[0:00] Once you see this, you'll see
[0:01] competitive games differently from
[0:03] Cernex on YouTube. I don't know what
[0:06] this video is really about. The title
[0:08] seems really good. And I quickly uh
[0:11] scrolled through the comments and people
[0:13] are saying this is a gold mine
[0:15] explaining video game design by thinking
[0:16] what would cheat. Uh what cheat would
[0:19] break the game such Instagram viewing
[0:20] it. The perfect coach. This is like like
[0:23] like people seem to really like this
[0:25] video and then someone in my Discord
[0:27] says to watch it. So anyway, let's take
[0:28] a look and see what this is about. Once
[0:30] you see this, you'll see competitive
[0:32] games differently.
[0:33] >> Weird. When someone asks, "What kind of
[0:35] games do you like?" Most people struggle
[0:37] to answer. You say, "Tact,
[0:40] >> no, I don't. I've played World of World
[0:42] of Warcraft."
[0:44] >> Bullshooters. And they respond, "Oh, so
[0:46] you must like Counter-Strike, Valerant,
[0:48] and Rainbow Six Siege." And you say, "H,
[0:52] actually only Counterstrike." You say
[0:54] strategy games and someone recommends
[0:56] you civilization when you wanted
[0:58] something more like Hearthstone. Game
[1:00] genres are kind of broken, but I think
[1:03] there's a better way to think about this
[1:05] and it's a much simpler.
[1:06] >> I feel like for WoW players, it's pretty
[1:08] simple. Like you like MMOs and WoW
[1:10] happens to be the best MMO, so it's like
[1:12] pretty pretty simple. I do remember
[1:14] though when I was in high school and I
[1:16] used to tell people like, "Oh, I like to
[1:18] play games." And they would be like
[1:22] they would just start listing off a
[1:23] bunch of like normie games. Or maybe I
[1:25] was the normie the whole time and didn't
[1:27] know it. But I was like, nah, I came
[1:29] World of Warcraft. This is different.
[1:31] Like I'm I'm I'm in this world. I'm
[1:34] living in this world. I've been living
[1:35] in this world. It's it's an experience,
[1:37] you know? It's completely different.
[1:39] >> A way to look at games. And once you see
[1:41] >> Yeah. Yeah. Like FIFA or like Madden or
[1:44] like I mean Halo isn't like that normie,
[1:47] but like Yeah. the sports games. It's
[1:50] like, dude, no, no, no. I'm playing
[1:52] World of Warcraft.
[1:55] >> You'll see games much more differently.
[1:57] But let's start somewhere everyone can
[1:59] agree. Every game has something that
[2:01] separates the good players from the bad
[2:03] ones. [music] Sometimes it's pure skill,
[2:05] your reflexes, your aim, your timing.
[2:09] Sometimes it's information, knowing
[2:11] things the other person doesn't.
[2:13] Sometimes it's something harder to name.
[2:16] the mental side. Reading people,
[2:19] managing randomness, and [music]
[2:20] adapting on the fly.
[2:23] >> These aren't just different skills. They
[2:26] are fundamentally different kinds of
[2:27] gameplay. And most games mix them
[2:30] together in different amounts.
[2:32] So, let me give you three words. Micro,
[2:35] meo, macro. Interesting. So, like World
[2:38] of Warcraft is very
[2:42] knowledgeoriented. I've said this in the
[2:44] past. If you want to be a good WoW
[2:45] player, it doesn't actually take crazy
[2:47] good reaction time. Crazy like micro
[2:49] like the movement is I mean, you know,
[2:51] you want a base level, but like what it
[2:52] really takes is knowledge. Do you know
[2:54] what buttons to press? Do you know what
[2:56] things are about to happen so you can
[2:58] react to them? Do you know what you're
[2:59] supposed to be doing in the game or not?
[3:01] It's just a knowledge gap most of the
[3:03] time. Of course, there's a baseline
[3:05] level of mechanics you need, but it's
[3:06] not that crazy. In other games though,
[3:10] it requires just much much much level
[3:13] higher levels of mechanics. And the game
[3:14] knowledge is still really good. In any
[3:16] game, it's really good. But if you don't
[3:18] have those mechanics, you're just going
[3:19] to get owned, you know.
[3:23] Now, here's where it gets interesting
[3:25] and a little uncomfortable. What if I
[3:27] told you the clearest way to understand
[3:29] what a game is actually testing is to
[3:32] think about how you'd cheat in it? If
[3:35] you wanted to completely break a game to
[3:37] make it trivially easy, what cheat would
[3:41] you use? The answer to that question
[3:44] tells you more about a game than any
[3:46] genre.
[3:47] >> Oh, I never thought about that. Okay,
[3:48] hold on. If we're going to cheat in WoW
[3:50] arenas, how are we going to cheat?
[3:55] I haven't really thought about this.
[3:57] like the best possible bots.
[4:00] I mean, they would just they would they
[4:02] would anytime a cooldown is popped on
[4:04] the enemy team, they would instantly
[4:06] have the perfect response to it. So that
[4:09] just a stupid amount of knowledge win
[4:11] trading. No, no, not like cheating your
[4:14] arena rating. Cheating like a a cheat to
[4:17] make you impossible to like lose an
[4:19] arena match. Um, you would have kickbots
[4:22] and scripts, but it would like react
[4:24] perfectly to every situation. Not just
[4:26] like a guess or an approximation, but
[4:28] like a perfect response, a perfect
[4:30] defensive response to every offensive
[4:33] the opponent used. Right? So, let's put
[4:36] this to the test. What is micro?
[4:40] >> Micro is the execution layer. It's your
[4:43] aim, your timing, your movement, your
[4:45] muscle memory. Yeah,
[4:46] >> an example of a microche looks like an
[4:49] aimbot. Perfect inputs every single
[4:52] time.
[4:52] >> Is that an aimbot? Oh my gosh.
[4:53] >> The game can [laughter] be broken by
[4:54] perfect execution. That's a micro game.
[4:58] OSU, Geometry Dash, Aim Trainers, and
[5:01] Tetris are a few examples. You can cheat
[5:04] in osu with perfect cursor tracking. You
[5:06] can cheat in Geometry Dash with perfect
[5:08] jumps.
[5:09] >> Gosh,
[5:09] >> these are execution cheats and you can
[5:12] feel them microness when you play them.
[5:14] Okay.
[5:16] >> Mezzo is the probability layer, the
[5:18] place where mind games exist. You're
[5:21] reacting to the unpredictable nature of
[5:23] people.
[5:24] >> So, this is mainly what WoW arenas are,
[5:26] and it's mainly why I've liked them so
[5:28] much. It's just it's a it's a mind game,
[5:32] bro. What am I going to do? Am I going
[5:33] to trinket? Am I going to hold my
[5:34] trinket? Am I going to pop the cool
[5:35] downs or not? Am I? And you just kind of
[5:38] wait for each other. You just stare each
[5:39] other down. If someone makes a move,
[5:41] boom, punish them, right? And it's like
[5:43] that's what's fun about arenas, you
[5:45] know,
[5:46] >> not mechanics. A messo cheat looks like
[5:49] stream sniping, knowing someone's habits
[5:51] before they show them. Reading cool
[5:53] downs, seeing things you shouldn't see
[5:56] yet. The best example for the purest meo
[5:58] game is rock paper scissors. There's
[6:01] zero. Still, it's [music] entirely
[6:04] mental and probability. Among Us also
[6:07] runs on meo. So does Liars Bar. [music]
[6:10] Even the stock market is built around
[6:12] this layer. If you wanted to cheat in
[6:14] Among Us, you'd [music] stream snipe to
[6:16] know who the impostor is. If you wanted
[6:18] to cheat in stocks, you'd insider trade.
[6:21] Notice how none of these cheats involve
[6:23] executing anything better. They involve
[6:25] knowing something you shouldn't.
[6:28] Interesting. So, like in WoW Arenas, one
[6:30] of the best cheats could be like if you
[6:31] had AI in the other team's Discord call,
[6:35] and you could hear AI basically saying,
[6:37] "Hey, let's smoke bomb kidney the rogue
[6:40] in 15 seconds." And you then had the AI
[6:43] tell you, "Hey, they're going to smoke
[6:44] bomb your rogue in 15 seconds." So then
[6:46] the rogue would know they're about to be
[6:48] targeted and move back. So you would
[6:49] never be able to do anything.
[6:53] >> Macro is the systems layer. It's your
[6:56] routing, your resource management, and
[6:58] your win condition. You can think of it
[7:00] like the mathematically correct way of
[7:02] winning the game. A macro cheat looks
[7:05] like a chess engine, economy automation,
[7:08] or you can imagine like a perfect coach
[7:10] telling you exactly what to do.
[7:13] >> Ping it. Ping it. Ping it. We need to
[7:15] let our team know what's up.
[7:17] >> Games are almost mathematical puzzles.
[7:19] Think Factorio, Polybridge, Connect 4,
[7:23] tic-tac-toe. Once you find the optimal
[7:25] solution, the game is solved.
[7:28] >> But here's where it gets really
[7:30] interesting.
[7:30] >> So, wow arenas are a lot of games aren't
[7:32] just one of these. They're combinations
[7:34] of them in the combinations.
[7:35] >> So, like WoW arena, very little micro,
[7:38] pretty heavy messo, very heavy macro,
[7:41] right? So, that's why when you try to
[7:43] swap games as a WoW arena player, often
[7:45] times it's hard cuz your micro is just
[7:47] not up to par because it doesn't take
[7:48] much to be great at WoW Arena. So you
[7:51] can have like a rank one player who's
[7:52] just like very average. Like you just
[7:54] never really use this skill too much cuz
[7:57] it's all just over here, right?
[7:58] >> Tells you everything about what kind of
[8:00] game it is. So let's look at micro plus
[8:03] macro.
[8:05] These tend to be single player precision
[8:07] games. You need to know the optimal
[8:09] solution and execute it fast. Think
[8:12] Rubik's Cube speedrunning, Mario 64,
[8:16] Jump King, and Getting Over It. If you
[8:19] were to have a perfect micro cheat in
[8:21] Elder Ring, you'd have perfect dodges.
[8:24] But if you were to have a perfect macro
[8:26] cheat, you'd use the mathematically
[8:28] optimal build. [music] But there's one
[8:30] weird multiplayer outlier here. Eight
[8:32] ball pool. There's a mathematically
[8:34] optimal shot and then there's the skill
[8:37] of actually hitting it. So even though
[8:39] it is player versus player, the room for
[8:42] mind games doesn't really exist. And I
[8:44] think it's a really
[8:45] >> I know you can play pool online. What
[8:47] the heck? Next, let's look at micro plus
[8:48] mezo. This is PvP skill expression
[8:51] games. These tend to be your fighting
[8:54] games. Street Fighter, Tekken, Smash
[8:57] Bros, Brawhalla. Your skill matters and
[9:00] reading your opponents matters. But
[9:02] also, you have some other examples like
[9:04] Mario Kart like the micro of driving and
[9:06] the mezzo of random items and
[9:08] unpredictable opponents. We even see
[9:10] some.
[9:11] >> So, the reason World of Warcraft has
[9:13] such low micro is because the targeting
[9:17] um cast base system. There is no aiming.
[9:22] You have a target and your spell hits
[9:24] your target. So, like in terms of uh the
[9:27] World of Warcraft target and focus
[9:29] system, there's just very little micro.
[9:31] You literally just press fire blast and
[9:33] it hits the guy, right? Of course,
[9:36] there's still movement and line of
[9:37] sight. Like there's still an element,
[9:39] but it's just so low compared to like
[9:41] most games.
[9:42] >> Neat games like Tetris 99. The original
[9:45] Tetris is pure micro, but Tetris 999
[9:49] also involves Mezo because now you're
[9:51] managing who to send the garbage to. You
[9:54] also have physics- based PVP like Fall
[9:56] Guys and Game Beasts, which also fits
[9:59] into Micro Plus Mezo. The next one is
[10:02] Mezo plus Macro. These are the mind and
[10:05] math games. Think Hearthstone, TFT,
[10:08] Pokemon VGC, and Battleship. Now, chess
[10:11] is theoretically a pure macro game, but
[10:14] at the human level, there's a massive
[10:16] messo component. You're optimizing for
[10:18] your specific opponent's habits.
[10:20] >> Even chess has a micro component. I've
[10:22] thought about this before. Um, if you
[10:25] watch chess, sometimes they drop the
[10:27] piece when moving it or sometimes they
[10:30] bump a piece or like like technically in
[10:34] Hearthstone, I've thought about this
[10:35] too, it's very simple. You just like
[10:37] click the card, but sometimes you can
[10:39] misclick the card or click end turn on
[10:42] accident or misclick and you actually
[10:44] just ruin your whole turn. So, there's a
[10:46] tiny micro component even to a Hearstone
[10:48] or a chest. Tiny, but it's there. That's
[10:51] why studying opponent matters in
[10:52] highlevel chess. And then there are some
[10:55] weird outliers. Balatro is a
[10:57] singleplayer game, but it's also mezo
[11:00] macro because the RNG of the card
[11:02] combines with the math of maximizing
[11:04] your hand. You're not executing anything
[11:07] difficult, but you have to pick and
[11:08] choose your cards wisely and play to
[11:11] their biggest strength. Phasmophobia is
[11:13] also a weird game that fits into Meso
[11:15] Macro. It's a co-op game, but it fits
[11:17] here because you're deducing a ghost
[11:19] using evidence, which is macro, while
[11:22] the ghost behavior has RNG, me.
[11:24] >> Oh my gosh, that's scary.
[11:26] >> Expect non PVP Mezo macro games slowly
[11:29] converge towards pure macro over time.
[11:32] Once players fully map the RNG, it stops
[11:35] feeling uncertain and becomes a speedrun
[11:37] problem. And then there's the middle,
[11:40] all three overlapping. This is where the
[11:43] biggest competitive games [music] live.
[11:46] League of Legends, Dota 2, CS2,
[11:49] Valerant, [music] Overwatch, Marvel
[11:52] Rivals, Rocket League, Apex, Rainbow 6.
[11:55] >> Well, I Okay, so I would argue that all
[11:57] like is there any game that isn't all
[12:00] three? Like I would argue that every
[12:01] game is in all three, but
[12:05] some are so low in certain areas that it
[12:08] like barely counts. Like chess in the
[12:10] micro section for example, but like it's
[12:13] still present technically.
[12:16] >> World of Warcraft.
[12:17] >> Here's the thing.
[12:19] >> We got mentioned. Let's go. I WAS LIKE,
[12:23] IS HE GOING TO MENTION WoW in this
[12:24] video? We got mentioned as all three. I
[12:27] will say WoW does have all three. It's
[12:29] just a little lower on the micro than
[12:31] maybe a counter strike, right? And much
[12:33] higher on maybe like a a macro or
[12:35] something like that. But here's the
[12:37] thing, they're not all the same balance.
[12:40] >> Exactly. And the cheat test tells you
[12:42] how exactly they differ.
[12:44] >> So, let's use Counter-Strike as an
[12:46] example. Can aimbot win a game of CS
[12:49] completely alone? [music]
[12:51] >> Almost certainly, yes. If you never
[12:54] miss, most duels are over before they
[12:56] start. [music]
[12:57] That makes micro extremely high in CS2.
[13:01] But what about X-ray seeing through
[13:03] walls? Pros have done experiments with
[13:05] one player with X-ray versus five
[13:07] without X-ray. The five still usually
[13:10] win, but the X-ray player takes rounds
[13:12] they have no business taking. This makes
[13:14] me very high in CS2, which means macro,
[13:19] the strategic layer, is relatively the
[13:21] lowest. That's interesting because like
[13:23] if you play Counterstrike, I mean I I
[13:26] haven't really I played a tiny bit. Like
[13:28] a lot of people will be like, "Well,
[13:29] yeah, there's a lot of strategy
[13:30] involved." But when you compare it to
[13:32] this, no way. And as a WoW player, it's
[13:35] it's like completely the opposite. Like
[13:36] micro and the WoW is like much lower.
[13:39] It's so much macro. It's so macroheavy.
[13:42] Um and that's why when you see a WoW
[13:44] player trying to play like
[13:45] Counter-Strike, I mean, sometimes
[13:47] players are good at both, but like often
[13:48] it's just like no, bro. Like [laughter]
[13:50] there's no crossover here at all, you
[13:53] know.
[13:53] >> CS isn't about long-term economy
[13:55] optimization the way MOBAs are. The
[13:58] rounds are short and the execution is
[14:00] everything.
[14:01] But let's try this test with Overwatch.
[14:04] And right away, we see a unique case
[14:06] because the answer actually depends on
[14:08] your role. But since it varies so
[14:11] heavily by character and roles, I
[14:13] decided to ask someone who knows about
[14:15] Overwatch way better than I do.
[14:21] So, if you compare all three like maxed
[14:24] out versions of the perfect version of
[14:26] it, like a cheat version of it,
[14:28] >> which one would have like the highest
[14:30] win rate, and how would the distribution
[14:32] be?
[14:33] >> I would just say support is more
[14:34] macroheavy,
[14:36] >> DPS is more microheavy, and then tank is
[14:39] more messy.
[14:40] >> Oh, okay. Okay.
[14:42] >> Also, the way that it works is you have
[14:44] offense, defense, and control. Um,
[14:47] control refers to like map control.
[14:50] Offense refers to offensive options,
[14:52] defense refers to defensive options. And
[14:55] if you a character's mixture or or like
[14:58] kind of design links to the this concept
[15:01] of uh offense, defense, and control,
[15:04] tanks tend to depend on more control,
[15:07] supports, more defense, DPS, more
[15:09] offense. And if you if you actually like
[15:12] dissect each individual hero, they will
[15:14] have different like varying levels or
[15:17] [music] varying focuses on defense or
[15:19] control.
[15:20] >> So I'm thinking about it like this,
[15:21] right? If you were to give each role one
[15:25] cheat,
[15:25] >> you would give aimbot to DPS.
[15:28] >> And for tank, you would give um the
[15:32] ability to see enemy cooldowns as a
[15:35] perfect cheat, right? You can literally
[15:37] see the enemy cool downs with like
[15:39] omniar and wow. [laughter] And
[15:41] >> yeah,
[15:42] >> for support you would have uh a coach or
[15:45] an engine. Perfect coach.
[15:46] >> That's that's perfect. That's that's
[15:49] exactly perfect. And also especially in
[15:51] Overwatch cuz it's it's 5v5 cuz you only
[15:53] have uh one tank. Like if you can um win
[15:56] every duel as a tank, that's kind of
[15:58] like a free win. So, like going back to
[16:01] this for a second with a cool down info,
[16:04] I actually think WoW arenas are more fun
[16:08] when you have no add-ons. So, for a long
[16:10] time at LAN um for WoW tournaments, no
[16:15] add-ons were allowed. You just couldn't
[16:17] use any. Blizzcon regionals, no add-ons
[16:20] were allowed. You played on their
[16:22] computers,
[16:23] you couldn't bring any add-ons. There
[16:25] was no add-ons pre-installed. Go. So,
[16:29] um, what what did players do? So, what
[16:31] players did at the highest level is not
[16:33] used any add-ons because they wanted to
[16:35] practice how they would play at land so
[16:37] they could actually win regionals or or
[16:38] Blizzcon without practicing with
[16:41] add-ons. So, that was the the the meta
[16:42] that was like the just the what's like
[16:46] the culture the culture in WoW arenas
[16:49] for for a decade a decade and a half was
[16:51] let's just all play with no add-ons. And
[16:54] it was great. Like what what happened
[16:56] was
[16:57] um people made more mistakes because
[17:00] add-ons make you play better since you
[17:02] have cooldown info quite literally like
[17:04] you you have to guess and which means
[17:06] players made more mistakes but when
[17:07] players make more mistakes it opens up
[17:11] counterplay. It opens up this back and
[17:13] forth that's really interesting to
[17:15] navigate because oh this player messed
[17:16] up now let me see if I can capitalize on
[17:18] it or not. Um or maybe it was just
[17:21] complete bait and I'm falling for it
[17:23] right now. it goes into that whole messo
[17:25] category that the video is talking
[17:26] about. Anyway, WoW without add-ons is is
[17:29] actually really fascinating in PvP. But
[17:33] in 2019, 2020, COVID hit, regionals was
[17:37] online, Blizzcon was online, and uh
[17:40] well, there was no BlizzCon, I suppose,
[17:42] but you know, the the tournaments were
[17:43] online. They Blizzard decided to remove
[17:47] the no add-on rule because they couldn't
[17:48] enforce it. Literally, it's everyone's
[17:50] at their home computer, so it's like,
[17:51] "Okay, use whatever add-ons you want."
[17:53] Um, and the whole no add-on thing went
[17:56] out the window. All the PvPers
[17:58] downloaded weak auras. They got really
[18:00] strong weak orasuras, and the weak oras
[18:02] got better over time. Now, what arena
[18:05] looks like, and this is separate from
[18:06] the the current just like metag game of
[18:08] the game itself. I'm talking about like
[18:10] the the information that players have
[18:11] available is a full-on spaceship of
[18:14] information and every player is playing
[18:17] so perfect which means less mistakes,
[18:19] less room for improv, less room for
[18:21] counterplay which makes the game quite
[18:24] boring. So, this video like perfectly
[18:26] explains like almost like the downfall
[18:29] of WoW PvP in a sense of like you almost
[18:31] want no add-ons at all in WoW PvP or at
[18:34] least very very very very minimal. Um,
[18:37] for it to actually operate and behave in
[18:39] a way that's like interesting to want to
[18:41] take place in. Um, yeah, that's pretty
[18:44] much what I want to say.
[18:45] >> A coach or an engine perfect coach.
[18:48] >> That's perfect. That's that's exactly
[18:50] perfect. And also, especially in
[18:52] Overwatch because it's it's 5v5 because
[18:54] you only have uh one tank. Like if you
[18:56] can um win every duel as a tank, that's
[18:59] kind of like a free win for your team.
[19:02] >> But what about Apex? Apex sits
[19:04] remarkably balanced across all three. If
[19:07] you think about which player is most
[19:09] likely to win, a guy with perfect
[19:11] aimbot, a guy with perfect wall hacks,
[19:14] or a guy with perfect ring knowledge,
[19:16] all three actually has a pretty good
[19:18] chance of winning the game. If you have
[19:20] aimbots, you can easily kill anyone
[19:22] rotating, but any close-range fight will
[19:24] tend to go either way.
[19:25] >> So, let's just talk about this for WoW
[19:27] PvP, too. Like, from from micro mezo and
[19:32] macro, like if you were to cheat in WoW
[19:33] PvP, the like say you have the like
[19:36] perfect micro, so perfect movement and
[19:38] perfect like kicks and interrupts, like
[19:39] you never missed a kick and you always
[19:42] fake casted perfectly and you were
[19:44] always like in the perfect spot. Um,
[19:46] that would be good in WoW, don't get me
[19:48] wrong.
[19:50] But you would still lose games if you
[19:52] didn't know who to kill and when to kill
[19:55] them and like you didn't have the macro
[19:57] element or the meu element. Like you
[19:58] would actually like if you had a bot in
[20:00] WoW 3v3 arena and they had perfect micro
[20:03] just like perfect kicks, perfect damage
[20:05] rotations, like you would still just
[20:07] lose against most of the top players cuz
[20:10] they just like don't know the strategy.
[20:12] So they'll just be like doing the wrong
[20:14] thing. It like won't actually matter. Of
[20:16] course it it matters a little bit once
[20:18] you have the macro and the micro
[20:20] element, bro. Like you're I mean that's
[20:21] like trill or something, right? Like
[20:22] you're in a great position, but one like
[20:26] micro doesn't matter much in WoW if you
[20:28] don't have if you don't have these
[20:29] pieces, right? So the perfect cheat in
[20:31] WoW, I think macro would be like
[20:33] definitely the most heavy. You know
[20:35] exactly how to respond to every sit
[20:38] situation. Exactly how to respond. The
[20:41] micro element like the perfect kicks and
[20:43] damage like that's that helps. But this
[20:46] one, this one's the big one.
[20:48] >> Bot, you can easily kill anyone
[20:50] rotating. But any close-range fight will
[20:52] tend to go either way. But with perfect
[20:54] wall hacks, you can use your nades and
[20:56] abilities to take a team down. But
[20:59] you'll still lose to someone with good
[21:00] ring positioning. But even with perfect
[21:03] ring information, you could still easily
[21:05] die to someone who wants to contest that
[21:06] position. But let's test this in a
[21:09] really unique game, Rocket League. I
[21:12] asked Pro Rocket League coach Luke on
[21:14] his answer to this thought experiment,
[21:16] and this was his response. Basically,
[21:19] perfect micro or perfect mechanics in
[21:21] Rocket League would be defined as taking
[21:23] the ball from point A to point B as
[21:25] quickly and as efficiently as possible.
[21:28] Like how in a firstp person shooter,
[21:30] aimbot moves the crosshair to the target
[21:32] as quickly and as efficiently as
[21:34] possible.
[21:36] For Rocket League, smarts cannot make up
[21:38] for the fact that a more mechanical
[21:40] person can just take the ball to the
[21:42] open net far more than someone with less
[21:44] mechanics. [music] This makes Rocket
[21:46] League heavily micro dominant. But after
[21:49] micro being the most dominant, he put
[21:51] macro second and meo last. This is
[21:54] because even if perfect Mezo allows you
[21:56] to hear enemy [music] coms or see enemy
[21:58] boost, doesn't change the fact that all
[22:01] information in Rocket League is able to
[22:03] be known at all times. And for how
[22:06] fast-paced the game is at the highest
[22:07] level, listening to a perfect coach
[22:09] verbatim would be better over hearing
[22:12] enemy comms or seeing enemy boost. Also,
[22:15] the closest thing to perfect micro in
[22:17] Rocket League is the AI bots. I came
[22:20] across footage of three semi-pro players
[22:22] versing three of the best Rocket League
[22:25] AI. What? That's interesting.
[22:29] >> Oh my god. [laughter]
[22:31] >> And the three AI bot were able to win
[22:33] comfortably.
[22:35] So, here's what this framework
[22:37] >> I'm curious if you could make an AI bot
[22:39] that understood macro perfectly because
[22:43] we actually talked about this exact
[22:44] thing a few months uh back and the
[22:47] conversation was like how long would it
[22:48] take to make a an AI WOW play like a WoW
[22:52] arena team that would just never lose.
[22:53] And the chat was like not that long at
[22:55] all. Like you could make it really easy.
[22:57] And in my mind, I was thinking AI can
[22:59] only do micro well. And I was like that
[23:02] already exists. did scripting and they
[23:04] get owned by the best players. It's not
[23:06] even close. I mean, don't get me wrong,
[23:08] like scripts are good, but you just lose
[23:10] to rank one players anyway. But if you
[23:12] can make AI understand and master macro
[23:16] in WoW, I mean, yeah, they they would be
[23:19] per it would be perfect player. Are you
[23:21] kidding me? You know, but with micro,
[23:23] it's like me. You could have perfect you
[23:25] could have perfect micro, you'd still
[23:26] just lose, you know? actually gives you.
[23:29] It helps classify games, but it also
[23:32] helps understand yourself as a player. I
[23:34] noticed something when I looked at which
[23:36] games I genuinely enjoy. I gravitate
[23:38] toward games in the middle. The full
[23:40] micro meal macro cluster.
[23:41] >> Where is Where's World of Warcraft?
[23:43] Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?
[23:44] Where is it? Where is it?
[23:48] He didn't put it in there. Oh, yeah.
[23:49] It's right there, guys. We're right
[23:51] there. That's us. That's us. That's us.
[23:54] Where's Minecraft? Cuz that's also us.
[23:56] Is Minecraft on here? Probably not.
[24:00] >> And toward pure micro and pure macro,
[24:03] but I don't really enjoy micro macro
[24:05] games. Speedrunning doesn't scratch the
[24:07] right. And when I looked at why it
[24:10] mapped exactly in Apex, I'd argue I aim
[24:14] pretty well and have respectable
[24:15] movement. I'd say I also have a solid
[24:18] understanding of rotations and ring
[24:20] positioning, but I tend to tunnel vision
[24:21] in close quarter fights, specifically
[24:24] when we're in the same building. So, I
[24:26] tend to miss meo reads when the pressure
[24:28] is high. And this exactly explains the
[24:30] gap in my game. Because here's the real
[24:33] insight. Every player has a natural
[24:35] lean. Some people are micro players.
[24:37] They grind mechanics obsessively and
[24:40] they want the skill gap to feel fair.
[24:42] Some people are messers. They love
[24:44] raiding people and they thrive in the
[24:46] chaos of PvP randomness. Like we even
[24:49] see a common cluster of people who play
[24:51] Among Us, GTA, luck based games like
[24:54] gambling along with many other party
[24:56] games. And then we also see that some
[24:58] players are macro players. They love
[25:00] efficiency. They draw routes on maps.
[25:02] They think about the game between games
[25:04] more than during it. [music] And most of
[25:06] us are a mix. But
[25:08] >> like for me, I feel like my micro is
[25:12] definitely my worst by far, right?
[25:17] my like like for WoW it's it's like I've
[25:21] said this over and over but like it's
[25:22] definitely more macro messo. So when I
[25:24] play a new game like if I were to play
[25:26] Counter Strike I would suck, bro. I
[25:29] would get dumpstered. Like it would be
[25:31] embarrassing. I've never even played on
[25:32] stream cuz it would be that
[25:33] embarrassing. Maybe I'll have to play on
[25:35] stream one day to show you guys how
[25:37] embarrassing it would be. Like oh my bro
[25:39] I would just like it would be worse than
[25:41] Peekaboo playing and that was pretty
[25:43] bad. Like anyway, but with the with the
[25:46] macro stuff, I played uh I played uh
[25:50] Hearthstone on stream like 10 years ago
[25:53] for the first time and we went from rank
[25:55] 25 to legend in a few days. Um like
[25:58] that's the stuff I like like the
[25:59] strategy. Although like I kind of sucked
[26:00] at chess, but the thing about chess is
[26:03] that there's like thousands of years of
[26:05] like metag game and I wanted to go in
[26:06] blind like I do for every game. I don't
[26:08] like to do any lookups. So, I went in
[26:10] blind on chess and like, bro, I'm
[26:11] queuing up chess games blind and I'm
[26:13] just getting smoked by people with the
[26:15] all these different kinds of openers
[26:17] that have figured out the macro for
[26:18] thousands of years and I'm sitting over
[26:20] here just like
[26:22] trying to descri I'm like, "Oh, what if
[26:23] I open up with this first and I just
[26:26] doesn't work, you know?" So, anyway, not
[26:29] an equal mix. The games that frustrate
[26:32] you the most, they're probably demanding
[26:34] something your brain doesn't naturally
[26:36] give.
[26:37] >> The games you keep coming back to You're
[26:39] probably rewarding the part of you that
[26:41] already runs at full power.
[26:42] >> Yeah,
[26:43] >> genre labels never told you any of this.
[26:45] >> Yeah,
[26:45] >> action RPG doesn't tell you whether
[26:47] you'll be grinding execution, reading
[26:49] opponents, or solving systems.
[26:51] >> This is a good video.
[26:52] >> It just tells you there's a sword and a
[26:53] level bar. And maybe more importantly,
[26:56] you can stop blaming yourself when a
[26:58] game doesn't click, cuz maybe the games
[27:00] are testing things you haven't built
[27:02] yet.
[27:03] >> Yeah,
[27:03] >> in my case, it's the underdevelopment of
[27:05] Mezo. And that's the three dimensions of
[27:08] games. Michael,
[27:09] >> I was like surprisingly bad at League of
[27:11] Legends, though. Like I thought I would
[27:13] be like I've never played League and I I
[27:15] did a League series last year where I
[27:17] just hopped in brand new level 30
[27:19] account, didn't even level it. Um just
[27:22] hopped in, instantly queued ranked. In
[27:25] my mind, I'm like, well, I'm pretty good
[27:26] at games. I'll be platinum.
[27:30] [snorts] It took me a month to go from
[27:32] iron to silver. Are you kidding me? I
[27:35] thought I thought I would just go
[27:37] straight platinum. Just not even because
[27:39] I because I'm just like, "Yeah, I can
[27:40] just move around people and this and
[27:41] that." Like, "Yeah, I'll just I'll just
[27:43] be different. I'll just go straight
[27:44] platinum." First starting. Yeah, right.
[27:47] I went I It took me a month to hit
[27:49] silver.
[27:50] >> As a macro, every game lives somewhere
[27:52] inside them. And now that you know where
[27:54] to look, you'll never see a game the
[27:56] same way again.
[27:58] >> Yeah, this is a great video. Um I
[28:01] someone in my Discord recommended this,
[28:03] guys. If you ever have video
[28:04] recommendations, you can throw it in
[28:05] Discord, like general chat, whatever.
[28:06] I'm I'm in there. Um, this is a
[28:08] [clears throat] great video. I don't
[28:09] know if I ever would have seen this. So,
[28:11] CernX, well done. It's a lot of stuff
[28:13] I've thought about before, but like
[28:14] maybe not in this exact way.