<story><title>95%-ile isn&apos;t that good (2020)</title><url>https://danluu.com/p95-skill/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xigency</author><text>Admittedly, I only skimmed this. But within the space of video games, I’m not sure Overwatch is a stunning example since it’s generally a casual game.&lt;p&gt;I’ve been playing various iterations of Counter-Strike and StarCraft for decades. Sometimes with deliberate practice, including reading strategies, playing custom maps to practice certain skills, and watching series aimed at improving level of play. And despite the hundreds of hours invested I don’t believe I’ve ever cracked the top 50% in any leaderboard rankings.&lt;p&gt;Anyone in the top 5% is definitely &lt;i&gt;that good&lt;/i&gt;, executing complex strategies with extreme precision.&lt;p&gt;There are lots of areas in life that are highly competitive — where being the best takes raw talent, a huge time investment, and a bit of luck. I wouldn’t try to diminish that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xboxnolifes</author><text>In every competitive game I&amp;#x27;ve ever played (Overwatch, CSGO, LoL, TFT, Rocket League), the top 5% definitely wasn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;that good&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;In my mind, the top 20% are people who actually play. If you are stuck anywhere below that, you aren&amp;#x27;t even trying to improve. If a leaderboard says you haven&amp;#x27;t even cracked top 50%, then that leaderboard is definitely cutting players that don&amp;#x27;t play much from the bottom of that list. In most competitive games, the bottom 80% is just casuals who play a few times and stop, or people who only play the game while high.&lt;p&gt;Then the top 5% is when you &lt;i&gt;start&lt;/i&gt; understanding the game at a competitive level. The very start.&lt;p&gt;Then the top 1% is where you can consider yourself good at the game, but, still, there are a ton of fairly bad players that play enough to get here but don&amp;#x27;t understand what they&amp;#x27;re doing. It&amp;#x27;s a combination of grinders and skilled players.&lt;p&gt;Then the 0.1% is where you have good players. Not pros, but definitely, unarguably, &lt;i&gt;good&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Then you have pros.</text></comment>
<story><title>95%-ile isn&apos;t that good (2020)</title><url>https://danluu.com/p95-skill/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xigency</author><text>Admittedly, I only skimmed this. But within the space of video games, I’m not sure Overwatch is a stunning example since it’s generally a casual game.&lt;p&gt;I’ve been playing various iterations of Counter-Strike and StarCraft for decades. Sometimes with deliberate practice, including reading strategies, playing custom maps to practice certain skills, and watching series aimed at improving level of play. And despite the hundreds of hours invested I don’t believe I’ve ever cracked the top 50% in any leaderboard rankings.&lt;p&gt;Anyone in the top 5% is definitely &lt;i&gt;that good&lt;/i&gt;, executing complex strategies with extreme precision.&lt;p&gt;There are lots of areas in life that are highly competitive — where being the best takes raw talent, a huge time investment, and a bit of luck. I wouldn’t try to diminish that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ZephyrBlu</author><text>I played StarCraft 2 (SC2). I reached Master 3, and my MMR at the time was top 3% globally.&lt;p&gt;I wouldn&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;A lot of people in the community would say that Master is where the game starts, and in some ways that&amp;#x27;s very true.&lt;p&gt;This:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Anyone in the top 5% is definitely that good, executing complex strategies with extreme precision&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Also, almost everyone is copying strategies not doing anything particularly complicated. It&amp;#x27;s hard enough to just play the damn game with a simple strategy, no point in making it harder.</text></comment>