Posted on 31 July 2016 - 11:16 PM

Over the last few months I've slowly come to the conclusion that it's impossible to tell who the best MC player is (with how things are right now, at least). I came to this conclusion from watching many potion pvp videos, specifically videos by Stimpy, Verzide, Kevstah, Drummerreviews, etc. When these Potion PvP Youtubers make 1v1 videos, the videos tend to be edited down to show only parts of the fight. Sometimes they are even edited to only show combos, or the players only pick one 1v1 to upload. Another trend in 1v1 videos is to upload a specific amount of wins/losses from either side.

For example, my friend DeltaDragon222 explained that for an upcoming video, he would be uploading 1 win and 1 loss against his opponent, even though they fought many times, and he won more. I looked at some old videos, and this seemed to be a trend. I was extremely confused by this, because that kind of video doesn't show who the better player is, it paints the narrative that both players are even. It only shows a small sample of how the 1v1s actually turned out. It gets even worse for Rape Series videos, which would have you think that one player is vastly superior to another, despite what might happen in the average fight. This idea applies to all ladders and gamemodes. This whole 1v1 video situation got me thinking about who the best players are.

What I realized is, we base who we think the best players are, from a limited number of fights selected by the players themselves. Everything we see in an average 1v1 video is what the player wants us to see. Sure, Stimpy, Verzide, Drummer, Grimmjow, etc are probably the best potion players, but we can't know for sure because of the fucked politics of 1v1 videos. You could say the same for any ladder. How do we know for sure that Danteh is the best Build player? Sure, it's the safest guess based on what we know, but we could find out to a more precise degree. Beyond that, think of how many solid pvpers there are that aren't considered gods, but just good overall. How do we rank them in order?

Your answer might be to use the leaderboards to determine who the best players are, but I disagree. The Badlion Leaderboards are set up to show consistency more so than maximum skill, even with the new ranked system. Don't get me wrong, it's not that the Badlion leaderboards don't rank players from good to bad with decent accuracy, it's just that any system that allows 1 player to play more than another, will show more consistency than maximum skill cap. Especially when you consider that some extremely skilled players don't play much ranked because they don't enjoy grinding out a rating.

However, it seems like Badlion is trying to slowly run more and more tournaments, especially with their recent partnership with ESL. What I would personally like to see is regular tournaments (Maybe every 1-2 weeks?) for various ladders. This way we could tell who the best players are to a more precise degree.

It's annoying to see people try to discuss who the best players are without any kind of proof, and running regular tournaments for 1v1s would solve this issue to an extent. Not only will we see who the best players are, but we will be able to base it entirely on maximum skill, along with consistency. It seems like Badlion is planning on bringing this to fruition, which gives me high hopes for the future, what do you guys think?

Last edited on 31 July 2016 - 11:35 PM by DeltaDragon222

I agree as long as those tournaments are run well, good post friendo

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 12:14 AM

i agree i like minecraft pvp

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 12:15 AM

yeye

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 12:15 AM

Automatically Deleted

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 12:25 AM

This post is great! Hopefully tournaments do become a frequent activity for this community to take part in!

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 01:09 AM

if you want something interesting to think about, look at the possible matchups you can have between players and see what is the hypothetical highest amount of players someone can beat – you'll get stuck because you don't have enough data
and of scenarios like a beats b, b beats c, a can't beat c; you'll see this sort of stuff everywhere and it makes it practially impossible to determine a best player

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 04:03 PM

I like to look at things more bluntly than others, so forgive me if you find this obnoxious.

I mean, just by watching people play, stimpy, verzide, grimmjow, they're obviously close in skill range, but at the end of the day, you don't need deadly accurate rating systems to determine who's the best. just watch each and every one of them and you'll know who is supreme

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 04:20 PM

If we had tournaments we could more easily watch them fight each other, and we could rank lower players too, not just the best.

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 05:54 PM

also a way u could possibly tell if a player is better than b player is if a player wins by idk mayb 1pot 3hearts and b player wins by 4pots 7 hearts, then b player is obviously better because if they upload 1 win 1 loss then that must have been player a's best game and player b's best game.

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 09:01 PM

Not necessarily, player A could have easily been not playing their best that day. Of course, player B is probably better than player A in your scenario, but we can't know for sure until there's a larger number of fights over a larger period of time. A tournament setting is more accurate and more entertaining, and provides more fights. If you run many tournaments over time, you can then truly see who is better, Player A or Player B.

Posted on 01 August 2016 - 11:48 PM

it was like this for Kevstah drummer and stimpy.
Stimpy beats Drummer
Drummer beats Kevstah
Stimpy couldn't beat Kevstah

Used to be like that but now I'm pretty sure Stimpy and drummer are both better than Kev.

Last edited on 02 August 2016 - 03:20 AM by trevorhk

Honestly, there is never "the best". This title is just a tag that people use to describe those who they think are "the best". This title is always opinionated. Even using statistics, you still wouldn't be able to prove that one player that no one can defeat. Everyone's imperfect for one reason or another. There is no such thing as "the best", only better.

Posted on 02 August 2016 - 05:30 PM

I don't get what you mean by "you still wouldn't be able to prove that one player that no one can defeat". Of course nobody is invincible, the "best" (by my definition) is the player that gets defeated the least on average, and has the least flaws. There's always a best player, it's just extremely difficult to see which player that is without months/years of results. People will always have differences in opinion, but there is always a best player, whether you know it or not.

I also don't understand what you mean by "There is no such thing as "the best" only better." By that logic, couldn't there be someone that is "better" than everyone else?

Posted on 02 August 2016 - 06:29 PM

Sure with years of research and tests you may be able to prove who is least flawed. But there are countless other factors involved in determining who to label such a person as "the best". Factors like type of computer they use, frames, type of peripheral they use and much more. There's just so many (maybe even too many) uncontrollable factors involved when trying to search for such an answer, unless you put everybody in the exact same settings, you can't pinpoint precisely who's "the best". What I'm trying to say here is that since the method you use to determine who "the best" is will never be perfect/have flaws, there will never be such a thing as "the best".

"couldn't there be someone that is "better" than everyone else" Using logic, if we say that someone is better than everyone else, we assume that they are the best, correct? While that may be true, there has to be a certain point when we realize that there's no such thing as boundaries. That's what I mean by there is no best, only better. Take technology for example. Technology will only get better. Assuming humans won't become extinct in the near future, humanity will only further it's development into more evolved technology. The point here is that as time progresses, "the best" would be surpassed. Danteh may be the (so called) best PvPer now but who knows, with time, someone else might come along and defeat him.

Here's another example if you still don't understand: Imagine you were to start counting from 1 by 1s every 5 seconds for the rest of your (assuming you never died). You will never stop counting since there will always be a number that's better than another. Sure you might say that we have a number that's higher than all others or "the best" aka infinity but can we really define infinity as a number? How bout infinity + 1? Again, with time, there will never be "the best". Only better.

The counterargument here is to say that we should use "the best" as a tag that defines who's the least flawed in this measurement of time (day, week, month etc). That we can temporarily identify who's "the best". While that may work, my first paragraph pretty much sums up why this wouldn't work.

Hope that helps clear things up and I'm sorry if the number example confused the shit out of you.

Posted on 02 August 2016 - 06:48 PM

eh it's danteh tbh

Last edited on 02 August 2016 - 06:51 PM by RivoWayv

The reason why being called " The best " is not accurate is because it is only based on the players that make videos. Their are players out there that might completely destroy all of the super good youtube pvpers but they are not known because they don't make vids.

Posted on 02 August 2016 - 09:24 PM

My definition of "the best" aligns with your second to last paragraph, however I still disagree with your first paragraph.

In regards to your first paragraph, I disagree with taking peripherals and other uncontrollable variables into account. Sure, it sucks to have some uncontrollable variable make you worse, but it's stupid to spend time dwelling on how good someone could be imo. When determining who the best player is for the time being, I only pay attention to the facts I have at hand. Sure, someone could be hypothetically better, but it's hypothetical, not fact.

When I decide who the best player is from tournaments, I'm deciding within the context of a tournament. If someone wins a tournament, they might not even be the most raw talented person in the tournament (mechanically), but they were the best within the context of that specific tournament. They edged out the competition somehow. If they do this repeatedly over and over again, I consider them the best until someone can beat them consistently in a tournament.

Posted on 02 August 2016 - 09:37 PM

I thought this thread was about who's the best player overall, not who's the best at winning tournaments…

Posted on 02 August 2016 - 09:55 PM

Do tournaments not show overall skill?