certain areas. Since each individual area is vast before any progress would be gained ( if nobody gave you the answers ) It wouldnt be worth most players time to invest in such a thing. Since they would most likely just run into dead ends. 7. To make the claim that he has optimal setup currently and its his " brain " that keeps him from being able to click a keys which keeps him behind is the farthest thing from the truth. 8. People pick a game up. Dont change much. Then just play. Some people by default will have good / closer to optimal settings while others wont. I'll give a csgo example since most people kinda know this game. If a player has a 80cm 360 they magically wont play the role of entry frag. But everyone will praise them for having a "good" deagle. While the opposite being true as well. The entry fragger whos on 25cm 360 wont magically play a role like Scope. From my experience this isnt people choosing one way over the other. People get on pc friends give them settings. They copy pasta some pro, or they wing it. Do good in the areas their settings shine in then end up playing playstyles that revolve those settings. Anybody outside of those setting ranges simply don't even make it pro. Hence the people stuck in Low rank forever (if its mechanical issue)
Mechanical ceiling imo is predicting lot of moves of your opponent. If u always focus for your own moves u never unlock that potential. (Dont mean wave managment skill). Wave managment is something u can learn even from videos or vods. Predicting is just countless lost lanes not knowing your limits and taking trades n notes until u get there. Back in season IV or V we had with friend betting game where we tried to predict next plays at worlds or in some esport games and ngl we got most of them.
you cant learn wave management from videos mechanics is a broad term that is actually several different skills all at once that we call mechanics /micro ,aside from anticipating the enemy
LS u asked us this before of how to make clips channel more popular. The problem is people don't know this is ur channel. Look at how u frame the video "LS on mechanical....." The "LS on" part makes it seem like it's another person uploading what u said during a live stream or some such. Leave out the "LS on" part and make it "My thoughts on mechanical...." Or just make it a statement being "The state of league comp with mechanical improvement and stagnation". Other wise it just looks like it's someone else uploading your content which isent as popular.
You would have to play more mechanical champions though even if you think you suck mechanicly and then go from Garen to Fiora your mechanics show more on Fiora.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I don't feel like it's talked about enough but I really do think anticipation is also part of what makes that ceiling when it comes to mechanical play for a player because being able to mechanically perform only gets you so far in exchanges between different characters but being able to do that while simultaneously anticipating your opponents move is what puts them a clear cut above
I think that is actually included in what is meant by mechanical ability. It doesn't matter how fast/precise they click if they don't know where to click. Just watch Berserker...every skill shot just misses, while he's still putting out damage.
i mean that's still mechanic lol. 80-90% of insane outplay mechanically are only possible because the players anticipated what's happening and not pure reaction.
Yeah, and that's what Theshy said in a interview years before. He doesn't consider himself good mechanically, but he can anticipate what his opponent will do in his next move
I like the inputs from the cat, very informative!
Why is he talking to a cat
I mean why not. U get informative content with a side cute cat that has a demon trapped inside it plotting on world domination and destruction
I see it as a win-win combo
everyone knows that cats are supreme and have infinite knowledge, we just need to talk to them and only LS has gone that far down the road
Its not just a cat. Deep down inside its a cat with severe financial debt
Cats know way more than people
@@fiorane that cat goes homeless everyweek, please HELP HIM!!!!
People place way too much value on reaction speed. It's extremely rare that a millisecond reaction speed is the difference between a kill.
More often than not what we perceive to be slow reactions is just a player not anticipating the skillshot, not an inability to react in time.
reaction speed is way more important in fps games than in something like league, dont know why people would care so much about it in league
@@topiastuomisto yea considering the fact u dodge skillshots predictively rather than reactively it makes reaction time even more useless. Now a thing like malphite ult any normal human should be easily able to flash and probably in mid to close range too but u'd probably need a good monitor etc. for it.
This is a concept that is widely known in fighting games, which confused me so much when realizing league players don't know about it. It's referred to as "mental stack" if anyone wants to look it up.
@@Vladivoz even then most of the time if you wanna flash a malph r you have to be expecting it
@@topiastuomisto actually its not that important even in fps games. there is 1/1000 situation where pure reaction time affects the situation even in csgo. your "reaction time" is affected by so many other factors that your genetic ability is irrelevant.
I absolutely LOVE this conversation! It is a direct parallel to something discussed in my field all the time.
I'm a music teacher and people always talk about a musician's natural talent or affinity for musical elements vs their work ethic or environment they are placed in. Nature vs nurture. I honestly think it takes both to be truly spectacular, but the argument becomes what is the ratio of natural talent to work ethic. 30-70? 50-50? 90-10? All a matter of perspective.
In regards to league pros, work ethic/environment is the most that can be controlled, but they must have a natural affinity to gaming to be the best. If Chovy, Fudge, and Darshan all were in the same environment for a year who's mechanics would come out on top? My guess is Chovy, then Fudge, then Darshan. Why? I think it goes back to how their brains developed in adolescence and how they were playing games while their brains were more malleable. Sort of like learning another language, it is easier to learn at a very early age rather than in your teens because of your brain's state.
It's hard to judge, but I think there is also a level of natural talent that comes with it as well. For example, I have 11 year old students who have amazing pitch recognition and tempo control with little to no musical training and I have 22 year old student who cannot compete with them while working at it each day for 10 years. So of course, the student who is 11 has a skill higher ceiling than that of the 22 year old correct? Given an infinite amount of time the 22 year old can catch up sure, but in the same environment, no way.
TL;DR - fun conversation, I think it takes the player with the most raw talent to grow up and practice with the most optimal practice regiment to hit the ceiling and everyone has a different ceiling.
I could listen to these kind of topics for hours!
I'm from a Broodwar background like LS. It always puts a smile on my face whenever a legend like Bisu is mentioned.
Thanks for these uploads!
I miss jaedong ):
facecheck! there are some nice episodes where they dwell deeply into nische topics, you just have to get through some of the sleeper lcs segments
I still watch broodwar replays XD I never even played ladder LOL Love me some jaedong, flash, and bisu sets
Intent vs Autopilot
Environment (skill level of who you're up against)
Passion/Desire
In love with the process, not just the result
Accepting that it'll be fucking boring and shitty to practice this way. But understanding the value of the end result.
This is pretty much it. Also: repetition, i.e. training. This you do not get in league as you do in traditional sports. Say, in basketball, you would repeat a drill or a situation and adjust your performance variables by the result. In league on the other hand the result is affected by so many variables that i tentional feedback loop based practice is very difficult.
This is a really interesting topic if you get the top osu players throughout the years. Ever since the release of osu the top players have been clearing maps and setting scores that would have been unthinkable. Take rrtyui's SS on The Big Black in 2012, people previously thought this map was impossible to clear with a perfect score, yet rrtyui showed it was possible. Nowadays top players are topping his score with ease by getting near perfect plays with double mods. It seems like the mechanical skill ceiling of the top players keeps rising that no one knows at what point it actually is not humanly physically possible to clear certain maps. So is there a mechanical skill ceiling at all? Maybe, but with time the skill ceiling might rise.
The Hans Sama shots lol
It probably comes down to self discipline and being obsessed with improvement over anything else. Many people like to improve, pros have to improve, the best are obsessed with it. There are some people though who can seemingly subconsciously recognize and fix problems in their own gameplay way more effectively than others. That's where having a ton of knowledge about the game comes in handy as they know when something was good or bad when it happens regardless of the outcome in the short term.
it's the mentality of playing for fun vs. playing to improve. since it's not enjoyable for everyone to improve, most prefer to play a game to have fun but then rage/feel bad when someone outskills them. if you're only trying to improve, you wouldn't let your emotions interrupt your learning process. at least that's the typical thing to find in league
I used to think that it was sort of like 'talent' - As in every player has a certain innate level of 'mechanical skill' that isn't really influenced by practice, things like reaction-timing, stress resilience, attention span, etc, which kind of defined your mechanical skill ceiling in a sense.
Recently I've reconsidered. I think that if you undergo a massive neurological change it is possible to raise this a bit. For example struggling with Addiction, Personality Disorders, Anxiety, Depression, PTSD. ADHD, etc -> getting therapy/medication/counseling/etc -> resulting in a fundamentally higher potential skill ceiling.
I think it would be dope to see an actual study of how this works if a valid experiment/study is ever proposed.
So I am curious, has LS watched veritasium’s video on how to be an expert? Its super interesting, and when you listen to him you will find the one thing LoL does not have repeatable situations past early game. You might get similar situations, but the best way to improve is to repeat a situation and do it over and over until you get it right.
The reason why teams keep doing herald fights is that they dont get to replay that game to the exact same point and see how you dont need it to win. Same with items, you dont get to see how much better one item would be compared to another in those same scenarios.
I think this is a big reason for stagnation. You rarely get to try something different, so you stick to what you know.
This so much. Another thing which discusses similar viewpoint is the book Art of Learning (chess gm and tai chi black belt). Getting exceptional has (almost) nothing to do with your sphysical boundaries but all to do with the methodology and process you excert to getting better. In league the process of getting better seems very genetic based is because intentional practice is very difficult and narrow. Thus the players who for some reason have some edge in their viewpoint to how the game is played (by luck or by their personality or gaming history or whatever) excel as if they have natural talent, and players that view the game differently from the beginning do not. It is very hard to try new ways to approach the game from new perspective and so it appears as natural talen, even though it isn't. A solution to this would be programmed game scenarios and drills which you could try new approaches and viewpoints and perfect your mechanics in and you would manage to shape your play style according to the results rather than your percieved view of the imagined results - of which you have no actual data on.
@@AsirIset I actually had that very discussion with a friend a few days ago. I was talking about how League's training tool could and should be a massive help to lower mmr players by enabling drills/scenarii to be played within the mode. You could get a wave management drill where depending on how you treat the wave you could end up with a freeze, or a slow push ect... and if you don't get the end result you wished for you could just reset and do it again. It could be done with different minions numbers, with different hp bars, and you could experiment with as many different situations from the same base scenario. In comparison to training in Fighting games or even Rocket League it would be very limited, of course, as League is fundamentaly very different in the way it plays and the room for human decisions (items, pathing, decision making), but it would still have some value in my opinion, as it could at least help with developping solid fundamentals.
@@BIuffs Hard agree! Theoretically there could be more difficult scenarios with more variables for very good players (or performed by real players in a team settings), but this would of course be difficult and would require extensive support from Riot. Practice tools in most esports is very underutilized, due to the extensive developement time it would require.
I can confirm that autopiloting is a huge part of stagnation. As well as keeping up the passion for growth. I personally felt this a good amount being the NA nidalee top mentioned in this video, sometimes when busy with School/Work I'm just trying to vibe and autopilot. You want to climb because of the goal of "I should get this because it will be good for streaming/monetization etc" but the passion has low points where you are just going through the motions and heavily burnt out. Also league can easily be a coping mechanism from irl shit. You had a bad day or family emergencies, play league to get your mind off it while there is nothing you can do.
There are definitely high points where I feel my mechanics being way better and playing for growth is fun/enjoyable but definite moments of low passion or just not feeling it while work ethic doesn't justify the down time. I "should" be playing more if I want it etc. Mental health is important.
How good you will be in any sport or esport is a combination of genetics and environmental factors.
I think people need to have space from the game in order to improve. It's hard to stay motivated in a constant grind workplace, same as anyone else. It can also help with a change of perspective and enable clearer thinking.
I disagree, having space from the game hinders your improvement more. You just have to fall in love with the process of improvement and not fall into the trap of auto-piloting.
@@CapeSkill The best process of improvement involves breaks and proper space from the subject. Your brain may not be a muscle, but it still has barriers you can't break. In fact overworking will often cause you to lose progress and worsen the overall improvement process.
So far in neuroscience, we have seen different optimal levels and schedule of study/practice per individual. Because of this large individuality in efficiency, it is extremely important to individualise the training regimen to fit the individual. That's how you garner as much growth as possible and establish solid foundations.
Memory consolidation is insanely important, overworking will fuck with this process. You can have two people who have the same potential in their natural ability, but get two completely different outcomes when assuming the exact same process will work for both individuals.
eSports players also underestimate the value of body coordination practice through exercise or even things like piano. Ingame mechanics is essentially body awareness and coordination, these things are trained at much higher speed and effiency when doing exercises like swimming, qigong/yoga, resistance band training and using a pilates ball for overall spine control and awareness. These helps prevent injuries, corrects posture and trains fullbody -- including arms/hands -- coordination. You don't even have to play piano for the musical portion, you can literally do things like daily hanon exercises etc. It's just the act of being forced to be aware of the position and movement of your spine, shoulders, elbows, hands, wrists, fingers, piano unironically has some great passive training for esports players.
Space from the game means sacrificing maybe 1 to 1,5h a day for other activities. These activities will actually have massive positive impact on said gaming capabilities, especially in the skill department. It's not magic bullshittery, it's just regular science. Dancers actually have a tendency to be able to pick up difficult games more easily, even if they're not used to playing games, just off the fact that they train this body awareness so much.
@@NomSauce ''the best process of improvement involves breaks and proper space from the subject'' yeah my ass is a better process of improvement than the non-sense bullshit you're spewing. There is a reason why LCK and LPL will always be ahead of the west. Simply put. More games and more time spent on the game. Nothing else.
@@NomSauce we can look at all of the stuff you just said or look at the actual evidence we have in front of us. Eastern teams practice a lot more and are better. If we simply look at who is better at the game, the teams who practice more will almost always just be better. If burnout and other problems related to playing too much were actually making players worse then western teams would be better. There have been some occasions of Eastern teams unexpectedly choking as the heavy favorites, which could be related to playing too much but in the end, more practice leads to better play.
The Hans Sama dig was too good
5:39 the hans diss KEKW
12:25 is a good point
I think that mechanical skill in any game can be trained to the highest levels right now (unless you have some sort of disability or something), esports is still pretty new compared to real sports so I really dont think that most players in any game have reached their mechanical peak. One problem with training mechanics in league specifically is that outside of early game, there isnt really a lot of good chances to try and improve mechanics. Just because of how the game works you aren't fighting all the time, there aren't teamfights all the time, etc. If there was a way to constantly play a teamfight over and over again or play the early laning over again and people grinded that for a long time I think they would eventually have super good mechanics, better than most pros right now.
Now when you look at fps games for example, you usually have training maps, there are aim trainers like kovaaks, deathmatch and all these other things to improve your mechanical skill in the game and there are a lot of examples in the fps community of people grinding these ways to improve mechanical skill and just getting absolutely insane eventually.
I think genetics also plays a part of course but mostly what matters for improving mechanics in a game is just how you train, how dedicated you are, how healthy you are, and maybe your mental state.
Awesome session. Thanks for uploading.
5:39 im dead
5:38 COME ON DUDE XD
10:40 one player who i can think of would be smeb, when he was on incredible miracle he was fucking garbage, and then from the moment he was on rox tigers onward one of the best tops in the world
so glad i can put a voice to that goofy cat guy on twitter, thanks
League is a game of strategy as well as mechanics. If you can memorize an entire chess game move by move you will do well. You need to be able to anticipate 5 abilities and 2 summoner spells and how fights will play out.
How do I drill mechanics in practice tool? Are there any in game drills I can do in norms?
If you play 2/3 games a day min, you'll reach a reasonable point close to your mechanical ceiling. Then focus on everything else.
Thanks to this video I've learned about human benchmark
I have now confirmed that I have below average reaction time and aim. Glad I didn't quit school to play CSGO
Speaking from a pro WoW side, so a bit scuffed in comparison to something like SC(2)/League/FPS games but....
Reaction speed doesn't necessarily matter. Can it absolutely impact the game? Sure. Like if I'm playing soloq and I'm really on point and playing super tryhard, I will react to things that actually can impact kills or not, but the process of that happening isn't going to be gamebreaking/changing or swing a game into a win by it. Whereas predictions matter WAY more;
In WoW, there's a degree of you reacting to something that can impact the game. E.g. a monk can pre port the shadowstep kidney from a rogue and just completely screw them over, but you could also just preport the shadowstep entirely to avoid it completely or put yourself into a spot where that shadowstep can never even happen. The first is your reaction, the second is your awareness, and the third is your game knowledge. Understanding what's happening, and can happen has way more impact than your mechanical skill. The reaction will obviously be super important, but if you don't ever need to be in a position to react to something, you'll be much stronger all together.
In League, you can avoid ever having to react to things just by good game sense and awareness in general. If you know that a jayce Q+E is going to be up in 6 seconds, you don't set yourself up to be in a spot where he can hit that in 6 seconds and kill you. If that means saccing a wave, you sac the wave. It doesn't matter how insane your reactions are, or how mechanically insane you are, if you aren't capable of avoiding the situations that are avoidable all together, because the other player is also having to do things that impact their lane through the game knowledge. People have such insane egos with League that they think they can just outplay these things instead of just playing a little patient and trading small losses for massive losses. It doesn't matter how insane you are mechanically if you are consistently falling behind because you want to ego someone and think your mechanics can carry you, ESPECIALLY when you reach the higher echelons of players.
Warrior mass spell reflecting mage poly, i agree, reaction-awareness-game knowledge is the trinity you need to be a good player
@@turbo6328 Yep, your understanding of the environment and how to respond to it is infinitely more useful than if you can respond to something fast. Both help, but one is substantially more important.
To compound on this, fighting games is another genre where its misunderstood that you need really good reaction and combo execution, but at the end of the day, it comes down to whoever gets the read on their opponent first and being able to convert their combo routing based on the move they hit confirmed with
I'm late, but I disagree. You can try to avoid situations where you have to react quickly, but then you are locking yourself out of options you would have if you could trust your reaction to be fast. Thus, you will be in situations where other players with better reaction times will force you to have to play safe and give up resources
@@geroni211 You don't lock yourself out of any options by lack of trust. You do not suddenly lose any sense of reaction just because you chose to avoid a situation that requires the enemy to misplay, but also you to play at an inhuman level to win.
Reaction plays a massive role in predicting an obvious thing, or in better terms, being AWARE of what's happening. Yeah, if you need to dodge a jayce EQ that would kill you, you need to react, but you can also predict WHEN to react by being aware that his EQ will be up in 4 seconds through game knowledge and general awareness.
In WoW, I never relied entirely on my reactions to avoid dying at the apex of the arena, I would set myself up to be able to respond quickly through knowing that I have x time before I have to respond. By finding that window, I can prepare myself to avoid the situation entirely by not FORCING myself to have to respond at a ridiculous level. Does that suddenly mean I can't respond to it? No. I still have that skill in my arsenal, but I don't have to rely solely on it.
Edit: There's a reason LS gets annoyed when costreaming with pro players dying to stupid situations. Yeah, mechanically you might have won that if you reacted right, but why be in the situation that requires everything to go right for you and everything wrong for them when you could've just read the situation and not stepped into it.
5:39 Damn! He didn't need to do Hans like that. 😂😂😂
When was this stream live?
I agree. We all saw fudge on lee sin at msi last year and that was a fucking site to behold. even against the eastern teams
That cat knows whats up.
Zion spartan too good😂
I feel like ls is less toxic than he used to be. Good to see.
Mechanics are like technique in sports. It is an inherent attribute that simply determines how easy it is for you to do the difficult things. There's many examples of players with high mechanics who are still vulnerable or not as good in other areas. The mechanical celing of a player doesn't exist in my opinion because mechanics aren't limited to age. They are limited to time and what exactly you work on as a player. A lot of high elo players achieve high elo with just good mechanics and so when they get there they start to work on other aspects to climb. What you don't realise is that going from the 90th percentile in technique to the 99th percentile is a very difficult thing to do rather than getting better at generally everything else. LS's example of spending hours playing the first few minutes of a top lane 2v2 or even the first few minutes of a draft on repeat is an exceptional example of how much it would take to improve one's mechanics. It's simple repetition with the goals of both sides known and with outplay potential played to the nearest HP. Think of it like a Point guard and Small Forward playing 2v2s in pickup basketball. There's enough space for the PG to dribble, shoot and basically excel their pick n roll but not so much space that the player can just rely on his preferred moves. There is a lot to be learned from playing out specific scenarios in league, instead of wasting time playing a 35 min game that was over at 5-10min. Even if something disatrous didn't happen in the early game, watching vods after the fact and pointing out that we fuucked up a drake fight doesn't help if we can't as a team immediately redo that moment.
Real life teams can playout scenarios in basketball, football even motorsport. Instead teams are content with just playing games and rewatching vods, then sleeping on it and playing the scirms the next day with all the conversations from yesterday forgotten.
TLDR; you can improve mechanics to the absolute limit but there are some people who just have better mechanics due to genetics or whatever they did before they played league or what they do in their spare time like being professional typers or some shit. If you were to spend every waking day practicising them then you would likely be as mechanically talented as many eastern players. The unfortunate truth is that for a 1% increase in mechanics you'd spend a lot of time doing the same thing when you would generally improve more doing something else like learning to build like a sentient human being or wave management or comms etc.
10:25 doinb is a case
I genuinely have awful mechanics in every game I play. It's legit like I have 200ms between my brain and my hands and it makes me sad.
Is it necessary to at some point play mechanically intensive champions to improve mechanics?
I would say not necessarily because you can work on your raw mechanics with any champion, even outside of LoL. What I consider raw mechanics are: mouse speed, mouse accuracy, clicking speed (primarily mouse but also keyboard). Skillshots and dodging are mostly anticipation, game knowledge and reading your opponent. But mechanically intensive champions will show your mechanical skill since it is required for someone like KogMaw or Ashe to be very good at raw mechanics to kite properly, dodge, not miss autos, etc.
What even is Fakers reaction time? whats the average reaction timee of LCK players? Please site with a bit of source if possible.
What about individuals like Zeus
Bro, my name is Robert and Im from NA, why am I getting flamed?
Bro they said you'd be the best player for 8 years, I'd take that
The cat is spitting facts 🤔
I havent played ranked in like 4 years since my first ban. And i didnt miss that shit.
LS' voice chat buddy suggesting pros do extensive in houses 😆I can't.
Also, top performers aren't usually faster at reacting. They are usually better at identifying when certain things are about to happen in the game.
LS AKA Loves Starcraft
As someone who's coached in multiple games and platforms (professionally) its all settings. "Darshan" with better settings would be better than fudge/summit mechanically in a week give or take. Its just annoying to learn so nobody does it. Reaction time will never beat awareness as well. Which means focusing on learning / knowledge is a net positive over improving ones reaction time. (for comp players)
wtf r u talking about? Do u think Darshan hasnt thought about changing his keybinds for optimal speed? oh yeah yup darshan just change ur level up keys to zxcv so u can play on the edge of levels, oh shit bro ur better than fudge and summit now yup. Yeah darshan yup just change ur mouse dpi to this and ull be more precise and better than fudge and summit. 😂😂😂😂😂😂 who is paying u to coach them. settings are preference and dont determine ur ceiling.
1. I highly doubt he has an optimal mouse and keyboard setup. Most pros in every esport i've ever been apart of have sub optimal. So why would i give him the benefit of the doubt 🤷♂
2. For keybinds i again doubt he uses optimal settings. This wouldn't really change anything however assuming he can accurately hit his keys. My thought process instantly is if SC2 pros dont have optimal settings. Why would any league player have it. 😅😅
3. These things i'd guess wouldn't make him better than Fudge/sum. But they would nudge him closer. Its hard to range how much it would help. If hes using terrible stuff. Its possible hes instantly mechanically better. Most likely it would just make him better as a player. But still > Fduge/sum
4. He for sure doesn't have optimal dpi settings. Or sens, or anything in that realm of things. I doubt there's a single player in league that does. Since that's an incredibly complex topic. He 100% could improve in this area, i'd guess every player could.
5. Nobody is paying me to coach right now. And I haven't coached a team mmm since like 2017/18 or something like that. That was for Quake Champs. I prefer playing / individually coaching. Most people that make it high in any scene are crazy and or just don't care to listen or improve. So being a head coach is more like being a cheerleader.
6. For anyone whos in the top 1% in their respected game. Settings 100% determine ur mechanically ceiling. But again Awareness > mechanics so its a matter of how much time investment will it take to get answers in certain areas. Since each individual area is vast before any progress would be gained ( if nobody gave you the answers ) It wouldnt be worth most players time to invest in such a thing. Since they would most likely just run into dead ends.
7. To make the claim that he has optimal setup currently and its his " brain " that keeps him from being able to click a keys which keeps him behind is the farthest thing from the truth.
8. People pick a game up. Dont change much. Then just play. Some people by default will have good / closer to optimal settings while others wont.
I'll give a csgo example since most people kinda know this game. If a player has a 80cm 360 they magically wont play the role of entry frag. But everyone will praise them for having a "good" deagle. While the opposite being true as well. The entry fragger whos on 25cm 360 wont magically play a role like Scope. From my experience this isnt people choosing one way over the other. People get on pc friends give them settings. They copy pasta some pro, or they wing it. Do good in the areas their settings shine in then end up playing playstyles that revolve those settings. Anybody outside of those setting ranges simply don't even make it pro. Hence the people stuck in Low rank forever (if its mechanical issue)
i guess mental health, eating habits and sleep schedule plays a big part
Mechanical ceiling imo is predicting lot of moves of your opponent. If u always focus for your own moves u never unlock that potential. (Dont mean wave managment skill). Wave managment is something u can learn even from videos or vods. Predicting is just countless lost lanes not knowing your limits and taking trades n notes until u get there.
Back in season IV or V we had with friend betting game where we tried to predict next plays at worlds or in some esport games and ngl we got most of them.
you cant learn wave management from videos
mechanics is a broad term that is actually several different skills all at once that we call mechanics /micro ,aside from anticipating the enemy
LS u asked us this before of how to make clips channel more popular. The problem is people don't know this is ur channel. Look at how u frame the video "LS on mechanical....." The "LS on" part makes it seem like it's another person uploading what u said during a live stream or some such. Leave out the "LS on" part and make it "My thoughts on mechanical...." Or just make it a statement being "The state of league comp with mechanical improvement and stagnation". Other wise it just looks like it's someone else uploading your content which isent as popular.
You would have to play more mechanical champions though even if you think you suck mechanicly and then go from Garen to Fiora your mechanics show more on Fiora.
Liked for Cat
ppl overyhype reaction time. yes, it is important. but at the top tier is totally meaningless. it is all about anticipation and knowing limits
theres videos of mew2king playing like an absolute noob years years years ago
Well lets not forget the game is evolving too and most of the mechanics and cheese are old now
I hate people that butt in an talk over others. Just wait your turn.
the cat needs to stop interrupting ls when he talks
Since when cats actually talk ?
Didn't know he talks to upset, doea he talk to other fnc players?
I never claimed to play cause I’m good
@Forestwithout
learn to listen and stop interrupting people
40 years old and got better mechanics than all those tryharding zoomers. They didnt play stacraft !! Remember XDS Grrrr..... ??
Honestly the only hope for Western fans is to find a way to fix ping so that there is only one server. Not gonna happen but would be interesting.
that is physically impossible
First
Could Forest please not try to talk over Ls at every given point... so annoying
My Name is Robert😢😢😭
@LS Highlights & Clips
idk how to @ ff
ratirl high challenger into hardstuck masters. bausffs hardstuck