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On February 04 2017 04:21 B-royal wrote:There's no such thing as an inherent advantage since noone can play starcraft without playing it on a map.
"There's no such thing as pineapples being bigger than potatoes. If you plant a pineapple and potato in Latvia, pineapple will die. Only potato left. Latvia is the problem".
Let me tell you of a little game called Heroes of Might and Magic 3. It's a really cool game from the same era as Starcraft that still has a competitive scene. There are various factions to choose from and guess what? They aren't balanced at all. Necropolis is so good that it's simply banned in competitive play. If it were allowed, it would stomp almost every game. That's how good it is. Guess what's also possible? To make some kind of convoluted map that sacrifices good gameplay just to punish Necropolis and hide how good it is. That wouldn't make Necropolis not imbalanced, it would just be an ugly combover.
It is possible to have a competitive game with imbalances, but that requires actually acknowledging the imbalance so it can be worked around. Pretending everything is fine and dandy won't lead to better maps in tournament to better adress ZvT and PvZ. And that is just what we need right now.
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On February 04 2017 04:21 B-royal wrote:Those claims are verifiably false without mentioning the associated map. Z = P on fighting spirit. T > Z on fighting spirit. T > P on fighting spirit. There's no such thing as an inherent advantage since noone can play starcraft without playing it on a map.
Fighting Spirit is not the holy grail of maps, there are other maps that exist.
Furthermore
There's no such thing as an inherent advantage since noone can play starcraft without playing it on a map.
There's no such thing as map advantage because no one can play on maps without taking unit stat balance into account.
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fighting spirit is one of the most impactfull maps in star probably after lost temple,
people that dont understand that didn play any serious ladder or get in touch with the korean scene
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On February 04 2017 05:22 onlystar wrote:
fighting spirit is one of the most impactfull maps in star probably after lost temple,
people that dont understand that didn play any serious ladder or get in touch with the korean scene
Who is denying that? No one's denying that. Doesn't mean we should be taking either it or Lost Temple as the only test cases for balance and ignore every other map that exists.
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On February 03 2017 03:12 BisuDagger wrote:
Read back 3 pages. There is more whining about people balance whining then actual balance whining. Oh the irony :D.
True dat. 
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What BW needs is some type of Gini coefficent that explains parity between the races once and for all
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On February 04 2017 05:09 neobowman wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2017 04:21 B-royal wrote:Those claims are verifiably false without mentioning the associated map. Z = P on fighting spirit. T > Z on fighting spirit. T > P on fighting spirit. There's no such thing as an inherent advantage since noone can play starcraft without playing it on a map. Fighting Spirit is not the holy grail of maps, there are other maps that exist. Furthermore Show nested quote +
There's no such thing as an inherent advantage since noone can play starcraft without playing it on a map.
There's no such thing as map advantage because no one can play on maps without taking unit stat balance into account.
That's just a non sequitur. Just because noone can play the game without a map doesn't mean a specific race can't benefit from specific map features.
+ Show Spoiler +Example: Island map where only the center of the map contains minerals and you don't receive a shuttle or ventral sacs from the start.
My entire position is that there's no such thing as an inherent advantage because you can't play the game in a vacuum i.e. not on a map. As soon as the map comes into the picture, it's both units and the map features, which are inextricably connected, that determine the balance.
This is obvious from the fact that there's plenty of maps that go against the putative race imbalance.
One important thing is that my statement entails equal opportunity for both players. We are not in a situation where one race starts the game with a single worker because 1 marine can handle 10 zerglings for example. Since we are arguing about subtleties I think my statements holds up.
And you are right, there are other maps than Fighting Spirit. But my point is that there is no overarching balance pattern for the different races, it's map specific. So why not change the maps to have features so we end up with a perfect balance instead of arguing that terran or zerg is just broken.
Now some things that just came to mind are:
1) Just because something is impossible to prove doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
But this is irrelevant for me perhaps since the burden of proof would be on you to show that there is an inherent advantage.
2) If a marine would do 10 000 damage a shot and siege tanks would shoot nukes, I guess you could say terran will have an inherent advantage if all else stayed the same.
This could still be counteracted with maps in an ideal world (extractor an absurd distance from the CC surrounded by unbuildable terrain, island map, miss chances everywhere, who knows lol...)
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On February 04 2017 05:58 neobowman wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2017 05:22 onlystar wrote:
fighting spirit is one of the most impactfull maps in star probably after lost temple,
people that dont understand that didn play any serious ladder or get in touch with the korean scene Who is denying that? No one's denying that. Doesn't mean we should be taking either it or Lost Temple as the only test cases for balance and ignore every other map that exists.
i leave balance debating to ignorant foreigners who have a poor understanding of the game and korean scene
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On February 03 2017 23:02 Jae Zedong wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2017 22:49 LRM)TechnicS wrote:On February 03 2017 02:23 SCC-Faust wrote:
Savior was a great player in his time but I think some of his success was popularizing the 3 hatch mutalisk build in ZvT which caused a lot of Terrans to adapt. Which to note is the last innovation to the ZvT match-up from the Zerg side, really. I don't know, man. I remember playing 3hatch mutalisk ZvT as early as 2002 on Battle.net in a game with korean observers. I remember it because they noted (not sure whether mockingly or not) that I played an old build. I placed 3rd hatch after reaching 14 limit. At some point I thought that the new build they referred to was to place the 3rd hatch on 13 limit, not on 14. The key difference is that muta stacking wasn't invented yet in 2002, so even if 3 hatch muta had been tried at that point it wasn't viable at the top level. In essence they are two completely different things.
It was kind of viable.
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On February 04 2017 07:28 B-royal wrote:
My entire position is that there's no such thing as an inherent advantage because you can't play the game in a vacuum i.e. not on a map. As soon as the map comes into the picture, it's both units and the map features, which are inextricably connected, that determine the balance.
Huh? There can't be any racial matchup advantages because the game is played on maps? That's an odd thing to say. I used to work in the game industry, and I think any designer who said that in a meeting would be laughed out of said meeting. Or at least the producer would give him a hairy eyeball and ask him if he'd had drinks at lunch.
It seems that what you mean to say, but are saying in an odd/overstated way, is that maps are part of the overall balance situation. If so, I think most everyone's already on board with that already/agrees with you. Maps do impact balance, but so do the races themselves, obviously.
This is obvious from the fact that there's plenty of maps that go against the putative race imbalance.
Sure, plenty of maps do, but have you bothered to see exactly *how many* do? And compared that to how many fit the T>Z>P>T model, that so many cite?
For instance, intrigued by what you wrote above, I looked at some ICCup data that Birdie originally posted on his site, that covered roughly 177k games in total. For maps that saw at least 100 plays of a particular matchup, here's how many maps were over a 50% win-rate for a particular race in said matchup:
ZvP: 19-5 (that is, 19 maps with 100+ games in this matchup where Z won more than 50% of the time vs P, and 5 maps where the opposite was true)
PvT: 17-5
TvZ: 6-16 (which actually does go against traditional imba)
So, okay... if there can be no race/unit-stats imba because it's 'all maps', then how come, in all three matchups, there seems to be a lot more maps where one side of the matchup wins a majority of games vs the other way around?
Again, not saying maps are not a factor. No one reasonable would say that. Just saying they're not the ONLY factor.
And you are right, there are other maps than Fighting Spirit. But my point is that there is no overarching balance pattern for the different races, it's map specific. So why not change the maps to have features so we end up with a perfect balance instead of arguing that terran or zerg is just broken.
See above. And also, and maybe even more importantly... if there were only ONE imba matchup, it would likely be fairly easy to fix it through maps. And that'd be wonderful. But, there are apparently *three* imba matchups (perhaps not very imba, but imba enough to be a thing). And things you do to fix/improve one matchup, whether changes to unit stats or to maps, usually affect the other matchups. For instance, make it easy for Zerg to get and hold a third gas, and you help them vs T, but you also help them vs P as well.
If it were easy to fix imba through maps alone, I suspect it would've already been done definitively and consistently by now.
2) If a marine would do 10 000 damage a shot and siege tanks would shoot nukes, I guess you could say terran will have an inherent advantage if all else stayed the same.
This could still be counteracted with maps in an ideal world (extractor an absurd distance from the CC surrounded by unbuildable terrain, island map, miss chances everywhere, who knows lol...)
You would torture the game beyond recognition trying to use maps alone to compensate for unit stats that broken.
If balance is a partnership between race stats/properties and maps, then the best course would seem to be to adjust both, and not ignore one or the other. When SC 1.00 was released and found to be pretty damn imba, Blizzard did not try to fix it with maps alone... they put out four separate balance patches, and made roughly 100 balance changes to the game.
I remember the BW lead designer posting on the Bliz forums back in '98/'99, after 1.04 came out and some ppl, being furious about the changes, were up in arms... and he cited things that he said were definitively big problems, such as the pre-1.04 Zerg larva spawn rate, that simply could not have been fixed by maps, but had to be patched.
Maps very much matter. But other things do as well. And another nice thing about addressing both unit stats AND maps... if you do *both*, you probably don't have to change either one nearly as much.
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On February 03 2017 03:12 BisuDagger wrote:
Read back 3 pages. There is more whining about people balance whining then actual balance whining. Oh the irony :D.
It's the meta these days.
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a few pages back [[starlight]] proposed a buff to corsairs.. that is the level we are dealing with, if someone thinks corsairs need a buff they have no grasp on the game.
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On February 04 2017 04:43 Jae Zedong wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2017 04:21 B-royal wrote:There's no such thing as an inherent advantage since noone can play starcraft without playing it on a map.
"There's no such thing as pineapples being bigger than potatoes. If you plant a pineapple and potato in Latvia, pineapple will die. Only potato left. Latvia is the problem". Let me tell you of a little game called Heroes of Might and Magic 3. It's a really cool game from the same era as Starcraft that still has a competitive scene. There are various factions to choose from and guess what? They aren't balanced at all. Necropolis is so good that it's simply banned in competitive play. If it were allowed, it would stomp almost every game. That's how good it is. Guess what's also possible? To make some kind of convoluted map that sacrifices good gameplay just to punish Necropolis and hide how good it is. That wouldn't make Necropolis not imbalanced, it would just be an ugly combover. It is possible to have a competitive game with imbalances, but that requires actually acknowledging the imbalance so it can be worked around. Pretending everything is fine and dandy won't lead to better maps in tournament to better adress ZvT and PvZ. And that is just what we need right now.
This may have been the worst gaming analogy possible.
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On February 04 2017 15:49 onlystar wrote:
a few pages back [[starlight]] proposed a buff to corsairs.. that is the level we are dealing with, if someone thinks corsairs need a buff they have no grasp on the game.
Actually, that wasn't me, I don't believe that sairs need any buffs. Might've been NeoB.
In fact, I don't think it's even this thread. It might be the closed one. Go back and see.
btw, what happened to "i leave balance debating to ignorant foreigners who have a poor understanding of the game and korean scene". That sure lasted a long time, huh? 
Sigh.
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On February 04 2017 16:18 [[Starlight]] wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2017 15:49 onlystar wrote:
a few pages back [[starlight]] proposed a buff to corsairs.. that is the level we are dealing with, if someone thinks corsairs need a buff they have no grasp on the game. Actually, that wasn't me, I don't believe that sairs need any buffs. Might've been NeoB. In fact, I don't think it's even this thread. It might be the closed one. Go back and see. btw, what happened to "i leave balance debating to ignorant foreigners who have a poor understanding of the game and korean scene". That sure lasted a long time, huh? Sigh.
Check onlystar's history, literally 50% of his posts are "omg stahp having balance discussions". He's a frequent visitor of every balance thread made over the last several months. So much for leaving balance discussions alone
I'm glad we're finally at a point where most of us realize we can't just put our head in the sand anymore and pretend everything's fine. Brood War is the best game ever but that doesn't mean it has perfect balance. Anyone denying that can go ahead with their canned responses about "Zurgs jest need 2 innovate!!!1!" and "just make absurd maps to comb over the real problem" and "look at these meaningless statistics I've contorted to align with my existing opinion". The mental gymnastics some people go to is amusing.
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in broodwar the player playing the best wins,there are not champions by patches.why are u bringing balances issues in every single thread?
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Maybe he thought that would be the YouTube comment section.
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How are you collecting this info? Any way we could help to automate data collection or help with cleaning and calculating results?
Thank you as always!
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So let's take this from the beginning. This is how BW works:
T>Z>P
To perpetuate the "BW is perfectly balanced" meme, people put the P>T at the end, but that wasn't the case past 2003 or so (when Terrans learned how to play). If P>T exists, it's much smaller than the two other imbalances.
Maps balanced the game somewhat, with features bad for some races and good for others. The real reason the best player wins nearly all the time is because the skill ceiling is a hell of a lot higher than sc2's is. This allows good players to simply overcome any obstacle through sheer skill.
Take Chess for example. Chess is objectively imbalanced (White is better), although this difference is nearly imperceptible at lower levels. Magnus Carlsen could play Black, give up a rook, be blindfolded and still beat any amateur easily.
But when you look at the really high level matches, playing White is a huge advantage. Chess players are so good at abusing that advantage that anyone playing Black essentially has only one goal: to get a draw. Every move from the beginning of the game for the Black player is intended to steer the game into a draw, that's how big the disadvantage is.
What does this tell us about BW? It tells us that for anyone in this forum, balance will hardly matter because we're not good enough. But when you look at players as good as Flash, Jaedong, Stork, that's when those things become apparent. And what's even funnier is that ex-pros are a lot more willing to talk about these problems than foreign chobos who pros could beat with one hand.
What we need in the immediate future is better maps to mask the problem. It's not a perfect solution but it might be all we're going to get for now. And I have the perfect slogan for this project: We Shall Overcomb™
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EPT
