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People have vastly different talent, and as a result of that, it is impossible for the majority to make it to the very top.
This thread is meant to continue my personal quest of debunking false statements that infested this communities collective mind.
While there might be some pieces of anecdotal evidence that indicate the opposite, I believe that there is a large body of evidence that points in the other direction. There is also an argument to be made to refute the "just preference"-belief thoroughly.
SPOILER
Keep in mind that some of following argument aren't knockdown arguments. There might be alternative explanations for why we observe things as they are. The observations do, however, suggest that my claim is true or at least more likely to be true.
- most of the top-players do use a tablet (9 out of the top10), even though the rest of the player-base is notably divided.
This is, of course, not a definite argument for my claim, but it is something we'd expect to see if tablet was in fact the better option, and something we would not expect to see (to such a big degree) if tablet and mouse were completely equal. This imbalance might be explained by other factors (such as tablets being popularized by star-players, or tablet feeling more comfortable while not necessarily giving any real benefits). I do, however think that the imbalance is too big to just be explained away with the two counter-explanations I gave.
Here is spreadsheet of (most) high-ranked mouse players - There are many instances where players reported a sudden and sharp increase in skill over a short period of time after acquiring a tablet, even though they had no prior experience with tablets.
Now this is big. This is not something we would expect to see if tablet was less viable or just as viable as mouse.
This, paired with a lack of reports of people buying a tablet and playing consistently worse with it, even after prolonged training, makes for a strong argument that tablets are generally more viable.
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SPOILER
Imagine you have a complex machine. That machine is huge, it gets millions of inputs and has millions of processing components, most of which are interconnected. At the end you get a result, which is a picture with 3 billion pixels, every single pixel being calculated by all the components of your machine, based on all the millions of inputs. Most bits of your machine had an effect on the result.
Now imagine you go in and change those inputs quite a lot, and you do a lot of twisting to the bits that do the processing and alter some variables here and there. Do you expect the very specific picture you get as output to still be the exact same?
The obvious answer here would be: No. Depending on how much you change in the system, the picture might resemble your old one, but at least some pixels would be missing, or have a different color.
The argument here is as follows: If you have two very complex systems that meticulously process all the information you give them, and you give them two significantly different inputs, you would never expect to get the exact same results.
Our brains are complex systems like that. To believe that "it doesn't matter what you put in, just what feels best to you will be ok“ (which is basically the argument for preference as I understand it), is simply wrong. Our brain is a supercomputer that is unbelievably intricate. Our intuition or feelings do not provide sufficient oversight. Not to mention that the brain adapts to the inputs you give it (that's why muscle memory is a thing, and thats why we can "learn" to read AR10.3). You change the system itself by feeding it different sorts of input. It is not „just preference“. When you talk about complex system such as the brain, you can always get a better result when you change some inputs around, and changing from mouse to tablet is quite a big change. To expect no difference between the two, is very unrealistic.
Suggesting that the input (aka using mouse or tablet, which use inherently different movements, absolute vs relative tracking, effective area, weight and agility) doesn't matter, or can be wholly analyzed just by seeing how you feel about it at the moment, is INSANE. You don't know which one of the two is better, and you also can not claim that the two are the same (aka: "it doesn't matter, it's just preference"). If you think it is that easy, just because it feels like that to you, then you are wrong.
Imagine you have a complex machine. That machine is huge, it gets millions of inputs and has millions of processing components, most of which are interconnected. At the end you get a result, which is a picture with 3 billion pixels, every single pixel being calculated by all the components of your machine, based on all the millions of inputs. Most bits of your machine had an effect on the result.
Now imagine you go in and change those inputs quite a lot, and you do a lot of twisting to the bits that do the processing and alter some variables here and there. Do you expect the very specific picture you get as output to still be the exact same?
The obvious answer here would be: No. Depending on how much you change in the system, the picture might resemble your old one, but at least some pixels would be missing, or have a different color.
The argument here is as follows: If you have two very complex systems that meticulously process all the information you give them, and you give them two significantly different inputs, you would never expect to get the exact same results.
Our brains are complex systems like that. To believe that "it doesn't matter what you put in, just what feels best to you will be ok“ (which is basically the argument for preference as I understand it), is simply wrong. Our brain is a supercomputer that is unbelievably intricate. Our intuition or feelings do not provide sufficient oversight. Not to mention that the brain adapts to the inputs you give it (that's why muscle memory is a thing, and thats why we can "learn" to read AR10.3). You change the system itself by feeding it different sorts of input. It is not „just preference“. When you talk about complex system such as the brain, you can always get a better result when you change some inputs around, and changing from mouse to tablet is quite a big change. To expect no difference between the two, is very unrealistic.
Suggesting that the input (aka using mouse or tablet, which use inherently different movements, absolute vs relative tracking, effective area, weight and agility) doesn't matter, or can be wholly analyzed just by seeing how you feel about it at the moment, is INSANE. You don't know which one of the two is better, and you also can not claim that the two are the same (aka: "it doesn't matter, it's just preference"). If you think it is that easy, just because it feels like that to you, then you are wrong.
It is already false to assume that tablet vs. mouse is "just preference" (see argument 2). While there are examples of top players who use mouse, the majority of successful players use a tablet. On top of that, we have a large amount of players who gained a lot of skill pretty fast after acquiring a tablet, and a lack of reports on people buying a tablet and playing consistently worse with it, even after prolonged training. This, while not being definite proof, seems to suggest that tablet is the better option.
I concede that there will be exceptions. I claim that tablet is generally the better option for most people, long-term.
In absence of sufficient evidence to the contrary, I find it hard to believe that mouse is better than tablet.
There can be things said about relative vs. absolute positioning and mouse drift, but this thread is already long enough. However, these things that I don't touch on in this post, also favor tablet over mouse.
Tl;dr:
it is
a) very unlikely to be „just preference“ from the way our brains work. It is to be expected that one is generally better than the other, as the two are so functionally different, so it becomes unlikely for them to have the same exact efficiency.
b) more likely that tablet is better, when we consider the observational evidence (skill-surges and number of high ranked players with tablet vs. high ranked players with mouse)
Therefore: If you're using mouse, buy a tablet. You'll probably be more successful with it.
What I didn't say (please don't get me wrong):
"It is impossible to get good with mouse"
"Tablet will always be the better option, for every player"
"AngelMegumin is a bad player"
discuss.
