I just listened to the interview with Titandrake.... thanks for doing that, was fun to listen to.
There is just one point he made that I disagree with so strongly I wanted to respond. He claims we all used to be pretty bad at dominion and now we're all pretty good.
While I agree with the first part, I disagree with the second. Basically I think we all still suck at Dominion.
Seriously, if Dominion still gets played 5 years from now I think the top players from that time will look at some videos made now and have a good laugh. They are doing.... WHAT?
I generally agree, just wanted to clarify what I meant.
- On an absolute level, people are playing better. Better engine building, better big money play.
- On a relative level, the high level strategies people go for converge more than they used to. (Or, maybe I'm misremembering what Iso was like.) A lot more skill differentiation has moved into tactical play and execution.
- So, from the perspective of an outsider it often looks like both players are doing the same thing, but there's a lot more going on than it seems. The gaps are just as wide as they've always been. Minor mistakes a year ago are major mistakes today.
- The community definitely hasn't hit the skill ceiling yet. I think it's all a matter of perspective. I compare people based on how close their play is to the best play we know of (how people topping the leaderboard play.) When I say people are getting better, I mean it absolutely, as if there's a stick in the ground labeled "Dominion skill level". People are climbing it, but the important part is that everybody is climbing it at the same time. From that perspective, it doesn't matter that the stick reaches stratosphere and we're all only 1000 ft up.
We're all bad at Dominion. Occasionally, some of us play less bad than others, and I suppose that's how I got here.