Yawn wrote:The best teams of 2016 would win pretty easy against the best teams 2013, its no secret. Any active game always improves with quality by time. Just because hcl#3 final was a legendary 1 hour long game, doesnt mean it has the best quality. Just look at the def, and compare it to the top teams of today.
Maybe the gap between the best players and other top players has decreased, but the overall quality is better, and especially the teams as a unit plays much better. But i only base this from watching old recs, didnt play back then so maybe it was different. But im sure if you would ask the top players of today, that also was top player back then, they would say that the quality improved quite a bit, it would be wierd otherwise. Players like Dexter etc didnt stop improve after hcl #3 i hope...
Plenty of player end up stagnating for one reason or another, perhaps due to the level of teammates they play with, the time they spend practising, or simply their own arrogance holding them back; it can happen in all sorts of discplines, a lot of players that played the game did end up peaking a lot earlier in haxball's history.
While I do agree that by and large the level and depth of competition to the elite level has improved year-on-year, I think it's rather an oversimplification to say that every single aspect of the game from all quarters is better today than it is now. When I talk about 'that' final it's not just it's length that is extraordinary, but the level of concentration and precision of both teams defences I think stands up across any era, especially when faced up to an equally strong level of attacking ball movement, particularly from Silas Beavers' side. Now that's not to say that that level has ever been matched by any players since, I could end up writing a small book about the game and its players over the last three years or so and all the little incremental changes - another time and another post maybe. But for now consider the team 69erz Crew which reached the semifinal stage of the 10th edition of the HCL this year, comprised more or less consistently of Zola, Herna, socrates and A.Tuntija. A perfectly capable counter-attacking team and very successful in punishing their opponents' defensive oversights, in particular against WAR in their quarterfinal, but would that level of play have cut it even in HCL #3, especially when teams such as [an albeit in retrospect fading] Nerdlucks failed even to reach the semifinal stage? Without meaning any disprespect to 69erz, but I believe that in comparison their limitations were quite stark, particularly in holding the ball up to transition to attack, and whilst their defence was very good, their semifinal exit laid bare some quite elementary errors.
Now this is just one example in what it quite a complex narrative, and by no means tells the whole story, but I believe a fitting example to show that you can't really make too many sweeping generalisations when comparing the elite level of haxball now from three years ago.
P.S. A shame you can't rep on this thread, but if you don't like this post don't worry, you can always take some initiative neg one of my earlier posts from two years ago like Norbii did!