if there's no balance on D-C level, the game is not right. and thats my experience of it as a player too, i am a C rank terran, and sometimes C-/D+ tosses beat me with recalls, or achieve a close game. AND i recently started playing toss and i achieved C even easier against T than with my original race, raping lower level terrans, and even winning vs C, sometimes higher ranked terrans with recall.
I do not, and will not, ever understand this sentiment. Balance, even at D ranks, is generally irrelevant. In fact, I'll go so far as to say balance is a concept that exists only at the absolute top skill level. If you lose to a protoss, or I lose to a zerg, we are not losing due to imbalance, but because the player is better than us in that matchup.
If you're losing to C- tosses then your TvP is C- level, with perhaps C/C+ ranks in the other matchups. Either that or those D+ tosses you're playing happen to have C level PvT. But why is the fact that it's easier for a toss to have C PvT than it is for a terran to have C TvP matter? If you play against an equal rank player in that matchup, then you'll both win/lose about 50% of the games.
That's why balance at lower levels doesn't matter that much, because "balance" is achieved via who you can play against. We can only speak of imbalance if the best players of one race cannot match the skill in XvY that the other race players can achieve in YvX. Everyone else is losing because of a difference in skill in that matchup.
if there's no balance on D-C level, the game is not right. and thats my experience of it as a player too, i am a C rank terran, and sometimes C-/D+ tosses beat me with recalls, or achieve a close game. AND i recently started playing toss and i achieved C even easier against T than with my original race, raping lower level terrans, and even winning vs C, sometimes higher ranked terrans with recall.
I do not, and will not, ever understand this sentiment. Balance, even at D ranks, is generally irrelevant. In fact, I'll go so far as to say balance is a concept that exists only at the absolute top skill level. If you lose to a protoss, or I lose to a zerg, we are not losing due to imbalance, but because the player is better than us in that matchup.
but why is he better? does he have more skill? it might be, because that matchup is easier.
On December 10 2014 17:20 L_Master wrote: If you're losing to C- tosses then your TvP is C- level, with perhaps C/C+ ranks in the other matchups. Either that or those D+ tosses you're playing happen to have C level PvT. But why is the fact that it's easier for a toss to have C PvT than it is for a terran to have C TvP matter? If you play against an equal rank player in that matchup, then you'll both win/lose about 50% of the games.
why does it matter? it matters because if one matchup is easier than the other, it means the game is imbalanced. it means that a certain ranked P player is less skilled than an equal ranked terran player, so the game is imbalanced. if i, or anyone is able achieve the same or even better rank with P with 10 times less practice than his main race, that means that P is easier and therefore the game is imbalanced. if statistics (ranking is statistics) show that one race is winning more than the other, that means... guess what, the game is imbalanced. whats so hard to understand in this? i'm not talking about my rank in any matchup, i'm talking about the game in general.
lets look at another example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess this article says that gosu chess players have an 52-56% winning percentage with white pieces, which is clearly a problem with the game (imbalance). [but note, that in chess, they switch colors every match, thus lowering the significance of this problem, while in bw we usually play with one race, so we're worsening it. and the artice also says that this percentage is lower in novice games, so it's the opposite of bw in that sense.] even if there is a player who is so good that he can win more with black or unbeatable, that doesn't mean that the game is not imbalanced.
maybe this "advantage" word sounds better for it. P has some advantage vs T. and we all know it, P>T>Z>P, but this advantage became too big with the use of modern strategies like mass recall on maps like FS, where the expansions are so easly defendable for p, and so hard to defend vs recalls.
I really don't care about "imbalance" at very low levels, because at that level, there are so many glaring mistakes being made by both players that the solution is simple: Stop sucking.
Once you stop sucking, you'll beat the Protoss. Then when he stops sucking, he'll go back to beating you. And for a while, he'll be ahead of you in this ladder. But eventually, when both of you fix holes in your play, you will advance up next to him, and it will become even. It is only in the beginning of the ladder that he gets higher than you for putting in the same amount of effort and skill. If you don't want to deal with this problem, then just play Protoss (it's the most popular race for a reason). But this won't help you much. You'll get stuck in PvT soon enough. The main reason that I can't respect TvP whining that much, is that I've gotten to the point at which PvT is harder for me than TvP, since I play Terran and not Protoss. If I switched to playing Protoss, then eventually TvP would become harder. But the point is, that which ever race I currently play, becomes the easiest. And I'm not even good.
Furthermore, I only care about imbalance when the game is being pushed to its limit. When both races are utilized to their fullest. And luckily for me, at that level of play (and even way below that level) the game is well balanced. If you play at this level, then your opponent is so good that simply being better than him isn't an option, because both you and your opponent have reached the final level of play. You have to surprise him and seriously outsmart him. If it's imbalanced at this level, then you feel helpless. And that is the real problem: Helplessness. When you're approaching the skill ceiling, and even though you are playing so damn well, your opponent's race simply beats your race 60 - 70% of the time, then you know you picked the wrong game to get good at.
This is what every fighting game in existence is like. Not to mention that they're fucking rock paper scissor guessing games. I hate fighting games. I should really stop playing them. The "imbalance" in StarCraft is only a temporary problem, that is solved by ascending to the next level. It's just like how playing a guitar is boring as fuck when you're bad at it, but becomes more fun the better you get.
if statistics (ranking is statistics) show that one race is winning more than the other, that means... guess what, the game is imbalanced. whats so hard to understand in this?
IF the statistics showed this at the top level, then we would indeed have a problem. Fortunately for BW, this is not the case. TvP in the SOSPA era favors terran by just a bit statistically. FS in particular is fairly strongly terran favored with T winning 53.3% of games. CB, interestingly, is even more insane, with terran winning almost 60%.
So no, I don't agree that there is any imbalance at the top level, and the SOSPA statistics back this up. You saw it towards the end of BW, and it has progressed into the SOSPA era, with terrans learning how to deal with protosses historically "imba" stuff. The MU, in the current map pool, is no longer imbalanced, and if anything actually favors terran.
If the game is free from imbalance at the top level, the "skill ceiling" so to speak, then there isn't imbalance. It just means it's easy to learn PvT than it is to learn TvP. If it takes a protoss 10x less work to reach C in PvT than it does for a terran to be C in TvP...what does that matter? You can still find games at your rank and if you play at your rank any imbalance concept doesn't exist. Since there is no imbalance at the top, the fact that it is easier to make C- as a toss is irrelevant, because as some point toss will have to work just as hard to reach a higher rank whether that is B on iccup, C on fish, or A on fish.
I'm guessing what makes you feel "imbalance" is your just going by global rank, and so you as a terran play a D+ toss and struggle in a close game and think "wow, some D+ fucker damn near beat me. wtf.". But the truth is that your TvP is probably around C- whereas his PvT is also around C- and thus the game is close. The protoss is NOT less skilled than you, in PvT, despite his rank. Any person beating you consistently in a MU is not less skilled than you. They are more skilled, by definition.
As a final, more conceptually easy to understand analogy let me use cycling. All else equal, someone that is lighter will go up climbs much faster than a heavier cyclist, less weight against gravity. So, lets take two equal height cyclists but one is a twig at 60kg, whereas the other is strong and muscle bound at 80kg. The 80kg guy could be a far stronger cyclist in terms of cardiorespiratory fitness, perhaps putting out 300 watts of power vs 240 watts for the twig. However, get to a big hill and the twig will get to the top first.
The bigger cyclist might be "fitter" but when it comes to climbing everyone will agree and say that the twig is a better CLIMBER. Maybe not a better overall cyclist, but certainly a better climber. The same as true of PvT/TvP, the mid level terran might have better mechanics and crisper play than the protoss, but the protoss could still be the better PvTer.
i mean nice reactions - "stop sucking." thank you. "The "imbalance" in StarCraft is only a temporary problem, that is solved by ascending to the next level" - wow. let me tell you a secret. i can not ascend any more. there is a certain skill level that people can reach by a feasible (and somewhat equal) amount of practice. that is C for me, B for you, etc. never wondered why some progamers play for 10 years, and they never get to the top? thats why. because your starcraft skill depends a lot on your talent. its not the only factor, but its a huge factor. strategy is just one part, mechanics is the other. and on my level terran is just way more mechanically demanding than P, thats why i'm whining.
L_Master: i carefully wrote that i'm not talking about the top level, but ours. even if top level is balanced, it doesn't mean that the game is balanced alltogether. it should be like that on every skill level. then you continued to ignore what i wrote and you repeated what you wrote before. "the fact that it is easier to make C- as a toss is irrelevant" - its not irrelevant. it matters because the majority of people play on lower ranks, so their game should be fair too. what makes me "feel" imbalance is not that my "TvP is probably around C- whereas his PvT is also around C- and thus the game is close". It's the view of certain situations in the game. When i feel that a player is weaker than me, and still wins by exploiting the imbalances in the game.
and in your cycling analogy, you just described what imbalance is. the twig has an advantage, because he is lighter. the bigger cyclist has more skill (muscle) but the imbalance in the sport helped the twig. he is a better climber only because of that. Just as taller people have an advantage in basketball, thats why they play it. just as Protoss has an advantage in bw, thats why the majority of people play toss, cause its easier, yo. thats why they made weight groups in boxing, people try to fix imbalance in life. But noone tries to fix imbalance in SC anymore because its harder to see and its an old game.
As much as I enjoy a good P imba rant, seriously, start playing Protoss if you're going to bitch about mechanical demands at C- level.
Your mechanics suck balls, so what, that is not the reason you're dying horrible deaths in TvP. TvZ is a much more mechanically demanding matchup than TvP, yet you barely ever catch a Terran whining about TvZ, because it's a fucking ez matchup, you just have to be fast enough to execute your plan. Almost every TvZ loss can be traced back to your mechanics sucking, but most TvP losses it can be traced back to your strategy/scouting/reactions sucking.
The reason you're whining is because you perceive a mechanical EFFORT imbalance between TvP and PvT. This again is an illusion, it's just easier to make strategic mistakes in TvP that cannot be rectified through superior mechanics as easily as in TvZ, so you will lose to players in seemingly more surprising fashion due to strategic errors.
To get to your rant about balancing at all levels, in essence you're complaining about the very mechanics of starcraft, so basically you could also just play a different game. Basketball gives an advantage for tall people, okay instead of learning to deal with that by jumping higher, dribbling faster etc., why don't we just lower all the basketball hoops.
Sprinting favours fast people, okay let's impose a speed limit so that in lower level competitions people can feel like they can keep pace with faster people.
Basically, if you're LOSING then you are the WORSE player, the better player always wins. That player was the better player for THAT game, it doesn't have to be statistically or over a period of time or within a certain rank range, but in the game you play, the better player wins in every specific game.
The question you should be asking yourself, zimp, is why you're preventing yourself from winning by using an option you find more difficult? It's okay not to care whether you win or lose, but you seem to care about it enough to make me wonder why you play Terran at all if you aren't aiming to be able to beat Protoss consistently with it.
And it's a sad, modern perspective that a game should be balanced for the bell curve and not for the elite. Except in cases of extreme homogenization, it just results in a game that bends and breaks when you try and push it.
"the fact that it is easier to make C- as a toss is irrelevant" - its not irrelevant. it matters because the majority of people play on lower ranks, so their game should be fair too.
But that's just it. It IS fair if you play someone at equal rank in that matchup. By definition of rank, if you play someone of equal rank you win 50% of the games, and thus it is perfectly balanced. Imbalance doesn't affect a player at all until the top level of play because of this, as you just end up being matched against opponents that at your play level.
Now you can bitch a little because ICCup system is shitty, but that has nothing to do with balance and everything to do with ICCup. With a more appropriate ranking system you would never "see" any imbalance because you'd be playing games against people you would win 50% and lose 50%...which is the general definition of what we consider perfect balance.
I kinda like where DNH is going with this. Look at how any other sport, which has the great, omnipotent imbalance of "genetics" which is we are honest is 100x more imbalanced than some modest difference in starcraft matchup difficulty. They don't modify the game for people lower down. Basketball doesn't lower the hoop so the average person can dunk. Baseball doesn't shorten the field so homeruns can be easily hit by Joe rec league player. Cycling doesn't take out hills so fatties can more easily compete with the skinny guys.
You know how all these sports handle the imbalance of genetics? You guessed it, different levels of competition. Which sounds an awful lot like...ranks in starcraft.
When i feel that a player is weaker than me, and still wins by exploiting the imbalances in the game.
I read this a ton, and never has it made a lick of sense to me. What is meant by it? The player isn't weaker than you. This is what my climbing example was meant to illustrate. Someone beating you, by definition, cannot be worse than you (at least if we look at average performances to avoid volatility/"luck").
The player beating you IS the better PvTer. The skinny cyclist that beats "fitter" fatty to the top of the hill IS the better climber.
The funny misconception about Protoss is that, at the level Bisu / Sea are playing at , Protoss is no longer the " IMBA 1a2a3a NEWB RACE" that all non koreans believe Protoss is, at the level they are playing at, Protoss is REALLY difficult to play...BW is not imbalanced favoring Protoss just because of arbiters....really? A gosu Terran will hit Protoss's arbiter with EMP before it is even in position to recall...then what.
EDIT : lol Zimp I can't believe that someone who is supposed to be an expert an analyzing BW replays is now talking about how Protoss is imbalanced and easier to play, never really listened to your opinion anyways but now it is just cemented.
On December 11 2014 08:49 zimp wrote: i'm just wasting my time here too.
i mean nice reactions - "stop sucking." thank you. "The "imbalance" in StarCraft is only a temporary problem, that is solved by ascending to the next level" - wow. let me tell you a secret. i can not ascend any more. there is a certain skill level that people can reach by a feasible (and somewhat equal) amount of practice. that is C for me, B for you, etc. never wondered why some progamers play for 10 years, and they never get to the top? thats why. because your starcraft skill depends a lot on your talent. its not the only factor, but its a huge factor. strategy is just one part, mechanics is the other. and on my level terran is just way more mechanically demanding than P, thats why i'm whining.
L_Master: i carefully wrote that i'm not talking about the top level, but ours. even if top level is balanced, it doesn't mean that the game is balanced alltogether. it should be like that on every skill level. then you continued to ignore what i wrote and you repeated what you wrote before. "the fact that it is easier to make C- as a toss is irrelevant" - its not irrelevant. it matters because the majority of people play on lower ranks, so their game should be fair too. what makes me "feel" imbalance is not that my "TvP is probably around C- whereas his PvT is also around C- and thus the game is close". It's the view of certain situations in the game. When i feel that a player is weaker than me, and still wins by exploiting the imbalances in the game.
and in your cycling analogy, you just described what imbalance is. the twig has an advantage, because he is lighter. the bigger cyclist has more skill (muscle) but the imbalance in the sport helped the twig. he is a better climber only because of that. Just as taller people have an advantage in basketball, thats why they play it. just as Protoss has an advantage in bw, thats why the majority of people play toss, cause its easier, yo. thats why they made weight groups in boxing, people try to fix imbalance in life. But noone tries to fix imbalance in SC anymore because its harder to see and its an old game.
If you "feel" P is easier, why don't you switch?
If you "feel" T is harder and you picked it knowing it is harder and being aware of the challenges, why complain?
On December 11 2014 08:49 zimp wrote: i'm just wasting my time here too.
i mean nice reactions - "stop sucking." thank you. "The "imbalance" in StarCraft is only a temporary problem, that is solved by ascending to the next level" - wow. let me tell you a secret. i can not ascend any more. there is a certain skill level that people can reach by a feasible (and somewhat equal) amount of practice. that is C for me, B for you, etc. never wondered why some progamers play for 10 years, and they never get to the top? thats why. because your starcraft skill depends a lot on your talent.
There is talent involved but just because talent is involved, you cant say that practice doesnt make difference. Typically the best players in the proffesional korean scene were those who had been around for quite some time. The ones people considered to be top 4 (Bisu, Stork, Jaedong, Flash) started their careers around 2005 and their skill usually peaked 2-3 years after, same with savior and these people played 10+ hour a day.
And when you say you cant get higher then C, thats just not true. Im sure there is plenty of stuff you can learn and become a much better player.
at the highest level tvp is terran favored if played properly, sea had alot of macro slips that game and still managed to win convincingly. terran is the ultimate defensive race and they have the strongest late game army.. theres a reason why flash was untouchable.
p is the worst at highest lvl of play zerg is the best on paper but requires very smart and talented person terran is where multi ability of a player will often shine the most, having very good mechanics as T at highest level of play makes you already a formidable opponent against about anything you might face
I've always thought about the Terran really being mechanically the hardest though, thinking Zerg might potentially be the mechanically most demanding, even if it's just slightly. I mean, yes sieging/unsieging, stim, micro, vesselplay, dropships and all that jazz is tough, but the potential for zerg, dark swarm, ling/hydra/cow "micro", egg maintenance, queen play, overlord movement. It just seems Zerg might have alot more relevant stuff to take into account, if you'd ideally look at the way this game can be played
Balancing for C to D level players is what killed SC2. Eugh. Balancing the game for all skill levels should not be a priority for any competitive game. Whiny players will never be satisfied with the game because any lack of personal skill will be attributed to the game not being balanced.
On December 11 2014 08:49 zimp wrote: i'm just wasting my time here too.
i mean nice reactions - "stop sucking." thank you. "The "imbalance" in StarCraft is only a temporary problem, that is solved by ascending to the next level" - wow. let me tell you a secret. i can not ascend any more. there is a certain skill level that people can reach by a feasible (and somewhat equal) amount of practice. that is C for me, B for you, etc. never wondered why some progamers play for 10 years, and they never get to the top? thats why. because your starcraft skill depends a lot on your talent. its not the only factor, but its a huge factor. strategy is just one part, mechanics is the other. and on my level terran is just way more mechanically demanding than P, thats why i'm whining.
L_Master: i carefully wrote that i'm not talking about the top level, but ours. even if top level is balanced, it doesn't mean that the game is balanced alltogether. it should be like that on every skill level. then you continued to ignore what i wrote and you repeated what you wrote before. "the fact that it is easier to make C- as a toss is irrelevant" - its not irrelevant. it matters because the majority of people play on lower ranks, so their game should be fair too. what makes me "feel" imbalance is not that my "TvP is probably around C- whereas his PvT is also around C- and thus the game is close". It's the view of certain situations in the game. When i feel that a player is weaker than me, and still wins by exploiting the imbalances in the game.
and in your cycling analogy, you just described what imbalance is. the twig has an advantage, because he is lighter. the bigger cyclist has more skill (muscle) but the imbalance in the sport helped the twig. he is a better climber only because of that. Just as taller people have an advantage in basketball, thats why they play it. just as Protoss has an advantage in bw, thats why the majority of people play toss, cause its easier, yo. thats why they made weight groups in boxing, people try to fix imbalance in life. But noone tries to fix imbalance in SC anymore because its harder to see and its an old game.
Wow a guy with C skills whining about balance? Priceless!
On December 12 2014 20:35 Boonbag wrote: p is the worst at highest lvl of play zerg is the best on paper but requires very smart and talented person terran is where multi ability of a player will often shine the most, having very good mechanics as T at highest level of play makes you already a formidable opponent against about anything you might face
imo
protoss : guts terran : hands zerg : brain
Fuck it, Im swapping to terran. Im all hands, no brains
On December 12 2014 20:35 Boonbag wrote: p is the worst at highest lvl of play zerg is the best on paper but requires very smart and talented person terran is where multi ability of a player will often shine the most, having very good mechanics as T at highest level of play makes you already a formidable opponent against about anything you might face
imo
protoss : guts terran : hands zerg : brain
Fuck it, Im swapping to terran. Im all hands, no brains
u need korean metal chopstick trained spider hands to deliver and undergo arm surgery later on so you can keep owning
EPT
