I played StarCraft 2 (SC2). I reached Master 3, and my MMR at the time was top 3% globally.
I wouldn't say I was that good. My foundational skills were decent, but not amazing and I did poorly against cheese or in extreme late-game situations. My micro in large scale battles also sucked.
A lot of people in the community would say that Master is where the game starts, and in some ways that's very true.
This:
> Anyone in the top 5% is definitely that good, executing complex strategies with extreme precision
Is more like GM in SC2. In Master players can usually execute 90-95% perfectly if left alone, but that quickly falls apart if you have to multitask. Probably closer to 70-80% at best in real games, if that.
Also, almost everyone is copying strategies not doing anything particularly complicated. It's hard enough to just play the damn game with a simple strategy, no point in making it harder.
I think this is basically true when looking at most skillsets. 95%ile is a grind, but it's mostly one of error reduction and vocabulary building. Most people can build vocabulary just fine given time and attention, but observing and correcting errors is much harder.
When a game is just outright complex like SC2 in its decision making(hundreds of units and structures that could be individually commanded), all the skills needed to reach 95%ile boil down to rote technique: "good builds", "meta strats", etc. This is where most video games sit, since this kind of overt complexity is something you can learn in little nibbles: A is more powerful than B in situation X.
In comparison, games like pinball have relatively little going on in their vocabulary: there are plenty of techniques and rulesets, but much of the good strategy boils down to "hit accurately" and "recover successfully", and those are entirely sources of error, reduced only through many hours of play to find methods of hitting and recovering with good expected value and low risk - sweet spots on a playfield and a deep understanding of the physics to enable combo setups. If you have accuracy, you need only have a small layer of rules and shots knowledge to smoke tournaments. With little to consciously memorize to overcome the skill gap, casual players conclude that pinball is "just random".
I wouldn't say I was that good. My foundational skills were decent, but not amazing and I did poorly against cheese or in extreme late-game situations. My micro in large scale battles also sucked.
A lot of people in the community would say that Master is where the game starts, and in some ways that's very true.
This:
> Anyone in the top 5% is definitely that good, executing complex strategies with extreme precision
Is more like GM in SC2. In Master players can usually execute 90-95% perfectly if left alone, but that quickly falls apart if you have to multitask. Probably closer to 70-80% at best in real games, if that.
Also, almost everyone is copying strategies not doing anything particularly complicated. It's hard enough to just play the damn game with a simple strategy, no point in making it harder.