Posted by Thorin @ 18:12 GMT, 5 December 2012 - iMsg
Marcel "k1llsen" Paul is the 15th subject of my 'Grilled' in-depth video interview series.
Some of the topics we discussed:
- Facing toxjq in Quake 4.
- The secret to beating rapha.
- His history with Cooller.
- How tactical he is in-game and beforehand.
- How he developed his railing/aiming style.
If you go to the youtube description there are linked timestamps to all of the topics we discussed. I'll paste the topics below, but I'm obv not gonna link them here also:
00:06 Intro
00:19 When k1llsen first got good as a dueler
01:34 KODE5 2006 final, playing toxjq despite having actually finished 3rd.
02:36 What made toxjq so good in Quake 4?
03:05 How good was k1llsen's aim back then?
03:23 Does k1llsen remember Cooller interupting an interview of his a few years later.
03:53 Relationship with Cooller over the years.
04:38 Coming out of nowhere to win IEM IV Cologne (Gamescom) after beating av3k and rapha.
05:48 What is the secret to beating rapha?
06:43 What is it like facing rapha and his tactical style?
07:50 How did games vs. av3k go over the years?
08:48 People describing k1llsen as a hit-n-run rail style player.
10:34 How tactical is he in-game?
11:25 Does he have the best aim when he is on his game in QL? How does it compare to others?
12:38 Facing Cypher the least of the big four, how good Cypher's aim is when he is on.
14:12 Cypher's rockets.
15:12 Does QL suit rapha more than Cypher, comparative to Q3?
16:40 Always losing to Cooller for most of QL.
17:32 Overcoming Cooller at Dreamhack Winter 2011.
18:49 Cooller's dodging.
19:23 How k1llsen's railing style developed.
20:22 The three aimers (Strenx, Spart1e and k1llsen) after the big four (rapha, Cypher, av3k and Cooller). Coincidence the former are mainly known for their aim compared to the latter?
21:37 The one-sided match-ups of av3k vs. rapha and Cypher vs. Cooller.
22:25 How competitive was QL in dueling?
24:20 What is his sense of the dueling scene's health for the next couple of years?
25:20 Can there be an FPS that appeals to casual players and the hardcore?
26:54 Is a hardcore FPS the only game k1llsen plays casually or competitively?
27:30 Will k1llsen be a competitive LoL player? What role does he play?
27:55 How much skill does LoL have? Do k1llsen's skills work there at all?
28:55 Players who he always wished he could have dueled.
Good job on the interview, it's nice to see someone different than the usual guys being interviewed. Although it felt like k1llsen lacked the vocabulary to give in-depth answers unfortunately.
Also Dahang should of had a mention as part of the "small four" :P he imo has a better quakelive career than the 3 you mentioned!
potentially entertaining & well-thought questions, not so great answers tho: disappointing ones actually, lacking depth especially when talking about other players (tox, cyph, cooler)
"Yeah so cooller's dodge is hard but my flick rails can't miss" and so many others.
Amazingly strong e-athlete but unfortunately a poor analyst.
either you have problems understanding what i'm writing or I'm horrible at speaking my mind; probably a mixture of both
the questions were very generic (like for example "what made tox so dominant in q4?) in order to offer a wide array of possible meta-game considerations, which would have helped players more in understanding the game - think about rapha/strenx's interviews and analyses; instead of getting a more "complete" answer you get a short, almost useless one (flick railing to prevent dodges isn't breaking news, and a pro's point of view on cooller's dodging patterns would have been great to hear. Same thing for tox in q4: "good aim and he was fast".)
i don't mean to sound disrespectful, just stating my opinion that these questions could have potentially offered much more helpful insights
ye, yea, my post wasn't that serious. i was trying to hint at the fact that powerful hitscan weapons can easily negate great movement, hence him being "right" and the absurditiy of adding such a weapon to quake in the first place.
0 accel? you sure about that? he talks about accel feeling good since he talked about it with d1ablo. and i remember an interview where he said that since he changed accel from 0.15 to 0.14 he started to hit more.
also, watching his aim / movement just shows quite some mouse acceleration.
There's an old ESWC 2010 DPI thread where someone recalculated his sensitivity to 30.14 cm/360 with 0.022 jaw/pitch and 3.45 sens. He has lowered his sens after that to 3 and the calculation doesn't take into account the lowered dpi from the logitech drivers which is around 330 dpi.
I'm currently at work but if i'm allowed to make a wild guess (and if the info i have is correct) i'd say he's using roughly 40 cm/360. Don't ask me how he manages to look so jittery and still hit everything - most likely some natural talent involved :-)
I spec'd him once (8 or 9 months ago) and someone asked him what settings he's currently using, so he did a very slow 360 and said its in the low 30-ish cm/360 range (can't remember exactly but it was between 31 and 35 cm).
if I recall correctly someone on ESR managed to take the drivers modifiers into consideration and work out these values (can't find the post, so values arent the same):
thorin is delivering the best interviews imo, no disrespect to infus, slasher etc but he is really well informed and askes really smart questions. one thing puzzles me though how could i miss him so many times? he is like a ghost i must have missed him ridiculously often
great interview! if you and Cypher end up on the same LAN again please get him to do one of these interviews and make sure to ask alot of quake related questions! :)
yes I remember this interview, I was not playing quake anymore at the time but this interview motivated me to start playing it again, enjoying the game alot atm so thanks :D
And please do consider a video interview with him.
I was never really interested in watching K1llsen, consdered him always that cold machinery style of player who creates a serious obstacle for anyone simply because of his accuracy, so it is very good finally we see the guy behind the name. I must add he is quite a likelable and modest character compared to how i imagined him.
My respect level for him as a person raised exponentionally as the interview went further. Maybe hes not so used to these longer indepth intervews especially in english, seemed a little bit tired at the end. Im just sad he goes to LoL, such a waste of talent.
I know that he hits these completely insane rails, but I can't help but wonder if a lower sens/accel combo couldn't make him even better. I'm gonna go with what I see when he plays in tournaments, which is a very flicky and unstable mouse movement.
I remember d1ablo having sort of the same mouse movement and crazy rails, and I also remember watching a demo of him playing with a much, much lower sens than normal. His game was so damn smooth and his rockets and lightning gun improved immensely.
k1llsen's rockets can be really great, but they can also completely fuck him over when they're off, which I've seen more than enough to think that he should really try some less sensitive mouse settings.
tl;dr k1llsen's rails are nasty but I think he could do even better with another setup.
k1llsen uses a fairly lowsens with hardly any accel. It just looks flicky but when you spec him on a server you will notice that he doesnt have the fastest sens ;)
I watched him play a few weeks ago before DreamHack and I didn't find that to be less flicky than on streams :) But I dunno, maybe it's just my perception of things.
as a native german its quite hard to describe complex topics in english. its because the basic toolset of both languages is similar (and thus basic english is easy for germans to learn) but when you try to speak indepth they begin to differ. german begins to become quite complex in grammar and structure while english begins to use rarer vocabulary and larger number of sentences.
actually i dont think its even possible to translate proper, meaningful german into english without ending in using a shitload of words that try to sum up what has been said. a proper way for such an interview would be to do it in german and translate it by a native ger speaker that is good in eng (not the other way around) later.
No offense to you Thorin but your voice kind of annoys me a little. It isn't the accent which puts me off it's how everything you say be that a statement, a retort or anything for that matter always sounds like a question.
I don't know if it's because of your many travels all around the world and your voice has just changed like that or maybe it's merely a bad habit you've gotten yourself into.
No hate whatsoever just my thoughts, I appreciate what you do and the interviews that you bring to the table.
00:06 Intro
00:19 When k1llsen first got good as a dueler
01:34 KODE5 2006 final, playing toxjq despite having actually finished 3rd.
02:36 What made toxjq so good in Quake 4?
03:05 How good was k1llsen's aim back then?
03:23 Does k1llsen remember Cooller interupting an interview of his a few years later.
03:53 Relationship with Cooller over the years.
04:38 Coming out of nowhere to win IEM IV Cologne (Gamescom) after beating av3k and rapha.
05:48 What is the secret to beating rapha?
06:43 What is it like facing rapha and his tactical style?
07:50 How did games vs. av3k go over the years?
08:48 People describing k1llsen as a hit-n-run rail style player.
10:34 How tactical is he in-game?
11:25 Does he have the best aim when he is on his game in QL? How does it compare to others?
12:38 Facing Cypher the least of the big four, how good Cypher's aim is when he is on.
14:12 Cypher's rockets.
15:12 Does QL suit rapha more than Cypher, comparative to Q3?
16:40 Always losing to Cooller for most of QL.
17:32 Overcoming Cooller at Dreamhack Winter 2011.
18:49 Cooller's dodging.
19:23 How k1llsen's railing style developed.
20:22 The three aimers (Strenx, Spart1e and k1llsen) after the big four (rapha, Cypher, av3k and Cooller). Coincidence the former are mainly known for their aim compared to the latter?
21:37 The one-sided match-ups of av3k vs. rapha and Cypher vs. Cooller.
22:25 How competitive was QL in dueling?
24:20 What is his sense of the dueling scene's health for the next couple of years?
25:20 Can there be an FPS that appeals to casual players and the hardcore?
26:54 Is a hardcore FPS the only game k1llsen plays casually or competitively?
27:30 Will k1llsen be a competitive LoL player? What role does he play?
27:55 How much skill does LoL have? Do k1llsen's skills work there at all?
28:55 Players who he always wished he could have dueled.
30:10 Will there ever be a good k1llsen movie?
30:28 Outro/final words.