So I was curious about the statistics on Brood War balance. 99% of the topics on balance are purely opinion based. I am looking for some real research. If you have any info on that please post a link below.
And here is my own little try:
This excludes Proleague matches. It is 1v1 tournaments since the old days until now.
If there are no 3rd place matches I put both players in the 3rd place section.
Also I did the First place first then I went back and added the Second and Third.
All the information is gathered from and available here:
Total Zerg 106 Terran 109 Protoss 86 ------------------------------
As we can see Zerg and Terran are dead even in the end. With Protoss lagging a little bit behind. Keep in mind these are THE BEST OF THE BEST and most of the these finishes are held by very few people. I dont know how many of each race entered the tournaments (would be a very interesting statistic to know too). Also as most if not all matches are a best of something the real wins and loses would be even closer I assume.
Nice work, but like you said these are best of the best, so it's a very skewed sample. Bisu and Stork and Garimto are not really reflective of the entire Protoss population. This is pretty good info on champions at least.
I feel that statistics never gives you the full truth. There are times when one player of the race is tearing everyone apart, coming over obstacles and winning titles while every other player of the same race are failing. You really need to have followed the scene closely rather than pulling out statistics to be able to say anything about the balance.
edit: also most of these stats come from old matches and thus tells nothing about the balance because the play has evolved tremendously.
Defenders advantage plays a huge role in BW, Terran is the best defensive race and they have the strongest 200/200 army. Those numbers shouldn't surprise anyone, Terran is a strong race but the game can be balanced around maps.
On May 15 2017 17:59 TT1 wrote: Defenders advantage plays a huge role in BW, Terran is the best defensive race and they have the strongest 200/200 army. Those numbers shouldn't surprise anyone, Terran is a strong race but the game can be balanced around maps.
Yes maps are a thing but even with such a broad range of maps especially in the old days it still seams people have adapted well to all the different situations.
If Terran was imbalanced, they wouldn't be the least picked race at lower levels of Starcraft. You can sort of say they're the "easiest" to innovate with (thx Boxer), but the fact is Terran's power increases the most in proportion to the increase in player's skill. For example Terrans have a lot of timing pushes that are only open to the player as an option once the player has had experience with timing and strategic decisions
On May 15 2017 17:59 TT1 wrote: Defenders advantage plays a huge role in BW, Terran is the best defensive race and they have the strongest 200/200 army. Those numbers shouldn't surprise anyone, Terran is a strong race but the game can be balanced around maps.
That's the problem, large maps let Zerg have an easier time in ZvT, but they also favor Protoss in PvT, and Zerg in ZvP
it's hard to balance them all without match-up specific changes like ledges for overlords (doesn't affect ZvP because everyone goes corsair nowadays)
I heard a rumor that map testers in the past were BoxeR and Reach only. No zerg tester. In addition, there was only 1 terran player in top 10 list in 2010. Other terran players couldn't. Pretty much a lot of terran players learned FlaSh's TvP in the past. There were probably some few cool playstyle players, but FanTaSy was the only one could've come all the way to top list.
FanTaSy's vulture with a dropship play was so insane in the back day.
On May 15 2017 17:40 Piste wrote: I feel that statistics never gives you the full truth. There are times when one player of the race is tearing everyone apart, coming over obstacles and winning titles while every other player of the same race are failing. You really need to have followed the scene closely rather than pulling out statistics to be able to say anything about the balance.
edit: also most of these stats come from old matches and thus tells nothing about the balance because the play has evolved tremendously.
That's the problem with this kind of thing as well. Terran could be the worst race, but you might have someone like Flash come along who just beats absolutely everyone and it skews the results.
On May 15 2017 17:40 Piste wrote: I feel that statistics never gives you the full truth. There are times when one player of the race is tearing everyone apart, coming over obstacles and winning titles while every other player of the same race are failing. You really need to have followed the scene closely rather than pulling out statistics to be able to say anything about the balance.
edit: also most of these stats come from old matches and thus tells nothing about the balance because the play has evolved tremendously.
That's the problem with this kind of thing as well. Terran could be the worst race, but you might have someone like Flash come along who just beats absolutely everyone and it skews the results.
You can't base it purely on tournament standings.
you also have to consider meta changes. like judging PvZ balance from a single pool of data that includes a switch from 1 base to FE play doesn't give the whole picture.
On May 15 2017 21:03 jaeboss wrote: woah wait am i reading that right, in 2009 zerg had a winning rec ZvT ?! what's up with that? anyone have any insight into what that's all about?
On May 15 2017 20:35 LaStScan wrote: I heard a rumor that map testers in the past were BoxeR and Reach only. No zerg tester. In addition, there was only 1 terran player in top 10 list in 2010. Other terran players couldn't. Pretty much a lot of terran players learned FlaSh's TvP in the past. There were probably some few cool playstyle players, but FanTaSy was the only one could've come all the way to top list.
FanTaSy's vulture with a dropship play was so insane in the back day.
There was 2-4 terran players in the top 10 kespa rankings in 2010, always. Usually Flash, Fantasy, Light and Sea.
On May 15 2017 21:06 Qikz wrote: That's the problem with this kind of thing as well. Terran could be the worst race, but you might have someone like Flash come along who just beats absolutely everyone and it skews the results.
The problem with this is that you're arbitrarily separating Flash's dominance with the issue of balance. You're saying that he is a complete outlier that is not connected to balance at all.
Terran has always been the historically best race. I also think Terran is the strongest race at higher levels. It's also true that historically the best Protoss players have struggled to establish an era of dominance, as their counterparts in other races did. There is no protoss Bonjwa. + Show Spoiler +
all Bisu fans like myself can protest here, but the fact remains
In my opinion, protoss ist the most volatile race and the race that rewards very high skill the least.
There have been a number of threads that try to crunch some numbers. Most of them are pretty boring, but there was one extremely good one that had lots of visual graphs, a lot of theory about why the person thought the numbers worked, how they adjusted based on maps and such, and how the S-class players tended to reverse the trend of P>T>Z>P, but for most other players it was generally true.
There's also been reports on map balance and other in depth things that I seem to recall went way deeper.
In my personal opinion though, part of the vicarious pleasure of StarCraft is that ever so slight perception of imbalance, which none the less is overcome by the strongest players. It's one of those things where you just think how it mirrors real life being imbalanced, but not hopelessly so.
I also think it's a common enough story that many people choose the 'hard' race on purpose in StarCraft, both as a buffer to their ego when they lose, and as a feeling of triumph when they finally win. I mean, that's the story of almost every Terran. It's just that at the pro level, the story kind of reverses, and the so called easy race of Protoss does not have many golden mouse holders.
You also have to just consider human factors at work, completely outside of racial balance, where tournament organizers try to select a map pool that will give good representation of all races, and maybe favour a race that is falling behind. ie the legend of the fall
Floating command center is huge, not only terran is best at defending, but also can lift his base and save it and then continue on same number of bases, unlike any other race. They have most damage in the game for the less money. They have biggest power and bigest range ground to ground and ground to air and if we include yamato it covers also air to air and air to ground.
On the highest level its the race that have best things in its pocket and when the player use it properly its a dominance over all races.
im posting a great video with all the points discussed in the korean bw community.
whats the point of biggest range if your units die to manlots and zerglings? whats the point of best defence if you cant attack because zerg uses swarm/lurker or protoss blocks ramp with stasis? whats the point if you have the strongest 200/200 ball when zerg uses their mobility to attack undefended bases and protoss uses recall all over the map?
please stop posting that stupid clickbait video, i already explained what light did good and jaedong did bad the last time the video got posted........
in the end you need to explain what your definition of OP or imba is. for me, this is neither OP or imba.
i hope that 1 day, people will stop the balance whine..... welp, hope dies last....
On May 16 2017 05:10 Bakuryu wrote: whats the point of biggest range if your units die to manlots and zerglings? whats the point of best defence if you cant attack because zerg uses swarm/lurker or protoss blocks ramp with stasis? whats the point if you have the strongest 200/200 ball when zerg uses their mobility to attack undefended bases and protoss uses recall all over the map?
please stop posting that stupid clickbait video, i already explained what light did good and jaedong did bad the last time the video got posted........
in the end you need to explain what your definition of OP or imba is. for me, this is neither OP or imba.
i hope that 1 day, people will stop the balance whine..... welp, hope dies last....
The balance bitching will only become worse, now that there are potentially lots of SC2 kids playing some BW.
But honestly, I'm too old for that shit As long as I get to play a couple of BW games with my old mates, I don't care.
The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
And Blizzard know this. The last thing they want is a big hype about Broodwar, and everyone playing 1.16 instead of buying the remaster.
Protoss are the worst race because Scouts are not a viable opener ever unlike Mutas in all 3 matchups and Wraiths in 2. Clearly this is the most important and only metric that matters.
On May 16 2017 23:30 Crisium wrote: Protoss are the worst race because Scouts are not a viable opener ever unlike Mutas in all 3 matchups and Wraiths in 2. Clearly this is the most important and only metric that matters.
On May 16 2017 23:30 Crisium wrote: Protoss are the worst race because Scouts are not a viable opener ever unlike Mutas in all 3 matchups and Wraiths in 2. Clearly this is the most important and only metric that matters.
i hope your joking by posting this? Well, if not let me make it clear: Kolll "the german Wunderkind" was quite a talented german player who started playing in 2007 (iirc) and quickly became very good. It's common knowledge he hit B- in his first or second ICCup season [which meant way more than it does today; for a couple of reasons im not gonna delve into] and he was able to beat some of the Ger-A Players by 2009, namely GoOdy and Horror in the old German King of the Hill edition.
To get to the point: even tho he was a talented foreigner; it would be very nonsensical to link his game vs Stork as an example or "proof" why scouts are valid in the MU. Stork is an S class progamer. By comparison you could say Scouts are valid because a player like Bonyth can defeat D+ zergs on ICCup with it. That's just wrong. In Broodwar, you can defeat players who are way worse simply by superior mechanics, execution and understanding of the gameflow, despite your opening being very sub-par.
But i think you are trolling.. so i just wanted to make it clear in case it wasn't obvious to some people. (;
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
The thing is not that there are no map but who would wanna watch BW ONLY on the top 3 balanced maps? We love some variety which promotes old builds getting revisited and stuff like that... Hunters is one of the most unbalanced maps in the history of the game and yet everybody loves playing it...
I would definitely not want to watch BW on only 3 maps. Outsider is terrible for Protoss but it's super fun to watch. So then what are we left with? If we are to maintain our current standards for mapmaking, then the only recourse is actual balance change if we want to improve balance. And I don't think it's possible to make a set of maps that are actually not Z>P and T>Z favoured while simultaneously factoring in TvP balance. At least unless we completely overhaul every standard feature in modern maps or something.
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
What problems dude? Look at the great games we've been having. Look at the race distribution this ASL... You just want problems cause your a busy bee or something. Find something else to solve.
I would definitely not want to watch BW on only 3 maps. Outsider is terrible for Protoss but it's super fun to watch. So then what are we left with? If we are to maintain our current standards for mapmaking, then the only recourse is actual balance change if we want to improve balance. And I don't think it's possible to make a set of maps that are actually not Z>P and T>Z favoured while simultaneously factoring in TvP balance. At least unless we completely overhaul every standard feature in modern maps or something.
You have to realize that we are playing a 2017 meta on old maps.
Fighting spirit came out in 2009. Circuit breakers came out 2010. Outsider came out in 2009. Blue Storm came out in 2007. Andromeda came out in 2008.
Even Demian and Camelot are not "new". LatiAs uploaded previous versions of these maps to Broodwarmaps.net around 2015-2016. He has stated that some of these maps were made years ago (some of his dating back to 2012, maybe earlier), so who knows how old Demian and Camelot really are.
I think maps definitely have a role (and SHOULD) in curbing some of the more powerful strategies or trends in the meta. I've even posted my thoughts on what map characteristics can affect TvZ balance from a mapmaker's perspective (not here but on BWMN). I'm sure there are others, and we cannot know for sure what they really are unless we try them out on new maps and in the new meta.
But here we are playing on maps that have been around almost a decade.
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
What problems dude? Look at the great games we've been having. Look at the race distribution this ASL... You just want problems cause your a busy bee or something. Find something else to solve.
Just because the individual games are good in a single tournament, doesn't mean the matchups are balanced. This IS a problem. Not a giant tumor problem, but a persistent lingering cough type problem. I'm loving the ASL matches but at the same time, I sort of wish Protoss players other than Bisu could play PvZ and that Zergs could at least somewhat consistently secure their third gases without taking huge risks.
I would definitely not want to watch BW on only 3 maps. Outsider is terrible for Protoss but it's super fun to watch. So then what are we left with? If we are to maintain our current standards for mapmaking, then the only recourse is actual balance change if we want to improve balance. And I don't think it's possible to make a set of maps that are actually not Z>P and T>Z favoured while simultaneously factoring in TvP balance. At least unless we completely overhaul every standard feature in modern maps or something.
You have to realize that we are playing a 2017 meta on old maps.
Fighting spirit came out in 2009. Circuit breakers came out 2010. Outsider came out in 2009. Blue Storm came out in 2007. Andromeda came out in 2008.
Even Demian and Camelot are not "new". LatiAs uploaded previous versions of these maps to Broodwarmaps.net around 2015-2016. He has stated that some of these maps were made years ago (some of his dating back to 2012, maybe earlier), so who knows how old Demian and Camelot really are.
I think maps definitely have a role (and SHOULD) in curbing some of the more powerful strategies or trends in the meta. I've even posted my thoughts on what map characteristics can affect TvZ balance from a mapmaker's perspective (not here but on BWMN). I'm sure there are others, and we cannot know for sure what they really are unless we try them out on new maps and in the new meta.
But here we are playing on maps that have been around almost a decade.
I definitely agree that we need new maps. If Kespa did one thing right, it was regularly rotating new maps into the rotatoin and old maps out. That said, while I'm sure this trend could be mitigated by good mapmaking, I just don't really think it can be completely fixed considering current trends are just an exacerbation of trends that always existed. Just at a much more exaggerated level.
On May 16 2017 05:10 Bakuryu wrote: whats the point of biggest range if your units die to manlots and zerglings? whats the point of best defence if you cant attack because zerg uses swarm/lurker or protoss blocks ramp with stasis? whats the point if you have the strongest 200/200 ball when zerg uses their mobility to attack undefended bases and protoss uses recall all over the map?
please stop posting that stupid clickbait video, i already explained what light did good and jaedong did bad the last time the video got posted........
in the end you need to explain what your definition of OP or imba is. for me, this is neither OP or imba.
i hope that 1 day, people will stop the balance whine..... welp, hope dies last....
The balance bitching will only become worse, now that there are potentially lots of SC2 kids playing some BW.
But honestly, I'm too old for that shit As long as I get to play a couple of BW games with my old mates, I don't care.
Of course and they're gonna talk about how we should add +light/+armored damage and all that bullshit or how this should be nerfed etc etc.
A map pool change is what we need more than anything i think
On May 16 2017 23:30 Crisium wrote: Protoss are the worst race because Scouts are not a viable opener ever unlike Mutas in all 3 matchups and Wraiths in 2. Clearly this is the most important and only metric that matters.
i hope your joking by posting this? Well, if not let me make it clear: Kolll "the german Wunderkind" was quite a talented german player who started playing in 2007 (iirc) and quickly became very good. It's common knowledge he hit B- in his first or second ICCup season [which meant way more than it does today; for a couple of reasons im not gonna delve into] and he was able to beat some of the Ger-A Players by 2009, namely GoOdy and Horror in the old German King of the Hill edition.
To get to the point: even tho he was a talented foreigner; it would be very nonsensical to link his game vs Stork as an example or "proof" why scouts are valid in the MU. Stork is an S class progamer. By comparison you could say Scouts are valid because a player like Bonyth can defeat D+ zergs on ICCup with it. That's just wrong. In Broodwar, you can defeat players who are way worse simply by superior mechanics, execution and understanding of the gameflow, despite your opening being very sub-par.
But i think you are trolling.. so i just wanted to make it clear in case it wasn't obvious to some people. (;
Jangbi did a Scout opening vs a Zerg (Crazy-Hydra iirc) in a Proleague game after winning one his OSLs. Anyway, the exception doesnt disprove the rule.
I don't know how anyone can deny that Protoss is the weakest race from the highest level of competition.
If in nearly 2 decades we never had a protoss bonjwa or had majority of title winners Terran, then Zerg, and a few sparse Protoss, that should tell you something.
Terran units are the most cost efficient and have longest range (siege tanks) Zerg has trouble with them even with dark swarm in huge numbers, and Protoss upgrades don't hold a candle to how terran mech scales with upgrades. I think they should tone down the upgrades for terran +5 for mech is ridiculous, and make vultures cost more, because 1 unit only costs 75 minerals that could take out much more than it was worth with 3 spider mines.
I wish Bisu would get his protoss progamers and teach them a thing or two and make them represent the protoss race better. It is annoying to see Terran win the titles most of the times.
If Blizzard is back and is willing to change things with patience, i will humbly propose small micro changes. Like SVC health reduced to 50 hp and Vulture to cost at least 25 gas. Thats it, leave it for a year of testing and see what happens.
Also, its a fact that Zerg on island maps has the slowest time to be able to get transport.
However considering Blizzard's attitude to SC in the past, its probable that no changes will be made in spite that i think small micro changes could actually improve the experience.
On May 17 2017 09:11 ninazerg wrote: I think tanks should be buffed to have 9999 health and fire a nuclear missile.
Nina, come on. You're literally shitposting. This is the type of attitude I really dislike seeing. It's belittling the people who are proposing balance ideas. I'm fine if you disagree with balance changes but this is just as annoying as people yelling "Terran OP impossible to beat!"
On May 17 2017 10:52 SeAy wrote: If Blizzard is back and is willing to change things with patience, i will humbly propose small micro changes. Like SVC health reduced to 50 hp and Vulture to cost at least 25 gas. Thats it, leave it for a year of testing and see what happens.
Also, its a fact that Zerg on island maps has the slowest time to be able to get transport.
However considering Blizzard's attitude to SC in the past, its probable that no changes will be made in spite that i think small micro changes could actually improve the experience.
Even those changes seem extreme to me. SCV health is vital for alot of rushes and you can't change vultures cost (especially adding gas) without huge ramifications. As always I'm a proponent of really tiny changes like +3 seconds on medic build time or +5 health on corsairs. Better to change not enough than too much.
On May 17 2017 09:11 ninazerg wrote: I think tanks should be buffed to have 9999 health and fire a nuclear missile.
Nina, come on. You're literally shitposting. This is the type of attitude I really dislike seeing. It's belittling the people who are proposing balance ideas. I'm fine if you disagree with balance changes but this is just as annoying as people yelling "Terran OP impossible to beat!"
On May 17 2017 10:52 SeAy wrote: If Blizzard is back and is willing to change things with patience, i will humbly propose small micro changes. Like SVC health reduced to 50 hp and Vulture to cost at least 25 gas. Thats it, leave it for a year of testing and see what happens.
Also, its a fact that Zerg on island maps has the slowest time to be able to get transport.
However considering Blizzard's attitude to SC in the past, its probable that no changes will be made in spite that i think small micro changes could actually improve the experience.
Even those changes seem extreme to me. SCV health is vital for alot of rushes and you can't change vultures cost (especially adding gas) without huge ramifications. As always I'm a proponent of really tiny changes like +3 seconds on medic build time or +5 health on corsairs. Better to change not enough than too much.
The point is that balance discussions are ridiculous and usually extremely short sighted. Most terran complainers don't play terran, and don't know how hard it is to deal with things like 2 gate pressure, lurker drops, etc. There is a ton that is OP on other races and cannot be shrugged off for some poorly formed idea that terran OP. It's just idlers riding a hype train. BW has been played professionally for over 15 years without any balance changes and that's the way the majority want to keep it, why is that so hard to understand? And if you can't understand, understand why you get a lot of scoffing and mockery, 15 years, more than half your life most likely. Get a grip people.
Please guys give up on the fantasy that you are going to make micro tweaks that lead to perfect balance between all the races.We are incredibly blessed to have a game with three asymmetrical races that hasn't had a balance patch in over 15 years has remained this competitive and viable over all the meta shifts and strategies discovered so far. After all this time player skill and then map balance are the most important factors when it comes to deciding who wins a match.
Brood war is unique in this way and I don't want to come into a situation where I'm reading balance patch notes every two weeks to fix stuff someone was whining about on the forums. Just leave the game balance alone.
On May 17 2017 09:11 ninazerg wrote: I think tanks should be buffed to have 9999 health and fire a nuclear missile.
Nina, come on. You're literally shitposting. This is the type of attitude I really dislike seeing. It's belittling the people who are proposing balance ideas. I'm fine if you disagree with balance changes but this is just as annoying as people yelling "Terran OP impossible to beat!"
On May 17 2017 10:52 SeAy wrote: If Blizzard is back and is willing to change things with patience, i will humbly propose small micro changes. Like SVC health reduced to 50 hp and Vulture to cost at least 25 gas. Thats it, leave it for a year of testing and see what happens.
Also, its a fact that Zerg on island maps has the slowest time to be able to get transport.
However considering Blizzard's attitude to SC in the past, its probable that no changes will be made in spite that i think small micro changes could actually improve the experience.
Even those changes seem extreme to me. SCV health is vital for alot of rushes and you can't change vultures cost (especially adding gas) without huge ramifications. As always I'm a proponent of really tiny changes like +3 seconds on medic build time or +5 health on corsairs. Better to change not enough than too much.
The point is that balance discussions are ridiculous and usually extremely short sighted. Most terran complainers don't play terran, and don't know how hard it is to deal with things like 2 gate pressure, lurker drops, etc. There is a ton that is OP on other races and cannot be shrugged off for some poorly formed idea that terran OP. It's just idlers riding a hype train. BW has been played professionally for over 15 years without any balance changes and that's the way the majority want to keep it, why is that so hard to understand? And if you can't understand, understand why you get a lot of scoffing and mockery, 15 years, more than half your life most likely. Get a grip people.
I don't think anyone denies the difficulty of playing Terran. But this isn't about us. Balance is irrelevant at lower levels. It's the top pro level we're talking about. We're not just counting up things we think are imbalanced. These are statistics. It's not imaginary.
I understand that a lot of people want to keep it that way and I just don't think that's the correct position to take. You want it to stay the way it is because that's the way it's always been. That's not really an argument, just an explanation for a position. I understand it, but doesn't make the disdain for those who suggest otherwise any more right.
On May 17 2017 11:45 CobaltBlu wrote: Please guys give up on the fantasy that you are going to make micro tweaks that lead to perfect balance between all the races.We are incredibly blessed to have a game with three asymmetrical races that hasn't had a balance patch in over 15 years has remained this competitive and viable over all the meta shifts and strategies discovered so far. After all this time player skill and then map balance are the most important factors when it comes to deciding who wins a match.
Brood war is unique in this way and I don't want to come into a situation where I'm reading balance patch notes every two weeks to fix stuff someone was whining about on the forums. Just leave the game balance alone.
This is the type of "Good enough" type thinking that all this usually boils down to and I just don't agree with it. I'm thinking it's coming from dislike of how SC2 operated with monthly balance patches and I wouldn't want that either. But I don't think that's valid criticism of a small balance tweak after years of the same imbalance trends remaining. Literally every competitive game changes with the times. Chess, Go, literally every sport. No one disagrees that Starcraft is an amazing game. But just because it is, doesn't mean it can't be improved. If I told a professional athelete that they'd lose 5% of their matches, "Just because that's the way the game works", that would be inexcusable. That would be a top priority to fix. Yet when it's suggested in any Brood War thread, it's shot down because people are scared of change.
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Haha lol yeah. But the balance whine was pretty much expected with all these new players.
On May 17 2017 12:09 NerO wrote: Give protoss high templar a speed upgrade. Instead of one of the hardly ever used spells in the templar archives.
But there is no such thing as "hardly ever used spells in the templar archives" for high templars..
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
Never said Bw balance is perfect, but I do say that it is more than fine. And like I've said many times already. Change the map pool by removing maps like circuit breaker and fs and use maps like chain reaction or pathfinder instead and you would see a big difference.
"I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already"
That's the thing, there is a way to change the maps and make them unfavorable for terran, but for some reason they aren't doing it. Remember the savior era? Where every single zerg struggled to get a win against terrans because of the ridiculous map pool heavily favoring terrans but savior was the only one who managed to overcome all these obstacles by playing non-standard and figuring out ways to take advantage of terran weaknesses. He was smart and didn't let the map pool affect him. BUT imagine if the map pool would have been zerg favored instead? It would have changed everything and potentially made savior even more dominant.
The maps make a big difference and we could certainly use more 2p or 3p maps that can potentially make terrans unfavored. Or with less cliffs. Or with shorter rush distances. Or with an easy to get 3rd gas for zerg.
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
Never said Bw balance is perfect, but I do say that it is more than fine. And like I've said many times already. Change the map pool by removing maps like circuit breaker and fs and use maps like chain reaction or pathfinder instead and you would see a big difference.
"I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already"
That's the thing, there is a way to change the maps and make them unfavorable for terran, but for some reason they aren't doing it. Remember the savior era? Where every single zerg struggled to get a win against terrans because of the ridiculous map pool heavily favoring terrans but savior was the only one who managed to overcome all these obstacles by playing non-standard and figuring out ways to take advantage of terran weaknesses. He was smart and didn't let the map pool affect him. BUT imagine if the map pool would have been zerg favored instead? It would have changed everything and potentially made savior even more dominant.
The maps make a big difference and we could certainly use more 2p or 3p maps that can potentially make terrans unfavored. Or with less cliffs. Or with shorter rush distances. Or with an easy to get 3rd gas for zerg.
Again, if BW doesn't change, it'll still be great. I completely agree. But at the same time, that's not an argument against change. Go is a wonderful game that's still trying to find perfect balance with their rulings.
I have no idea why you would pick Chain Reaction and Pathfinder of all maps. Not exactly the paragons of balance.
Aight, work with me here for a sec. Let's assume that Terran has an advantage against Zerg. What if it was the other way around? But Flash is amazing so he still wins against Zerg. Flash is the only one who manages to overcome all these. He's smart and doesn't let the map pool affect him. But imagine if balance was in Terran's favour? He would've been even more dominant.
See, this argument is silly. Savior's ZvT even at his prime was nowhere near as good as top Terrans against Zerg. And he didn't play non-standard, he created the new standard. The one that everyone plays today. And unless I'm missing something, it's been standard for a good 10 years now and no one's come up with any significant improvement on it. Refinement, yes, lot's of refinement. But nothing like Bisu's PvZ revolution (which eventually was solved btw) and most certainly nothing like the TvZ 5 rax into mech switch.
These are all balance suggestions I'm well aware of. I made and analyzed maps for a good 3 years back when Kespa around. But I simply don't think there's a way to aid either ZvT or PvZ balance without screwing up the other matchups.
Terran mech attack upgrades are mediocre, aside from the Goliath's anti-air. The scary part isn't that they get +5 damage on a 70-damage sieged tank. The scary part is that your armor upgrades barely matter against mech because the mech units do so much damage per hit. You're trying to scale against mech's weapon and armor upgrades, and only your weapon upgrades really count.
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
Never said Bw balance is perfect, but I do say that it is more than fine. And like I've said many times already. Change the map pool by removing maps like circuit breaker and fs and use maps like chain reaction or pathfinder instead and you would see a big difference.
"I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already"
That's the thing, there is a way to change the maps and make them unfavorable for terran, but for some reason they aren't doing it. Remember the savior era? Where every single zerg struggled to get a win against terrans because of the ridiculous map pool heavily favoring terrans but savior was the only one who managed to overcome all these obstacles by playing non-standard and figuring out ways to take advantage of terran weaknesses. He was smart and didn't let the map pool affect him. BUT imagine if the map pool would have been zerg favored instead? It would have changed everything and potentially made savior even more dominant.
The maps make a big difference and we could certainly use more 2p or 3p maps that can potentially make terrans unfavored. Or with less cliffs. Or with shorter rush distances. Or with an easy to get 3rd gas for zerg.
Again, if BW doesn't change, it'll still be great. I completely agree. But at the same time, that's not an argument against change. Go is a wonderful game that's still trying to find perfect balance with their rulings.
I have no idea why you would pick Chain Reaction and Pathfinder of all maps. Not exactly the paragons of balance.
Aight, work with me here for a sec. Let's assume that Terran has an advantage against Zerg. What if it was the other way around? But Flash is amazing so he still wins against Zerg. Flash is the only one who manages to overcome all these. He's smart and doesn't let the map pool affect him. But imagine if balance was in Terran's favour? He would've been even more dominant.
See, this argument is silly. Savior's ZvT even at his prime was nowhere near as good as top Terrans against Zerg. And he didn't play non-standard, he created the new standard. The one that everyone plays today. And unless I'm missing something, it's been standard for a good 10 years now and no one's come up with any significant improvement on it. Refinement, yes, lot's of refinement. But nothing like Bisu's PvZ revolution (which eventually was solved btw) and most certainly nothing like the TvZ 5 rax into mech switch.
These are all balance suggestions I'm well aware of. I made and analyzed maps for a good 3 years back when Kespa around. But I simply don't think there's a way to aid either ZvT or PvZ balance without screwing up the other matchups.
Chain reaction and Pathfinder are not balanced but it doesn't matter since terran are supposedly overpowered. So by using maps that could potentially unfavor terrans, it could prove terrans are not as op as people seem to think. Balance is not my point at the moment. My point is that if you can make a race stronger than others just by changing the maps, then how the hell do you expect to achieve perfect balance by changing the units? It's never going to end and to be honest, trying to achieve "perfect" balance is silly and impossible. The game balance is "perfect" for what it is and if everyone is sick of seeing terrans overachieve (which is not so true), then just make the maps unfavored for terrans for a while and let people complain about races until they realize the never-ending outcry will never ever end.
Even if you change the units, then maybe suddenly terrans are not as strong. But then you can just make a map that favors terran by a lot and yo uwould be back to the same problem. And what do you do after this? You nerf then again? You nerf them again until the maps can't help them anymore and realize the mistake you have been making all along and just go back to 1.16?
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make about flash vs zergs, I was specifically talking about maps, not the general matchup.
And if terrans are changing their standard strategies with 5 rax into mech, why can't other races adapt and also change? What's good about something that has been "standard for a good 10 years now" when the other races aren't using the same builds from 10 years ago? And maybe the standard is still good but maps like circuit breaker doesn't allow it to be good? Like, I am not a pro or anything but I've been following this game for long enough to know that every single race has something unfair to it that's how the game is balanced. Starting to nerf everything is just going to lead to a game that's going to get progressively worse (in term of balance and fun).
Like people have said, the racial advantage at the start of the game can be completely based on the map, the game is not inherently unbalanced. You want to make maps that zerg has huge edge on ZvT? Make main without ramps and make path from main to natural big enough that you can't wall.
I still don't understand why they never even tried, and never seriously considered the use of specific maps for specific match-ups. A tournament could have a set of 3 maps for zvp, 3 for pvt and 3 for tvz plus 2 maps like cb/fs. I think this is the best way to improve the quality and reduce the balance whining.
It's certainly much easier to create a balanced map for a specific match-up, and much more creativity could be involved (island maps?) while giving good chances to both players. And it's not like we lack the choice of maps.
On May 17 2017 14:42 arbiter_md wrote: I still don't understand why they never even tried, and never seriously considered the use of specific maps for specific match-ups. A tournament could have a set of 3 maps for zvp, 3 for pvt and 3 for tvz plus 2 maps like cb/fs. I think this is the best way to improve the quality and reduce the balance whining.
It's certainly much easier to create a balanced map for a specific match-up, and much more creativity could be involved (island maps?) while giving good chances to both players. And it's not like we lack the choice of maps.
I don't understand why the map pool is not more varied.
It's not mere whining, when statistics show terran has been dominating for most of broodwar and no one can deny that Protoss has the least titles by a large margin.
I also agree that the map pool should be more varied to be balanced among the races in each respective match up. If they would make vultures at least 85 minerals and 15 gas that would be fair. They are too dispensable, fast and agile, get 3 spider mines that could potentially take out a half control group of units or severely dmg them from 1 UNIT. This is why zerg have a tough time against Terran in mech builds that are trending. Zerg has to toss away lings and suicide to clear mines. Vulture harass is 90% of the harassment in TvP and are so cost efficient.
This would make ZvT more manageable, and PvT I'd say is the fairest match up imo. So vulture cost may hurt TvP match up but we could test it for some time to see how it affects the match up. If it affects the match up perhaps just make vultures 100 minerals.
I feel like protoss winrates are lowered by the fact that its so difficult to win against zerg, i'm amazed that protoss is apparently slightly worse than terran statistically.
On May 16 2017 23:30 Crisium wrote: Protoss are the worst race because Scouts are not a viable opener ever unlike Mutas in all 3 matchups and Wraiths in 2. Clearly this is the most important and only metric that matters.
i hope your joking by posting this? Well, if not let me make it clear: Kolll "the german Wunderkind" was quite a talented german player who started playing in 2007 (iirc) and quickly became very good. It's common knowledge he hit B- in his first or second ICCup season [which meant way more than it does today; for a couple of reasons im not gonna delve into] and he was able to beat some of the Ger-A Players by 2009, namely GoOdy and Horror in the old German King of the Hill edition.
To get to the point: even tho he was a talented foreigner; it would be very nonsensical to link his game vs Stork as an example or "proof" why scouts are valid in the MU. Stork is an S class progamer. By comparison you could say Scouts are valid because a player like Bonyth can defeat D+ zergs on ICCup with it. That's just wrong. In Broodwar, you can defeat players who are way worse simply by superior mechanics, execution and understanding of the gameflow, despite your opening being very sub-par.
But i think you are trolling.. so i just wanted to make it clear in case it wasn't obvious to some people. (;
Just because Scouts are not used EVERY game does not mean they are useless. Just like Queens were not used AT ALL and now they are getting in 50% of the games. Same goes for Valks. Just because YOU say something it doesnt make it true... Game is still evolving and I am sure Scouts would return some day. I can see them being used to Snipe Science Vessels. The micro you can do with them combined with their insane range is pretty sick actually. OPEN YOUR MIND AND HEART TO THE SCOUT
Yeah, clearly this was standard play back in 2009 and not just a surprise strategy that usually doesn't work. All the top Protoss players nowadays are fools for not going scouts every game.
P.S. Sorry I can't find a better version of this VOD. I searched "arena kal forgg" and checked the old violetak account but couldn't find it.
I would argue that people who complain about BW imbalance by using matchup winrates and titles don't know very much about the nature of statistics. The game frequently underwent significant changes in areas that affect the results.
Meta Roughly once a year on average there was a major meta shift that flipped established knowledge on its head. Terran was known as the most tactical and micro-intensive race, and sometimes surprisingly aggressive, during Boxer's era. He defined terran with his creativity and unit control. His macro was highly conservative, and lacking, which is where NaDa excelled. Then iloveoov appeared and highlighted that terran heavily benefits from powerful macro and upgrades. A new breed of maro-oriented terran players appeared, like Sea. A few years later Flash perfected both aspects, invented and fine-tuned new build orders, and broke Stork's TvP dominance. Fantasy then gave terran the final touch, showing that TvZ can be won with certain mech builds. Protoss was an unfortunate race due to Garimto's early departure. Call me a fanboy, but I think he had a brilliant mind like Bisu and a very great talent was lost when he left the scene. Nal_rA fought tooth and nail against zerg, but even he couldn't find a response to everything. At least terran players got a run for their money thanks to Kingdom and Reach, then Pusan, then Stork. It took many years until the great savior of the protoss race appeared - Bisu. Not only did he single-handedly even out the heavily imbalanced PvZ matchup, but he did so against the most dominant zerg of all time: Savior. And he did so after openly announcing that he was going to use DT's to win! Without Bisu, protoss might be seen as an inferior race until today. I am 100% sure people would be bitching about PvZ imbalance today, demanding a patch. This is one of the main reasons why many people, including me, are against any and all balance changes. Zerg has had very consistent results and progresses. Yellow was all-around great. JulyZerg highlighted the aggressive nature of zerg, also thanks to muta stacking, which completely changed the meta. Savior completely dominated the scene. Jaedong replaced him when Savior brought shame to the game.
Map pool It is known that pure island maps are a nightmare for zerg. I myself would argue that Yellow could've had greater success than Boxer without island maps. Other factors that can break the balance are close starting positions (favoring terran with few exceptions), wide main/natural entrances (favoring zerg), no vespene gas at the natural (usually favoring zerg. (Edit) Correction: It favors zerg over protoss), easily defendible 3rd gas base (favoring terran), highground advantage (favoring terran), irreclaimable terrain (turrets in the center favor terran over protoss), long ground distance between expansions (e.g. Katrina, favoring protoss over terran), lack of alternative routing (Blue Storm, favoring protoss over zerg), and many other things. Mix the wrong things and you'll get really bad map imbalances. Do it right and you can create the perfect map. While variety shouldn't come short, balance has always been more important. Map makers have done so many incredible things, they can't be praised enough. They make or break the balance of the races, while trying to build a small world that allows for entertaining games.
Race popularity During Boxer's era, Korean terrans greatly outnumbered protoss. I'm not exaggerating. Zerg players were also somewhat outnumbered, although not as much. The popularity of terran, along with Boxer's creativity, pushed the terran meta forward very fast, while especially protoss was lacking in the strategy department. Historically, protoss has been the least played race in Korea. Whether that has changed since Bisu's appearance, I don't know. But I do think it has a negative effect on the progress that protoss has made so far. People just don't like losing, and if the right person doesn't come along and breaks a stereotype, significant change to racial balance will likely not be made. Bisu's PvZ revolution is the perfect example.
Throwing games (Savior era) and military services While this probably has a smaller effect on matchup stats, it's still a factor that can't be denied. How much more successful would zerg have been with a continued Savior era? How much could a player like Garimto have influenced the protoss matchups? This is just something to think about in regards to how much weight the matchup stats actually have when other factors are also in play.
It would be good to group the result by era. At the very least, separate the period for modern starcraft (i.e. post-savior / bisu's victory over savior up to present).
On May 17 2017 19:00 SlayerS_BunkiE wrote: It would be good to group the result by era. At the very least, separate the period for modern starcraft (i.e. post-savior / bisu's victory over savior up to present).
On May 17 2017 13:05 NerO wrote: Has anyone ever used the Dark Archon +50 energy? Replace it. Make HT faster for late game.
Yeah and legs for reavers as well? If you think HT's are too slow, you can use shuttles. Making high templars faster would make them significatly stronger, which is not needed. They're very strong already as they are. I hope you were not serious about this proposition :D Imagine how much harder it would be for workers to run away from storm drop if HTs were faster? Or terrans and zergs to snipe them? Protoss army would be way more mobile if HTs has a speed upgrade..
Fact without discussion: Protoss is not as strong (read: successful) as other races on the highest level of competition. Probably because they can, even when playing standard, easily die to BBS, Hydra busts, build order loses in PVP, etc. Compare this to Terran which is almost impossible to rush if he is playing standard and can recover from almost anything.
1. TvZ Do something about the Medic (build time, cost). Changes nothing in other matchups but gives Zerg a bit more air regarding Sunkens/3rd.
2.ZvP Decrease Cannon build time by a few seconds. Minimum changes to other matchups but makes Hydra busts less likely.
Plus Decrease vision of mines.
As for the other things... Ghosts, Nukes, Scouts, ZvZ... I'm afraid it's too late. Eventhough I like ZvZ, it could have been by far the best mirror in the game because of the defensive capabilities of Lurkers, it just never gets that far. I would have loved to see extra damage on Hydras vs Mutas.
On May 16 2017 23:30 Crisium wrote: Protoss are the worst race because Scouts are not a viable opener ever unlike Mutas in all 3 matchups and Wraiths in 2. Clearly this is the most important and only metric that matters.
i hope your joking by posting this? Well, if not let me make it clear: Kolll "the german Wunderkind" was quite a talented german player who started playing in 2007 (iirc) and quickly became very good. It's common knowledge he hit B- in his first or second ICCup season [which meant way more than it does today; for a couple of reasons im not gonna delve into] and he was able to beat some of the Ger-A Players by 2009, namely GoOdy and Horror in the old German King of the Hill edition.
To get to the point: even tho he was a talented foreigner; it would be very nonsensical to link his game vs Stork as an example or "proof" why scouts are valid in the MU. Stork is an S class progamer. By comparison you could say Scouts are valid because a player like Bonyth can defeat D+ zergs on ICCup with it. That's just wrong. In Broodwar, you can defeat players who are way worse simply by superior mechanics, execution and understanding of the gameflow, despite your opening being very sub-par.
But i think you are trolling.. so i just wanted to make it clear in case it wasn't obvious to some people. (;
Just because Scouts are not used EVERY game does not mean they are useless. Just like Queens were not used AT ALL and now they are getting in 50% of the games. Same goes for Valks. Just because YOU say something it doesnt make it true... Game is still evolving and I am sure Scouts would return some day. I can see them being used to Snipe Science Vessels. The micro you can do with them combined with their insane range is pretty sick actually. OPEN YOUR MIND AND HEART TO THE SCOUT
well, you can believe what you want. I didn't say you should listen to MY argument "why scouts are bad", because I actually presented none. I just said; your linked video is not meaningful in the discussion, because Stork is an S class progamer and Kolll was merely a good foreigner. If the players are unequal, a lot of bad tools can get the better player the win.
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
Never said Bw balance is perfect, but I do say that it is more than fine. And like I've said many times already. Change the map pool by removing maps like circuit breaker and fs and use maps like chain reaction or pathfinder instead and you would see a big difference.
"I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already"
That's the thing, there is a way to change the maps and make them unfavorable for terran, but for some reason they aren't doing it. Remember the savior era? Where every single zerg struggled to get a win against terrans because of the ridiculous map pool heavily favoring terrans but savior was the only one who managed to overcome all these obstacles by playing non-standard and figuring out ways to take advantage of terran weaknesses. He was smart and didn't let the map pool affect him. BUT imagine if the map pool would have been zerg favored instead? It would have changed everything and potentially made savior even more dominant.
The maps make a big difference and we could certainly use more 2p or 3p maps that can potentially make terrans unfavored. Or with less cliffs. Or with shorter rush distances. Or with an easy to get 3rd gas for zerg.
Again, if BW doesn't change, it'll still be great. I completely agree. But at the same time, that's not an argument against change. Go is a wonderful game that's still trying to find perfect balance with their rulings.
I have no idea why you would pick Chain Reaction and Pathfinder of all maps. Not exactly the paragons of balance.
Aight, work with me here for a sec. Let's assume that Terran has an advantage against Zerg. What if it was the other way around? But Flash is amazing so he still wins against Zerg. Flash is the only one who manages to overcome all these. He's smart and doesn't let the map pool affect him. But imagine if balance was in Terran's favour? He would've been even more dominant.
See, this argument is silly. Savior's ZvT even at his prime was nowhere near as good as top Terrans against Zerg. And he didn't play non-standard, he created the new standard. The one that everyone plays today. And unless I'm missing something, it's been standard for a good 10 years now and no one's come up with any significant improvement on it. Refinement, yes, lot's of refinement. But nothing like Bisu's PvZ revolution (which eventually was solved btw) and most certainly nothing like the TvZ 5 rax into mech switch.
These are all balance suggestions I'm well aware of. I made and analyzed maps for a good 3 years back when Kespa around. But I simply don't think there's a way to aid either ZvT or PvZ balance without screwing up the other matchups.
Chain reaction and Pathfinder are not balanced but it doesn't matter since terran are supposedly overpowered. So by using maps that could potentially unfavor terrans, it could prove terrans are not as op as people seem to think. Balance is not my point at the moment. My point is that if you can make a race stronger than others just by changing the maps, then how the hell do you expect to achieve perfect balance by changing the units? It's never going to end and to be honest, trying to achieve "perfect" balance is silly and impossible. The game balance is "perfect" for what it is and if everyone is sick of seeing terrans overachieve (which is not so true), then just make the maps unfavored for terrans for a while and let people complain about races until they realize the never-ending outcry will never ever end.
Even if you change the units, then maybe suddenly terrans are not as strong. But then you can just make a map that favors terran by a lot and yo uwould be back to the same problem. And what do you do after this? You nerf then again? You nerf them again until the maps can't help them anymore and realize the mistake you have been making all along and just go back to 1.16?
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make about flash vs zergs, I was specifically talking about maps, not the general matchup.
That's the thing though. You can't change the balance of the map to affect one matchup. It affects all matchups which is why changing maps is such an unappealing solution. I already said, I don't believe it's possible with our current mapping standards to have a map pool that is Z=>T P=>Z and T=P. If you could then I wouldn't have complaints.
I'm not asking for perfect balance I'm asking for acceptable balance. Something sub 53% over a year would be fine.
And if terrans are changing their standard strategies with 5 rax into mech, why can't other races adapt and also change? What's good about something that has been "standard for a good 10 years now" when the other races aren't using the same builds from 10 years ago? And maybe the standard is still good but maps like circuit breaker doesn't allow it to be good? Like, I am not a pro or anything but I've been following this game for long enough to know that every single race has something unfair to it that's how the game is balanced. Starting to nerf everything is just going to lead to a game that's going to get progressively worse (in term of balance and fun).
Hey hear that Korean Zergs? You just have to change your strategy! It was that easy all the fucking along. Hurray! Balance is solved!
You continue to repeat the rhetoric that balance changes will make the game worse but you fail to explain why. How will a +3 build time increase for meds make the game worse. Even if it does, then would a +2 build time do the same thing? A +1?
On May 17 2017 18:34 Magic Powers wrote:stuff
How many years of imbalance do we play through waiting for a revolution? The only times in the past 10 years where I can remember where a strategic overhaul reversed balance splits? I can think of Bisu's revolution and maybe Savior's ZvT implementation. How long has it been since then? 8 yearsish to put it generously. Half the games lifetime has passed without balance being improved. How long do we wait?
On May 16 2017 05:10 Bakuryu wrote: whats the point of biggest range if your units die to manlots and zerglings?
The point is that the opponent can lose a good chunk of his army to only realize the battle with the maxed-out terran mech army is pointless to then lose some more when backing out of the fight. The point is that zerg must fight under swarm as much as possible which is not an easy task to do. The point is that they *might* die if the manlots/lings/ultras actually reach the tank line.
On May 16 2017 05:10 Bakuryu wrote: whats the point of best defence if you cant attack because zerg uses swarm/lurker or protoss blocks ramp with stasis?
yes, you can attack - vessels deal with the lurkers if they managed to burrow under the dark swarm. yes, you can scv drill and unblock the ramp. besides tanks can outrange the lurker/dark swarm and kill the hatch/defiler or whatever in range.
On May 16 2017 05:10 Bakuryu wrote: whats the point if you have the strongest 200/200 ball when zerg uses their mobility to attack undefended bases and protoss uses recall all over the map?
So what? Terran lifts the cc and zerg rarely can do anything about it. Some retreating scv kills with lings/ultras cant compare vs the vulture harrass. Going through a ton of mines is not considered undefended in my book as well. And admitting that terran actually takes undefended bases makes your argument even worse. Do you imagine a P or Z taking a completely undefended base 20-30 minutes into the game vs T and not be considered super bold and possibly a dead man walking right there? If terran does it vs zerg it's somewhat okay these days.
The point that terran has the strongest and longest ranged in-game (competitive level) limit of 200/200 still stands.
Terran does seem a little OP sometimes, but it would feel wrong to nerf them. Just seems like Seige Tanks, Vultures, and mines *should* be scarily deadly. Gives it an interesting feel in the late game when you know you can't attack the Terran army directly, so the other races have to find ways to fight indirectly.
One change I might like would be to give a maximum range on the comsat scan. Make it so it's still useful as a detector and for general scouting near your base, but Terrans can't just maphack their opponent's base whenever they feel like it and instantly discover their builds. That might open up a wider variety of strategies against Terran, forcing them to be a little more cautious in the mid game and slow down the mechanical push of death.
On May 16 2017 05:10 Bakuryu wrote: whats the point of biggest range if your units die to manlots and zerglings?
The point is that the opponent can lose a good chunk of his army to only realize the battle with the maxed-out terran mech army is pointless to then lose some more when backing out of the fight. The point is that zerg must fight under swarm as much as possible which is not an easy task to do. The point is that they *might* die if the manlots/lings/ultras actually reach the tank line.
On May 16 2017 05:10 Bakuryu wrote: whats the point of best defence if you cant attack because zerg uses swarm/lurker or protoss blocks ramp with stasis?
yes, you can attack - vessels deal with the lurkers if they managed to burrow under the dark swarm. yes, you can scv drill and unblock the ramp. besides tanks can outrange the lurker/dark swarm and kill the hatch/defiler or whatever in range.
On May 16 2017 05:10 Bakuryu wrote: whats the point if you have the strongest 200/200 ball when zerg uses their mobility to attack undefended bases and protoss uses recall all over the map?
So what? Terran lifts the cc and zerg rarely can do anything about it. Some retreating scv kills with lings/ultras cant compare vs the vulture harrass. Going through a ton of mines is not considered undefended in my book as well. And admitting that terran actually takes undefended bases makes your argument even worse. Do you imagine a P or Z taking a completely undefended base 20-30 minutes into the game vs T and not be considered super bold and possibly a dead man walking right there? If terran does it vs zerg it's somewhat okay these days.
The point that terran has the strongest and longest ranged in-game (competitive level) limit of 200/200 still stands.
Didnt Terrans start running this mech build because playing late game bio vs Defilers is basically suicide? Atleast in the current map pool
On May 18 2017 00:16 neobowman wrote: How many years of imbalance do we play through waiting for a revolution? The only times in the past 10 years where I can remember where a strategic overhaul reversed balance splits? I can think of Bisu's revolution and maybe Savior's ZvT implementation. How long has it been since then? 8 yearsish to put it generously. Half the games lifetime has passed without balance being improved. How long do we wait?
I doubt we can use the past 5-7 as an indicator for how fast the game is evolving at the highest level. I don't think I have to explain why I think that, it should be very obvious.
i was not dismissing the point. i was trying to show how other races also have "imba" stuff.
with undefended bases i meant bases which has very few units there (for example the 1-2 tank supply depot defence at early 3rd vs protoss), im sorry i didnt word it more clearly.
this feels like the 40th balance thread in the last 6 years, if i counted correctly its the 5th thread in this ongoing year and we are not even half way in. i dont even know what you guys have to discuss anymore, everything has been said 10 times already.
what do you mean with imba/OP and how do you wanna solve it? 1) do you want T=Z=P in terms of 50% winrate for everybody? which games of which players over what time do you want to take into consideration? a) all games of all pros like ogn did? but the meta and maps changed 100 times during that. b) all post-kespa pros? but between the killer era and the current flash/last era we again had meta and map changes. c) only looking at top ten of each months sponsor game? but the pros agreed that flash and last are on their own league skill wise, so how do you want to balance if some people are just better? d) only looking at ASL/SSL/.../ tournament winners/top 4 finishers? so people with stage fright like larva are fucked, while people who specifically prepare like shine are at advantage. e) only looking at specific players? we already concluded that flash and last are on their own league. also, jaedong plays a completely different style like larva or effort, so those 3 might have the same skill, but in completely different areas.
ok so you might just take 1)a) in order to summarize all progaming until now and conclude that the game is imba and you wanna fix it. 2) i want to fix it with maps. well, how do you want to do it? we have progamers with different skill levels, distributed differently in micro/macro/game decision while playing different styles. also, some progamers are better at using map features to their advantage as other progamers. some zergs take faster 5th/6th base on fs, others are happy with their 2 hatch muta build. so in general you will have people with different skill sets facing off against each other. if you are really lucky, everybody will have some ways to play which will converge into same win chances and a close to 50% win rate for all. but how close of a 50% win rate do you want so its not imba? because there is only 1 way to efficiently get 50% for all which would be to make a map which only allows 1 build for each match up. that way you balance everything around that 1 build, where people with different styles get streamlined into 1 build. all in all you kill variety in favor of perfect balance, which will result in lots and lots of matches which will be 99.99% the same, totally boring......
3)i want to fix it with balance patches by now you should realize that we have players with different skill levels in different areas with different playstyles exceling in different locations (locations = offline tournaments vs spon games) on different maps. but still you want to balance. so you reduce scv health or tank damage or whatever, wait time x, check statistics y or played on map z.... hm, still not 50%, time to balance some more......
but then you are like, nonono, terran has a too big of a comeback mechanic, also terran can quickly repair stuff and lift cc. yes, terran can do that. the easiest way to comeback in general is by just having ranged units and since terran has the most ranged units, it has the most comeback potential. this isnt that much about damage alone, just the range itself. because the enemy with fewer range has to first take damage before even having a chance to deal damage. combined with things like more micro potential and critical mass, range units just live longer in most cases. if you want to remove that mechanic from terran, you have to give more units of other races a range attack or just give every unit tank range. repairing stuff... if you want to reduce the repair rate or you make certain units not repairable (like, scv not able to repair scv) you have to do other adjustments because aggression will be way harder to defend. removing lifting from cc or other buildings also makes aggression way harder to defend. removing/tuning down both things will also make terran less "terran".
this brings me to my main argument. which is also my TL;DR: we have a game with 3 distinct races, each race with different unit harmony, different early-mid-lategame stages, expansion patterns and game styles. all possible on a variety of maps over the last 16 years. Do you really want to open the box of pandora that is balance patches?
Most people will agree that the game is not perfectly balanced. Nothing can ever be "perfect". But it is as close to it as we can get, and I agree with Bakuryu in that balance patches is not the solution. Once you change one thing, you can never go back (technically you can but I mean from a precedent perspective).
It's okay for the game to not have 50-50 winrates. It makes it more interesting when a race is favored in a matchup and loses, as long as those imbalances aren't reaching say 60-40 or in reality like 65-35 there's really nothing to complain about. Also these balances change over time as many have already mentioned. If every matchup was 50-50 we'd be complaining about hearthstone coinflips.
On May 18 2017 06:13 d(O.o)a wrote: It's okay for the game to not have 50-50 winrates. It makes it more interesting when a race is favored in a matchup and loses, as long as those imbalances aren't reaching say 60-40 or in reality like 65-35 there's really nothing to complain about. Also these balances change over time as many have already mentioned. If every matchup was 50-50 we'd be complaining about hearthstone coinflips.
Id say 55-45 is pretty ideal 60-40 and esp 65-35 is reaching pretty absurb levels of imbalance i think
Those iccup stats are very interesting. I'm surprised to see Fighting Spirit look so balanced for tvz, when it seems pretty imbalanced in for the pros. Do they have any stats broken down by ladder rank?
If you're using stats just beware of the bellcurve.
The enlightened viewpoint is to treat every theoretical map pool as a different game. It's clear a good map for a race-locked individual league is one where the overall balance smooths out around 55/45 or better for each imbalanced matchup after a sufficiently large sample size, but a teamleague that demands deep teams might not benefit from restricting itself to maps that disfavor no race.
Whether the Brood War of today is a balanced game requires first that we rigidly define the map pool of today as well as the entire standard competitive format. No KESPA makes that hard.
b) all post-kespa pros? but between the killer era and the current flash/last era we again had meta and map changes.
c) only looking at top ten of each months sponsor game? but the pros agreed that flash and last are on their own league skill wise, so how do you want to balance if some people are just better?
e) only looking at specific players? we already concluded that flash and last are on their own league. also, jaedong plays a completely different style like larva or effort, so those 3 might have the same skill, but in completely different areas.
so your argument is the balance is fine because two players who 'are in a league of their own' just happen to be terran? seriously?
don't you think playing terran might be the factor in why they look so godly??
I'd be interested to see the stats of TvP and TvZ currently if you completely removed Last's and Flash's games if that was posted somewhere and I missed it I apologize.
On May 17 2017 09:11 ninazerg wrote: I think tanks should be buffed to have 9999 health and fire a nuclear missile.
Nina, come on. You're literally shitposting. This is the type of attitude I really dislike seeing. It's belittling the people who are proposing balance ideas. I'm fine if you disagree with balance changes but this is just as annoying as people yelling "Terran OP impossible to beat!"
On May 17 2017 10:52 SeAy wrote: If Blizzard is back and is willing to change things with patience, i will humbly propose small micro changes. Like SVC health reduced to 50 hp and Vulture to cost at least 25 gas. Thats it, leave it for a year of testing and see what happens.
Also, its a fact that Zerg on island maps has the slowest time to be able to get transport.
However considering Blizzard's attitude to SC in the past, its probable that no changes will be made in spite that i think small micro changes could actually improve the experience.
Even those changes seem extreme to me. SCV health is vital for alot of rushes and you can't change vultures cost (especially adding gas) without huge ramifications. As always I'm a proponent of really tiny changes like +3 seconds on medic build time or +5 health on corsairs. Better to change not enough than too much.
The point is that balance discussions are ridiculous and usually extremely short sighted. Most terran complainers don't play terran, and don't know how hard it is to deal with things like 2 gate pressure, lurker drops, etc. There is a ton that is OP on other races and cannot be shrugged off for some poorly formed idea that terran OP. It's just idlers riding a hype train. BW has been played professionally for over 15 years without any balance changes and that's the way the majority want to keep it, why is that so hard to understand? And if you can't understand, understand why you get a lot of scoffing and mockery, 15 years, more than half your life most likely. Get a grip people.
I don't think anyone denies the difficulty of playing Terran. But this isn't about us. Balance is irrelevant at lower levels. It's the top pro level we're talking about. We're not just counting up things we think are imbalanced. These are statistics. It's not imaginary.
I understand that a lot of people want to keep it that way and I just don't think that's the correct position to take. You want it to stay the way it is because that's the way it's always been. That's not really an argument, just an explanation for a position. I understand it, but doesn't make the disdain for those who suggest otherwise any more right.
On May 17 2017 11:45 CobaltBlu wrote: Please guys give up on the fantasy that you are going to make micro tweaks that lead to perfect balance between all the races.We are incredibly blessed to have a game with three asymmetrical races that hasn't had a balance patch in over 15 years has remained this competitive and viable over all the meta shifts and strategies discovered so far. After all this time player skill and then map balance are the most important factors when it comes to deciding who wins a match.
Brood war is unique in this way and I don't want to come into a situation where I'm reading balance patch notes every two weeks to fix stuff someone was whining about on the forums. Just leave the game balance alone.
This is the type of "Good enough" type thinking that all this usually boils down to and I just don't agree with it. I'm thinking it's coming from dislike of how SC2 operated with monthly balance patches and I wouldn't want that either. But I don't think that's valid criticism of a small balance tweak after years of the same imbalance trends remaining. Literally every competitive game changes with the times. Chess, Go, literally every sport. No one disagrees that Starcraft is an amazing game. But just because it is, doesn't mean it can't be improved. If I told a professional athelete that they'd lose 5% of their matches, "Just because that's the way the game works", that would be inexcusable. That would be a top priority to fix. Yet when it's suggested in any Brood War thread, it's shot down because people are scared of change.
The whole premise of your stance is a joke, I'm sorry. "These are statistics." Have you ever taken a statistics course? These are numbers, this is data. This is not statistics.
Just as the OP in this thread is not real "research" or "statistics" either. Where is the statistical analysis? What alpha level did you use? You just made the layman error of looking at some data and coming to a conclusion with no analysis, one which likely just supports your preexisting bias.
In other news, I think siege tanks should have 9999 hp and shoot nuclear missiles.
On May 17 2017 13:05 NerO wrote: Has anyone ever used the Dark Archon +50 energy? Replace it. Make HT faster for late game.
I have. Don't make stupid frivolous changes. Use Shuttles for your Templar like a real man.
On May 17 2017 16:19 Moopower wrote: It's not mere whining, when statistics show terran has been dominating for most of broodwar and no one can deny that Protoss has the least titles by a large margin.
I also agree that the map pool should be more varied to be balanced among the races in each respective match up. If they would make vultures at least 85 minerals and 15 gas that would be fair. They are too dispensable, fast and agile, get 3 spider mines that could potentially take out a half control group of units or severely dmg them from 1 UNIT. This is why zerg have a tough time against Terran in mech builds that are trending. Zerg has to toss away lings and suicide to clear mines. Vulture harass is 90% of the harassment in TvP and are so cost efficient.
This would make ZvT more manageable, and PvT I'd say is the fairest match up imo. So vulture cost may hurt TvP match up but we could test it for some time to see how it affects the match up. If it affects the match up perhaps just make vultures 100 minerals.
Same goes to you as to neobowman above. Statistics is not what you're looking at. You're looking at raw data. Do some statistical analysis and then you can say that statistics probably show _____. Until then you're just taking an aggregate of nominal data that has a lot of confounding variables and trying to argue that they prove something.
Maybe someone didn't teach you science as a kid, but in order to prove something you need to do an experiment using the scientific method. To crunch data and speak about it intelligently, you need to do statistical analysis and then talk about things such as % of certainty and confidence interval, not "let's look at Terran titles and subtract Protoss titles, herp derp we just made maths prove my point."
This is beyond the fact that making Vultures a gas unit would be dumb, in my opinion. Terran already are so reliant on gas for their late-game army. That would be absolutely brutal for them. Say good-bye to FD and early map control that doesn't come at a ludicrous price. Say good-bye to the already difficult and unfavorable pure-mech TvZ.
On May 17 2017 14:42 arbiter_md wrote: I still don't understand why they never even tried, and never seriously considered the use of specific maps for specific match-ups. A tournament could have a set of 3 maps for zvp, 3 for pvt and 3 for tvz plus 2 maps like cb/fs. I think this is the best way to improve the quality and reduce the balance whining.
It's certainly much easier to create a balanced map for a specific match-up, and much more creativity could be involved (island maps?) while giving good chances to both players. And it's not like we lack the choice of maps.
I don't understand why the map pool is not more varied.
Map pool is not more varied, in my opinion, because of a multitude of factors:
1. If everyone only plays on FS and CB, then it will be difficult for pros to get good practice on other maps, and as a result the overall level of play/strategy may not be where it needs to be. 2. Pros are no longer in teams with structured practice schedules and dedicated practice partners, or with coaches who analyze maps and replays etc. These are all contributing factors to the lack of a desire to migrate from the mainstay maps. 3. Where are the pro map makers? They are probably 30+ years old working at a business or something. The few remaining map makers are either ignored or are irrelevant to the Korean scene; only recently has attention been given to some Korean map makers, which is a step in the right direction. 4. Favoring status quo. If one thing is made obvious by this thread, is that people in general do not want to change BW. 5. Afreeca is aware of all of the above and thus when it runs leagues, it has to do so in a way that is most likely to:
a. Please the most amount of fans, for revenue b. Please the most of pros, for fans, for revenue c. Create exciting games, for fans, for revenue d. Not fuck with balance or status quo too hard
This is all IMO, but it seems to make sense. Won't pretend to know the inner workings of Afreeca with any level of certainty, unlike our statistician friends in the thread.
b) all post-kespa pros? but between the killer era and the current flash/last era we again had meta and map changes.
c) only looking at top ten of each months sponsor game? but the pros agreed that flash and last are on their own league skill wise, so how do you want to balance if some people are just better?
e) only looking at specific players? we already concluded that flash and last are on their own league. also, jaedong plays a completely different style like larva or effort, so those 3 might have the same skill, but in completely different areas.
so your argument is the balance is fine because two players who 'are in a league of their own' just happen to be terran? seriously?
don't you think playing terran might be the factor in why they look so godly??
Thats the dumbest thing ive ever heard tbh.
Bisu looked like a god when he was on top, Jaedong, Savior but wait they werent Terran ??? Sure you have Iloveoov(who also helped revolutionize macro) NaDa who was also super skilled, and Boxer winning because of Micro since Macro wasnt as large then. Flash was leagues above everyone else since he was basically a prodigy and still is at that
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
Never said Bw balance is perfect, but I do say that it is more than fine. And like I've said many times already. Change the map pool by removing maps like circuit breaker and fs and use maps like chain reaction or pathfinder instead and you would see a big difference.
"I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already"
That's the thing, there is a way to change the maps and make them unfavorable for terran, but for some reason they aren't doing it. Remember the savior era? Where every single zerg struggled to get a win against terrans because of the ridiculous map pool heavily favoring terrans but savior was the only one who managed to overcome all these obstacles by playing non-standard and figuring out ways to take advantage of terran weaknesses. He was smart and didn't let the map pool affect him. BUT imagine if the map pool would have been zerg favored instead? It would have changed everything and potentially made savior even more dominant.
The maps make a big difference and we could certainly use more 2p or 3p maps that can potentially make terrans unfavored. Or with less cliffs. Or with shorter rush distances. Or with an easy to get 3rd gas for zerg.
Again, if BW doesn't change, it'll still be great. I completely agree. But at the same time, that's not an argument against change. Go is a wonderful game that's still trying to find perfect balance with their rulings.
I have no idea why you would pick Chain Reaction and Pathfinder of all maps. Not exactly the paragons of balance.
Aight, work with me here for a sec. Let's assume that Terran has an advantage against Zerg. What if it was the other way around? But Flash is amazing so he still wins against Zerg. Flash is the only one who manages to overcome all these. He's smart and doesn't let the map pool affect him. But imagine if balance was in Terran's favour? He would've been even more dominant.
See, this argument is silly. Savior's ZvT even at his prime was nowhere near as good as top Terrans against Zerg. And he didn't play non-standard, he created the new standard. The one that everyone plays today. And unless I'm missing something, it's been standard for a good 10 years now and no one's come up with any significant improvement on it. Refinement, yes, lot's of refinement. But nothing like Bisu's PvZ revolution (which eventually was solved btw) and most certainly nothing like the TvZ 5 rax into mech switch.
These are all balance suggestions I'm well aware of. I made and analyzed maps for a good 3 years back when Kespa around. But I simply don't think there's a way to aid either ZvT or PvZ balance without screwing up the other matchups.
Chain reaction and Pathfinder are not balanced but it doesn't matter since terran are supposedly overpowered. So by using maps that could potentially unfavor terrans, it could prove terrans are not as op as people seem to think. Balance is not my point at the moment. My point is that if you can make a race stronger than others just by changing the maps, then how the hell do you expect to achieve perfect balance by changing the units? It's never going to end and to be honest, trying to achieve "perfect" balance is silly and impossible. The game balance is "perfect" for what it is and if everyone is sick of seeing terrans overachieve (which is not so true), then just make the maps unfavored for terrans for a while and let people complain about races until they realize the never-ending outcry will never ever end.
Even if you change the units, then maybe suddenly terrans are not as strong. But then you can just make a map that favors terran by a lot and yo uwould be back to the same problem. And what do you do after this? You nerf then again? You nerf them again until the maps can't help them anymore and realize the mistake you have been making all along and just go back to 1.16?
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make about flash vs zergs, I was specifically talking about maps, not the general matchup.
That's the thing though. You can't change the balance of the map to affect one matchup. It affects all matchups which is why changing maps is such an unappealing solution. I already said, I don't believe it's possible with our current mapping standards to have a map pool that is Z=>T P=>Z and T=P. If you could then I wouldn't have complaints.
I'm not asking for perfect balance I'm asking for acceptable balance. Something sub 53% over a year would be fine.
And if terrans are changing their standard strategies with 5 rax into mech, why can't other races adapt and also change? What's good about something that has been "standard for a good 10 years now" when the other races aren't using the same builds from 10 years ago? And maybe the standard is still good but maps like circuit breaker doesn't allow it to be good? Like, I am not a pro or anything but I've been following this game for long enough to know that every single race has something unfair to it that's how the game is balanced. Starting to nerf everything is just going to lead to a game that's going to get progressively worse (in term of balance and fun).
Hey hear that Korean Zergs? You just have to change your strategy! It was that easy all the fucking along. Hurray! Balance is solved!
You continue to repeat the rhetoric that balance changes will make the game worse but you fail to explain why. How will a +3 build time increase for meds make the game worse. Even if it does, then would a +2 build time do the same thing? A +1?
How many years of imbalance do we play through waiting for a revolution? The only times in the past 10 years where I can remember where a strategic overhaul reversed balance splits? I can think of Bisu's revolution and maybe Savior's ZvT implementation. How long has it been since then? 8 yearsish to put it generously. Half the games lifetime has passed without balance being improved. How long do we wait?
How you can affect matchups with only maps prove my point about balance. If the game wasn't balanced then no matter what the maps you would use there would always be a superior race, no matter what. But thankfully that's not the case with BW. And also, that's the nature of the game, you can't expect to have 100% of balance no matter what map you use, in that case you would have to remove all units that are map dependant (and that also make this game fun and amazing) like the siege tank, or carriers, or lurkers.
In a Bo5, you could have maps like Chain reaction, but also Camelot so it balances it out in the end. And on the map you are supposedly unfavored, you can come up with awesome strategies and take your opponent offguard (just like Shine) and that's what make BW special and amazing to watch, I don't want mathematical balance, the game is already balanced because all races are unfair, and that's "perfect".
"Hey hear that Korean Zergs? You just have to change your strategy! It was that easy all the fucking along. Hurray! Balance is solved!"
Well, I know that's obviously sarcasm, but have you watched Shine vs Mong, or Larva's stream? Everything I said has been happening, so yeah, korean zergs did try new things and it's working, and I find that fascinating. The game is constantly evolving and it could evolve even more if we had unconvential maps from time to time (like an island or semi-island map, or a farther natural, or a double gas third, or any other change really...).
And yeah, you are right, I did fail to explain why it would make the game worse, but I kind of explained it, just not clearly: If we start balancing the numbers and whatnot, it's going to affect everything in the game, but more importantly it's opening a door for blizzard and future balance patches and potentially ruin the game, it's a chain reaction (no pun intended). And as I've said, the game is perfectly balanced for what it is. It might seem abstract to say this, but if you have been following the game for long enough, you should know what I mean, and you should know that in proleague we saw many maps with almost no terrans being sent by their coach because they know that specific map is unfavored for terrans. If terran was op, this wouldn't happen, they would send terrans on any map, no matter what.
I don't know what else I can add, but we can just say we agree to disagree then.
Also @OP and anyone else interested, this data was looked at more in-depth by LegalLord in these threads (I believe Chef linked the first but it is worthwhile to see more):
On May 18 2017 01:28 arb wrote: Didnt Terrans start running this mech build because playing late game bio vs Defilers is basically suicide? Atleast in the current map pool
Not exacly a suicide, but keeping SV ball alive in late game and microing stuff to not die to some ultra/defiler/ling/scourge combo with some occasional lurkers is hard and good luck with that if the Zerg is already entrenched and gas heavy. Firebats can fight off lings when the swarm is casted, but to do a shit against anything bigger than that, like swarmed lurkers, you must use deffensive matrix and even than results are pretty poor. Mech is just easier and not worse (if not better) than bio at this point. It actually forces the Zerg to be carefull with his micro, becouse suiciding his ultra/lurker stack is much easier.
On May 18 2017 15:32 Essbee wrote: Well, I know that's obviously sarcasm, but have you watched Shine vs Mong, or Larva's stream? Everything I said has been happening, so yeah, korean zergs did try new things and it's working, and I find that fascinating. The game is constantly evolving and it could evolve even more if we had unconvential maps from time to time (like an island or semi-island map, or a farther natural, or a double gas third, or any other change really...).
We can now close the thread The balance is already there.
Really good posts from Bakuryu, Jealous and Essbe on the last page. Thank you guys. Must read for anyone who still thinks BW should be balanced by patches from Blizzard. Next time someone starts another balance patch debate, lets just guide them to these posts so as to save time. Bookmarked.
There are always some problems with balance when there is three completely different races. But these tends to shift and decrease along the evolution of the game, in a higly comptetitive environment fueled by the collected and individual effort of the players (and mapmakers) to understand the ins and outs of the game, to reach the top, or perhaps, reach deeper into the Truth of the game.
Go back into the history records and look at all these names of legends of the past. Boxer, Yellow, Nal_ra, Nada, Reach, July, iloveoov, GoRush, Pusan, Anytime, Midas, Savior. They innovated, practiced, sacrificed. They won. They lost. They came. And they went away. But they were all part of the same story. The rules of the game never changed. Yet how it was played changed, because of what they discovered. Did they whine and cry out for a balance patch? Or did they buckle up and do the Work themselves? That is the beauty to me of BW history. Its a tale of young people, teenagers really, trying to trancend reality with its own rules of success, for another reality, another game, and just do their very best to understand, to succeed and to become the "hero". NOT to beg blizzard for help. NOT to destroy the "fine-tuned" laws of the BW universe. NOT to destroy their homeworld.
I would rather see the game become irreversible broken one day. Because then we would know that this game, this parallel universe, this logical puzzle, has run its course. When we know how it ends, we know how it truly works. And then on to the next puzzle, the next "reality".
Or maybe just forever balance it out with new maps, idk haha. Cheers everyone.
Baku, using the quote feature really helps, please use it next time you reply to me so I know which part of the comment is a reply to what I said.
ZvT (from the zerg perspective) hasn't changed almost a dime for the last 10 years. It's been 3hatch muta on 2 exp into lurk like always (I was using that bo in a game in 2003 or 2004 vs korean chogosus and I was told this was "an old build"). 2 or 3 hatch muta/lurk has almost always been the norm into a relatively quick hive into deflier/guardians/ultras. For me ZvT is now turned into your example of games that are almost absolutely the same (hence boring, at least for me) unless some player decides it's time to take big risks. Sure, the ZvT game is longer now and it takes to mine almost the whole gas out there to overcome the T, but is still the same thing repeating over and over again that makes me wonder why do I even watch progamers doing it (excluding the Mong vs Shine series here, lol, but I think that still fits in to the player-taking-big-risks category).
Also, in practice, balance changes are pretty much the normal thing to happen to an RTS game by Blizzard (whether it be SC, SC:BW, WC3, SC2 WOL, HOTS or LOTV or whatever title they are working on) - not that I favour them in the SC:BW case - rather than the black-box-of-pandora thing to happen.
Also thinking that you can "fix" terran by reducing the scv health or tank's damage shows you haven't put too much thought into that. Unless the number is stupidly looking like 2 health for the scv and 1 damage for unsieged tank, this will probably disrupt the game in a rather significant manner.
I think it should be looked on a mu by mu basis. I don't consider myself competent enough for the PvT/TvP match up to propose changes there. I also really have no idea how to account for the Z>P imbalance without disrupting the ZvT and PvT matches (at least for now). But IMO the key to ZvT is the medic and really - it's not so hard to figure it out. It really would do no harm to the TvP and TvT matchups to increase medic build time with 3 seconds (+15 increase) and/or increase its cost from 50 minerals to 75 OR reducing its HP from 60 to 50. This definitely won't make terran look less "terran".
On May 18 2017 22:25 LRM)TechnicS wrote: ZvT (from the zerg perspective) hasn't changed almost a dime for the last 10 years. It's been 3hatch muta on 2 exp into lurk like always (I was using that bo in a game in 2003 or 2004 vs korean chogosus and I was told this was "an old build"). 2 or 3 hatch muta/lurk has almost always been the norm into a relatively quick hive into deflier/guardians/ultras. For me ZvT is now turned into your example of games that are almost absolutely the same (hence boring, at least for me) unless some player decides it's time to take big risks. Sure, the ZvT game is longer now and it takes to mine almost the whole gas out there to overcome the T, but is still the same thing repeating over and over again that makes me wonder why do I even watch progamers doing it (excluding the Mong vs Shine series here, lol, but I think that still fits in to the player-taking-big-risks category).
I agree so much. A good strategy game benefits from players having a variety of strategic options at the start (root) of the game! Starcraft may be the best RTS, but over time some of the matchups have revealed pretty hard limitations in how they can be played (I'm thinking of ZvT and PvZ early openings). If you had more strategic options, you would have more choice also to deal or not deal with things you are not interested in (such as for me something like exploiting muta stack micro). The early days of bw had this, and creativity was more rewarded. Now something could be done with balance changes. It's not the winrates that worry me personally. But the winrate if you don't play the way you're supposed to. So I'm losing interest in competitive play. (but w/e having fun playing 3v3 again lol)
I don't play Z or T, but I used to enjoy occasionally. Now I don't want to get into it cause it feels like I have no choice, if I play Z I must make a fcking muta stack opening or lose to any decent T player.
I think it should be looked on a mu by mu basis. I don't consider myself competent enough for the PvT/TvP match up to propose changes there. I also really have no idea how to account for the Z>P imbalance without disrupting the ZvT and PvT matches (at least for now). But IMO the key to ZvT is the medic and really - it's not so hard to figure it out. It really would do no harm to the TvP and TvT matchups to increase medic build time with 3 seconds (+15 increase) and/or increase its cost from 50 minerals to 75 OR reducing its HP from 60 to 50. This definitely won't make terran look less "terran".
Mu by mu basis, to allow more options. Where the imbalances are is hard to pinpoint and there are many ways, etc. The muta stack, the medic yeah (I would say after reading someone else talk about it, they just heal too fast, btw this is a main factor that denies hydras in early TvZ isn't it ? I love hydras, they are a great strat option for Z with many possibilities.. but not against muta openings or medics), is the storm or reaver an imbalance that prevents M&M to play against P ? probably. Is the BC main attack too weak? (and the ghost's?) yeah right? Isn't ZvZ the most imbalanced match up? ^^ Is it cool that Ps can hardly open anything other than FE against Z and must memorize wall spots before playing the map? not for me. it's not rly about winrates, winrates aren't that bad, I agree as long as nothing is worse than 60-40 (bit harsh this, let's say 57,5-42,5 ^^) or more ideally 55-45 that's not the concern, it's the complexity of the mus in terms of playable options. imo
and the late game things, like the state of the game if you get to the dream late games, is another thing to consider. Tanks 3 supply I imagine would do a lot of good. I believe dark swarm is too strong personally. Maybe ultra could gain 1 base armor and lose the carapace upgrade. Protoss? Storm? reavers can be a mess, decrease the size of their aoe, fix the scarab stupidity? Storm drops are kinda stupid. lol
(a huge change for storm I could suggest, that I think would make things better, is to make them just last longer while dealing the same damage? allow workers also to get out of there more easily, it's too bad. Tbh I think workers with bit more health would be nice, but thats a huge change too. they die too quick to storms, vultures, and some other things, imo)
On May 18 2017 22:20 tanngard wrote: Really good posts from Bakuryu, Jealous and Essbe on the last page. Thank you guys. Must read for anyone who still thinks BW should be balanced by patches from Blizzard. Next time someone starts another balance patch debate, lets just guide them to these posts so as to save time. Bookmarked.
There are always some problems with balance when there is three completely different races. But these tends to shift and decrease along the evolution of the game, in a higly comptetitive environment fueled by the collected and individual effort of the players (and mapmakers) to understand the ins and outs of the game, to reach the top, or perhaps, reach deeper into the Truth of the game.
Go back into the history records and look at all these names of legends of the past. Boxer, Yellow, Nal_ra, Nada, Reach, July, iloveoov, GoRush, Pusan, Anytime, Midas, Savior. They innovated, practiced, sacrificed. They won. They lost. They came. And they went away. But they were all part of the same story. The rules of the game never changed. Yet how it was played changed, because of what they discovered. Did they whine and cry out for a balance patch? Or did they buckle up and do the Work themselves? That is the beauty to me of BW history. Its a tale of young people, teenagers really, trying to trancend reality with its own rules of success, for another reality, another game, and just do their very best to understand, to succeed and to become the "hero". NOT to beg blizzard for help. NOT to destroy the "fine-tuned" laws of the BW universe. NOT to destroy their homeworld.
I would rather see the game become irreversible broken one day. Because then we would know that this game, this parallel universe, this logical puzzle, has run its course. When we know how it ends, we know how it truly works. And then on to the next puzzle, the next "reality".
Or maybe just forever balance it out with new maps, idk haha. Cheers everyone.
Hahaha, I like your passion, well said ^^
I'd like to see what some players like Flash would do on maps like Chain reaction or any other map that is difficult for terran, would be really awesome to see what kind of builds/strategies they can come up with!
On May 18 2017 22:25 LRM)TechnicS wrote: ZvT (from the zerg perspective) hasn't changed almost a dime for the last 10 years. It's been 3hatch muta on 2 exp into lurk like always (I was using that bo in a game in 2003 or 2004 vs korean chogosus and I was told this was "an old build"). 2 or 3 hatch muta/lurk has almost always been the norm into a relatively quick hive into deflier/guardians/ultras. For me ZvT is now turned into your example of games that are almost absolutely the same (hence boring, at least for me) unless some player decides it's time to take big risks. Sure, the ZvT game is longer now and it takes to mine almost the whole gas out there to overcome the T, but is still the same thing repeating over and over again that makes me wonder why do I even watch progamers doing it (excluding the Mong vs Shine series here, lol, but I think that still fits in to the player-taking-big-risks category).
"Boring"? Are you serious? If you don't appreciate BW from a competitive point of view right now to the extent that you have to call a matchup "boring" then I'd argue no amount of patching will make things interesting for you, because that means you care a lot more about the aspect of variety and change and not very much at all about the thrill of winning and losing hard-fought games, or watching your favorite players compete for first price. If everyone had your attitude, tennis and darts as televised sports wouldn't exist, because on a surface level every game looks the same. I would love tennis only if I was playing it competitively myself, but as a mere observer I don't find it interesting, just like you don't find ZvT interesting. If you don't see and appreciate the nuances of BW then either competitive 1v1 is not for you or you should look to play UMS, 15 no rush and other games every now and then to fuel your need for variety. I'm not kidding by the way, those games are hella fun.
Also, in practice, balance changes are pretty much the normal thing to happen to an RTS game by Blizzard (whether it be SC, SC:BW, WC3, SC2 WOL, HOTS or LOTV or whatever title they are working on) - not that I favour them in the SC:BW case - rather than the black-box-of-pandora thing to happen.
Not really an argument. There's no need to change something for the sake of change. If you can't demonstrate that it will be for the better (instead of just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best) then people will rightfully protest change. If you want a different RTS, by all means make one. But if you want changes in BW then you'll need a better argument than "it's been business practice throughout all of SC2, so why not?" "Why not?" is not an argument.
Also thinking that you can "fix" terran by reducing the scv health or tank's damage shows you haven't put too much thought into that. Unless the number is stupidly looking like 2 health for the scv and 1 damage for unsieged tank, this will probably disrupt the game in a rather significant manner.
Wait, did you just argue against change? I'm foncused. Tremendously foncused.
I think it should be looked on a mu by mu basis. I don't consider myself competent enough for the PvT/TvP match up to propose changes there. I also really have no idea how to account for the Z>P imbalance without disrupting the ZvT and PvT matches (at least for now). But IMO the key to ZvT is the medic and really - it's not so hard to figure it out. It really would do no harm to the TvP and TvT matchups to increase medic build time with 3 seconds (+15 increase) and/or increase its cost from 50 minerals to 75 OR reducing its HP from 60 to 50. This definitely won't make terran look less "terran".
Well how about you figure things out first, please? If you propose changes while admitting to not being able to predict the consequences then you can't expect people to listen to you. How can you know that "it's not so hard to figure it out" when you're unable to figure it out yourself?
But far more worrisome in my eyes: did you notice that there's a certain up-and-coming zerg player who, until recently, couldn't compete with a high winrate at the top level, and who is currently making top terran pull their hairs out when he battles them? His nickname is "Larva". Over the past year or so his winrate against top terran pros has gone from almost zero to having consistent wins against Last and Flash. He's playing against Flash right now, and he's in the process of winning yet another late game. How can you ignore things like this while proposing balance changes?
im sorry technics that i didnt quote you, i kinda dont like to read post with lots of quotes especially if the post is longer. i only responded to you at the "undefended bases" part. after that it was kinda a rage post at all the people who think balance changes are good. the "fixing the game by changing scv hp and tank damage" was not my idea, it came from others repeatedly as a way to balance this game. we both dont like this idea.
I think balance is fine, but one thing that can be considered going forward is to have maps that are balanced specifically to a matchup. Like, for example, if there's a map that makes ZvP even, but ZvT imbalanced, it would be a ZvP map, and we could have these for all 3 matchups. The obvious problem with this solution would be hosting games in current server model. If we move to an automated matchmaking model in the future, that wouldn't be a problem for mu specific maps.
I am not a high level player, but it feels to me that just about everything can be solved by maps, and if the first effort to solve problems with maps doesn't work, they just change the maps even more. I'm pretty sure you can make a map completely imbalanced in favor of ZvT if you wanted. From only moderately crazy stuff like putting two geysers in the main (so zerg doesn't need to worry about getting a 3rd gas as much) to completely bollocks like not having any chokes at all, not even defending the main (aka no wall off).
So while I don't think either of these are a good idea or should be implemented, I feel scenarios like these support the argument that "imbalance can be solved with map making". The thing map makers need to do, and they have done brilliantly for many years, is to identify smaller advantages they can give to help the game feel more balanced.
On May 18 2017 10:12 Luddite wrote: Those iccup stats are very interesting. I'm surprised to see Fighting Spirit look so balanced for tvz, when it seems pretty imbalanced in for the pros. Do they have any stats broken down by ladder rank?
We don't have stats broken down by ladder rank, this is what i also wanted to get.
On May 18 2017 22:25 LRM)TechnicS wrote: ZvT (from the zerg perspective) hasn't changed almost a dime for the last 10 years. It's been 3hatch muta on 2 exp into lurk like always (I was using that bo in a game in 2003 or 2004 vs korean chogosus and I was told this was "an old build"). 2 or 3 hatch muta/lurk has almost always been the norm into a relatively quick hive into deflier/guardians/ultras. For me ZvT is now turned into your example of games that are almost absolutely the same (hence boring, at least for me) unless some player decides it's time to take big risks. Sure, the ZvT game is longer now and it takes to mine almost the whole gas out there to overcome the T, but is still the same thing repeating over and over again that makes me wonder why do I even watch progamers doing it (excluding the Mong vs Shine series here, lol, but I think that still fits in to the player-taking-big-risks category).
"Boring"? Are you serious? If you don't appreciate BW from a competitive point of view right now to the extent that you have to call a matchup "boring" then I'd argue no amount of patching will make things interesting for you, because that means you care a lot more about the aspect of variety and change and not very much at all about the thrill of winning and losing hard-fought games, or watching your favorite players compete for first price. If everyone had your attitude, tennis and darts as televised sports wouldn't exist, because on a surface level every game looks the same. I would love tennis only if I was playing it competitively myself, but as a mere observer I don't find it interesting, just like you don't find ZvT interesting. If you don't see and appreciate the nuances of BW then either competitive 1v1 is not for you or you should look to play UMS, 15 no rush and other games every now and then to fuel your need for variety. I'm not kidding by the way, those games are hella fun.
ZvT feels boring to me because I know what stuff is supposed to happen from 00:01 of the game to 20:00 of the game. It has been like always 3 hatch muta from 2 bases into lurk and it's getting kind of tiring for me. Since probably the most I practiced is ZvT and it's really suffering into more suffering into more suffering to eventually survive some more/win is not very appealing (besides the knowing what happens/tiring part) to me after competing for so many years. Not to the extent I find TvT boring though... And yes, I really appreciate the fun coming out of UMSes, I've played them a lot and I really enjoy watching pros play UMSes that I also like as well like Shuttle, Larva and others.
Also, in practice, balance changes are pretty much the normal thing to happen to an RTS game by Blizzard (whether it be SC, SC:BW, WC3, SC2 WOL, HOTS or LOTV or whatever title they are working on) - not that I favour them in the SC:BW case - rather than the black-box-of-pandora thing to happen.
On May 19 2017 01:24 Magic Powers wrote: Not really an argument. There's no need to change something for the sake of change. If you can't demonstrate that it will be for the better (instead of just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best) then people will rightfully protest change. If you want a different RTS, by all means make one. But if you want changes in BW then you'll need a better argument than "it's been business practice throughout all of SC2, so why not?" "Why not?" is not an argument.
For the balance part, it's just a normal thing to happen for an RTS game, I don't like the box of pandora analogy. Unless the person making balance changes is a randomly clicking here and there person that has absolutely no idea what is doing lol.
Also thinking that you can "fix" terran by reducing the scv health or tank's damage shows you haven't put too much thought into that. Unless the number is stupidly looking like 2 health for the scv and 1 damage for unsieged tank, this will probably disrupt the game in a rather significant manner.
Wait, did you just argue against change? I'm foncused. Tremendously foncused.
I argue that changing SCV's health or tank's damage by 10% (somewhat meaningful/reasonable amount) will be a terrible choice for a balance change. If we change SCV's health by 2hp or tank's damage by 1 it will be looking rather weird however suitable it might happen to be. I have no idea what "foncused" means.
I think it should be looked on a mu by mu basis. I don't consider myself competent enough for the PvT/TvP match up to propose changes there. I also really have no idea how to account for the Z>P imbalance without disrupting the ZvT and PvT matches (at least for now). But IMO the key to ZvT is the medic and really - it's not so hard to figure it out. It really would do no harm to the TvP and TvT matchups to increase medic build time with 3 seconds (+15 increase) and/or increase its cost from 50 minerals to 75 OR reducing its HP from 60 to 50. This definitely won't make terran look less "terran".
On May 19 2017 01:24 Magic Powers wrote: Well how about you figure things out first, please? If you propose changes while admitting to not being able to predict the consequences then you can't expect people to listen to you. How can you know that "it's not so hard to figure it out" when you're unable to figure it out yourself?
My experience in competing (with Z) and observing the competition on the highest foreigner and korean level for years makes me feel competent in the ZvT/TvZ and ZvP/PvZ matchups. I should have phrased it better I guess - I haven't put a really thorough effort (at least for now) into thinking solutions for the Z>P imbalance without affecting the ZvT and PvT matches hence the "i have no idea for now what's up". Not that I do not feel competent in the ZvP/PvZ matchup. I did for ZvT and for me it's not so hard to figure out that if there was a balance change to address the ZvT/TvZ matchup the key will be to make the medic more expensive and/or with less hp and/or built slower.
On May 19 2017 01:24 Magic Powers wrote: But far more worrisome in my eyes: did you notice that there's a certain up-and-coming zerg player who, until recently, couldn't compete with a high winrate at the top level, and who is currently making top terran pull their hairs out when he battles them? His nickname is "Larva". Over the past year or so his winrate against top terran pros has gone from almost zero to having consistent wins against Last and Flash. He's playing against Flash right now, and he's in the process of winning yet another late game. How can you ignore things like this while proposing balance changes?
I have been enjoying all top level zergs' streams in the recent years - Larva's stream included - and I am expecting his and other top zergs vs T stats for this month as I do for any other month. I am also looking forward to Shine's bag of builds for ZvT and whether they could be implemented and done consistently vs T. Larva specifically plays almost always 3 hatch muta into lurk and him winning many 30 minute games against FlaSh and Last is definitely amazing but I still don't feel there's something new happening in the ZvT matchup overall.
Also, to make it clear, I do not favour balance changes for SC:BW even though it's not something to be afraid of. Most probably the first step should be a thorough players-mapmakers cooperation when making the new maps for competitive play.
Well it's good to know you're not for change for the sake of change. However, I still don't understand what your motivation is. Do you want more diverse openings in TvZ in order to have new things to explore in your own games and as a spectator (in short: fun) or do you want greater game theoretical balance at the top level (in short: balance)? I think changing the game in order to create a more fun experience is not a good argument, because you can't guarantee that the number of playable builds will be greater in the end. In fact it's equally likely that the number will drop, unless you can prove otherwise. Also, it could be argued that, if you want more diverse builds then you can have them, just maybe at the cost of your winrate. But that'd be a sacrifice you're not willing to make, are you? Are you willing to be a pioneer to stand for your visions, or do you rather demand changes from the game? Are you the Bisu kind of person or not? Do you see my point? And the argument of changing the game in order to have balance is also questionable, unless you can prove that the pros have reached an equilibrium, which I'd say they quite obviously have not. We see very significant variance in the player hierarchy, the type that you wouldn't expect in such an equilibrium. As long as the top ranks are being fought for with such intensity, all the while the samplesize clearly not being statistically significant, I don't see how you can propose balance changes unironically.
If we are to argue the point that players adapted to the meta and as a result overcame, what would be different to the case where terran has to overcome units being patched to be more expensive? Could it be possible that the other races has had to adapt for decades to lesser units and be that much better or mindful on how to use their units to seem on an equal level?
Any argument that says other races had to adapt and evolve playstyles is arguing from an assumption that the game was already balanced and players just figured out their potential and the game was actually balanced.
So lets examine both cases, lets say in case 1 protoss and zerg are slightly weaker overall in terms of all match ups and they simply have to play better to overcome terrans slight advantage, and therefore that becomes the meta, the norm, whether people realize it or not, how much skill one has to display to win can be subjective but lets say in this case that protoss and zerg have to be slightly better if we are assuming terran is slightly stronger as a race. Just because we had things go like this where protoss and zerg play better doesnt make it balanced, it just means that, protoss and zerg need to play significantly better to win against a lesser terran.
Now case 2 we have the camp that says the game is 99% balanced and it is 99% up to the players skill to which race wins. And there is constant shift in meta that show spikes of winrates,etc. If that is the case we should see a proportionate amount of spikes and winrates across time. With nearly 2 decades of progaming history, we still have zerg and protoss lagging slightly behind, but still a significant percentage.
Again i dont think anyone is arguing terran is overly powered, but slightly, based on their winrates at the highest level for YEARS. Not just because of flash, but for YEARS we have had terran dominate the scene more frequently and for longer.
Also, I'll repeat again that Larva is currently changing the late game meta of TvZ. His queen usage is impressive, I expect significant balance changes to come of this.
How many more people are going to post random numbers and figures and argue that they represent a trend in balance? How many more silly arguments are we going to see where Maks points out 4 players' relative stats and uses them to explain the overarching issues with the game, with absolutely no statistical analysis whatsoever?
How many more arguments are we going to see about "Terran dominance?" I fucking wish I was home and not on vacation so I could shut you down with some serious knowledge, but for now consider this:
While Terran (Flash) may have won more leagues than Zerg, did you know that Zergs consistently had more players in the top 8/top 16 of every tournament? Doesn't that mean that Zerg is imbalanced, since they can fit more players into the highest echelons of tournaments, and Flash is just that good?
Or wait, perhaps pointing out nominal data and extrapolating them to a mathematical trend without any sort of statistical analysis is the witchdoctor of medicine, the blood-letting of hygiene, the ponzi scheme of economics, the grape Jolly Rancher? In other words, a total joke?
Here is how many of you like to argue about balance:
People with more TVs are imba because more of them get into better secondary education and have better dental hygiene than people with less TVs. TVs make their teeth whiter and increase their chances during applications. My friend Johnny, he got into Dental school because his teeth were so clean, and he had SO many TVs, that he got in no problem. Let's ignore that Johnny had the highest GPA in his high school and did a lot of community service; although, that is probably because he had more TVs too. I mean, look at these statistics:
Chance of going to medical school vs. amount of TVs you own: 10% - 0 15% - 1 30% - 2 80% - 3+
That's right folks, if you have 1 TV and you buy 2 more, you will be more than 5x more likely to get into med school. That's how statistics works. Just look at the years of dominance by TV-having people in the realm of medical school applications, and it becomes clear that TVs are at least slightly OP.
Here's another example:
I take a random sample of 100 TeamLiquid players. 33 of them are Terran, 40 are Zerg, and 27 are Protoss. 10 of them are gay, 1 is trans, and 10 are homophobic. 3 of the 10 gay players are Terran, 3 are Zerg, and 4 are Protoss. That means that 1/11 of Terrans are gay, 3/40 of Zerg are gay, and 4/27 Protoss are gay. 1/11 = .09090909 etc. 3/40 = .075. 4/27= .148. That's right everyone, it's official: Protoss are almost twice as likely to be gay as Zerg are. I have a sample size of 100 players, 67 Zerg/Protoss, and 10 gay players to prove it.
Seriously, do any of you realize that statistics isn't just compelling-sounding word combinations, self-evident subtraction or division, pretty graphs and quaint hypothetical scenarios that only occur in ideal worlds with no mitigating factors, confounding elements, and that everything is causation? FFS I can't anymore.
Wait a few weeks. I will be back with impartial statistical analyses. Until then, wallow in your ignorance.
On May 19 2017 07:51 Jealous wrote: How many more people are going to post random numbers and figures and argue that they represent a trend in balance? How many more silly arguments are we going to see where Maks points out 4 players' relative stats and uses them to explain the overarching issues with the game, with absolutely no statistical analysis whatsoever?
How many more arguments are we going to see about "Terran dominance?" I fucking wish I was home and not on vacation so I could shut you down with some serious knowledge, but for now consider this:
While Terran (Flash) may have won more leagues than Zerg, did you know that Zergs consistently had more players in the top 8/top 16 of every tournament? Doesn't that mean that Zerg is imbalanced, since they can fit more players into the highest echelons of tournaments, and Flash is just that good?
Or wait, perhaps pointing out nominal data and extrapolating them to a mathematical trend without any sort of statistical analysis is the witchdoctor of medicine, the blood-letting of hygiene, the ponzi scheme of economics, the grape Jolly Rancher? In other words, a total joke?
Here is how many of you like to argue about balance:
People with more TVs are imba because more of them get into better secondary education and have better dental hygiene than people with less TVs. TVs make their teeth whiter and increase their chances during applications. My friend Johnny, he got into Dental school because his teeth were so clean, and he had SO many TVs, that he got in no problem. Let's ignore that Johnny had the highest GPA in his high school and did a lot of community service; although, that is probably because he had more TVs too. I mean, look at these statistics:
Chance of going to medical school vs. amount of TVs you own: 10% - 0 15% - 1 30% - 2 80% - 3+
That's right folks, if you have 1 TV and you buy 2 more, you will be more than 5x more likely to get into med school. That's how statistics works. Just look at the years of dominance by TV-having people in the realm of medical school applications, and it becomes clear that TVs are at least slightly OP.
Here's another example:
I take a random sample of 100 TeamLiquid players. 33 of them are Terran, 40 are Zerg, and 27 are Protoss. 10 of them are gay, 1 is trans, and 10 are homophobic. 3 of the 10 gay players are Terran, 3 are Zerg, and 4 are Protoss. That means that 1/11 of Terrans are gay, 3/40 of Zerg are gay, and 4/27 Protoss are gay. 1/11 = .09090909 etc. 3/40 = .075. 4/27= .148. That's right everyone, it's official: Protoss are almost twice as likely to be gay as Zerg are. I have a sample size of 100 players, 67 Zerg/Protoss, and 10 gay players to prove it.
Seriously, do any of you realize that statistics isn't just compelling-sounding word combinations, self-evident subtraction or division, pretty graphs and quaint hypothetical scenarios that only occur in ideal worlds with no mitigating factors, confounding elements, and that everything is causation? FFS I can't anymore.
Wait a few weeks. I will be back with impartial statistical analyses. Until then, wallow in your ignorance.
Well I will be waiting for that. My point all along was that the game is actually very balanced. And while I know I may have reached to the conclusion in a bad way I still feel it is true.
On May 19 2017 07:51 Jealous wrote: How many more people are going to post random numbers and figures and argue that they represent a trend in balance? How many more silly arguments are we going to see where Maks points out 4 players' relative stats and uses them to explain the overarching issues with the game, with absolutely no statistical analysis whatsoever?
How many more arguments are we going to see about "Terran dominance?" I fucking wish I was home and not on vacation so I could shut you down with some serious knowledge, but for now consider this:
While Terran (Flash) may have won more leagues than Zerg, did you know that Zergs consistently had more players in the top 8/top 16 of every tournament? Doesn't that mean that Zerg is imbalanced, since they can fit more players into the highest echelons of tournaments, and Flash is just that good?
Or wait, perhaps pointing out nominal data and extrapolating them to a mathematical trend without any sort of statistical analysis is the witchdoctor of medicine, the blood-letting of hygiene, the ponzi scheme of economics, the grape Jolly Rancher? In other words, a total joke?
Here is how many of you like to argue about balance:
People with more TVs are imba because more of them get into better secondary education and have better dental hygiene than people with less TVs. TVs make their teeth whiter and increase their chances during applications. My friend Johnny, he got into Dental school because his teeth were so clean, and he had SO many TVs, that he got in no problem. Let's ignore that Johnny had the highest GPA in his high school and did a lot of community service; although, that is probably because he had more TVs too. I mean, look at these statistics:
Chance of going to medical school vs. amount of TVs you own: 10% - 0 15% - 1 30% - 2 80% - 3+
That's right folks, if you have 1 TV and you buy 2 more, you will be more than 5x more likely to get into med school. That's how statistics works. Just look at the years of dominance by TV-having people in the realm of medical school applications, and it becomes clear that TVs are at least slightly OP.
Here's another example:
I take a random sample of 100 TeamLiquid players. 33 of them are Terran, 40 are Zerg, and 27 are Protoss. 10 of them are gay, 1 is trans, and 10 are homophobic. 3 of the 10 gay players are Terran, 3 are Zerg, and 4 are Protoss. That means that 1/11 of Terrans are gay, 3/40 of Zerg are gay, and 4/27 Protoss are gay. 1/11 = .09090909 etc. 3/40 = .075. 4/27= .148. That's right everyone, it's official: Protoss are almost twice as likely to be gay as Zerg are. I have a sample size of 100 players, 67 Zerg/Protoss, and 10 gay players to prove it.
Seriously, do any of you realize that statistics isn't just compelling-sounding word combinations, self-evident subtraction or division, pretty graphs and quaint hypothetical scenarios that only occur in ideal worlds with no mitigating factors, confounding elements, and that everything is causation? FFS I can't anymore.
Wait a few weeks. I will be back with impartial statistical analyses. Until then, wallow in your ignorance.
Those coming up with random stats from recent games to prove imbalance probably didn't even read the thread, or just didn't understand our previous posts.
On May 19 2017 02:10 Palmar wrote: I am not a high level player, but it feels to me that just about everything can be solved by maps, and if the first effort to solve problems with maps doesn't work, they just change the maps even more. I'm pretty sure you can make a map completely imbalanced in favor of ZvT if you wanted. From only moderately crazy stuff like putting two geysers in the main (so zerg doesn't need to worry about getting a 3rd gas as much) to completely bollocks like not having any chokes at all, not even defending the main (aka no wall off).
So while I don't think either of these are a good idea or should be implemented, I feel scenarios like these support the argument that "imbalance can be solved with map making". The thing map makers need to do, and they have done brilliantly for many years, is to identify smaller advantages they can give to help the game feel more balanced.
There is already such a map, it's called Outsider
unfortunately, changes that map Zerg viable vs. Terran completely screw over Protoss in PvZ
Here are some changes that would only affect ZvT:
1. Cliffs where overlords can be safe (preferrably next to bases for scouting). Since Protoss makes a corsair before the first dragoon most of the time, this won't affect PvZ as much. Allows Zerg to be able to suicide an overlord into the main to check for 5 rax. Currently you can just snipe a slow overlord with marines if it's trying to scout. 2. Space behind minerals - in other words, mains should be on a peninsula instead of in the corner. This will make muta stronger against Protoss, but not that much as long as you don't actually put cliffs behind the minerals. This will, however, give a way for muta to escape the Terran base much easier since Terran doesn't get valkyries as often as Protoss gets corsairs. You should still be able to put zealots behind the minerals. 3. Circular mains to allow less space to drop, but enough space to put buildings. That lip in the main in CB really allows Terran a lot more places to drop marines in. 4. Decent block-off against zergling run-byes - although it's a little boring if it's a one zealot block. Allows for Nexus first on larger maps, which is a bit gambly normally. Having to block with three is a bit too much. Maybe two unit block on all spawns? 5. Enough time to morph sunkens against a sunken bust build. This affects PvZ as well, but it affects it both ways - 3 hatch hydra won't be as strong on a larger map. 6. Do not allow Terran to wall in ling-tight with two supply and a barracks in the natural - this makes 8 rax impossible to punish.
So I'm thinking a pretty large 3 player map with equidistant spawns and pleasant locations for overlords.
On May 19 2017 02:10 Palmar wrote: I am not a high level player, but it feels to me that just about everything can be solved by maps, and if the first effort to solve problems with maps doesn't work, they just change the maps even more. I'm pretty sure you can make a map completely imbalanced in favor of ZvT if you wanted. From only moderately crazy stuff like putting two geysers in the main (so zerg doesn't need to worry about getting a 3rd gas as much) to completely bollocks like not having any chokes at all, not even defending the main (aka no wall off).
So while I don't think either of these are a good idea or should be implemented, I feel scenarios like these support the argument that "imbalance can be solved with map making". The thing map makers need to do, and they have done brilliantly for many years, is to identify smaller advantages they can give to help the game feel more balanced.
There is already such a map, it's called Outsider
unfortunately, changes that map Zerg viable vs. Terran completely screw over Protoss in PvZ
Here are some changes that would only affect ZvT:
1. Cliffs where overlords can be safe (preferrably next to bases for scouting). Since Protoss makes a corsair before the first dragoon most of the time, this won't affect PvZ as much. Allows Zerg to be able to suicide an overlord into the main to check for 5 rax. Currently you can just snipe a slow overlord with marines if it's trying to scout. 2. Space behind minerals - in other words, mains should be on a peninsula instead of in the corner. This will make muta stronger against Protoss, but not that much as long as you don't actually put cliffs behind the minerals. This will, however, give a way for muta to escape the Terran base much easier since Terran doesn't get valkyries as often as Protoss gets corsairs. You should still be able to put zealots behind the minerals. 3. Circular mains to allow less space to drop, but enough space to put buildings. That lip in the main in CB really allows Terran a lot more places to drop marines in. 4. Decent block-off against zergling run-byes - although it's a little boring if it's a one zealot block. Allows for Nexus first on larger maps, which is a bit gambly normally. Having to block with three is a bit too much. Maybe two unit block on all spawns? 5. Enough time to morph sunkens against a sunken bust build. This affects PvZ as well, but it affects it both ways - 3 hatch hydra won't be as strong on a larger map. 6. Do not allow Terran to wall in ling-tight with two supply and a barracks in the natural - this makes 8 rax impossible to punish.
So I'm thinking a pretty large 3 player map with equidistant spawns and pleasant locations for overlords.
oh don't get me wrong. I was citing extreme examples that I know would never work in reality just to make the point that anything can be achieved if you don't give a shit about other consequences. The point is that if you can achieve an extreme result in either direction, you should theoretically be able to achieve most results in between.
Please don't misunderstand and think I was actually suggesting this as a viable solution. Figuring out the solution is for far more talented people than me to do.
How many more people are going to post random numbers and figures and argue that they represent a trend in balance? How many more silly arguments are we going to see where Maks points out 4 players' relative stats and uses them to explain the overarching issues with the game, with absolutely no statistical analysis whatsoever?
How many more arguments are we going to see about "Terran dominance?" I fucking wish I was home and not on vacation so I could shut you down with some serious knowledge, but for now consider this:
While Terran (Flash) may have won more leagues than Zerg, did you know that Zergs consistently had more players in the top 8/top 16 of every tournament? Doesn't that mean that Zerg is imbalanced, since they can fit more players into the highest echelons of tournaments, and Flash is just that good?
Or wait, perhaps pointing out nominal data and extrapolating them to a mathematical trend without any sort of statistical analysis is the witchdoctor of medicine, the blood-letting of hygiene, the ponzi scheme of economics, the grape Jolly Rancher? In other words, a total joke?
Here is how many of you like to argue about balance:
People with more TVs are imba because more of them get into better secondary education and have better dental hygiene than people with less TVs. TVs make their teeth whiter and increase their chances during applications. My friend Johnny, he got into Dental school because his teeth were so clean, and he had SO many TVs, that he got in no problem. Let's ignore that Johnny had the highest GPA in his high school and did a lot of community service; although, that is probably because he had more TVs too. I mean, look at these statistics:
Chance of going to medical school vs. amount of TVs you own: 10% - 0 15% - 1 30% - 2 80% - 3+
That's right folks, if you have 1 TV and you buy 2 more, you will be more than 5x more likely to get into med school. That's how statistics works. Just look at the years of dominance by TV-having people in the realm of medical school applications, and it becomes clear that TVs are at least slightly OP.
Here's another example:
I take a random sample of 100 TeamLiquid players. 33 of them are Terran, 40 are Zerg, and 27 are Protoss. 10 of them are gay, 1 is trans, and 10 are homophobic. 3 of the 10 gay players are Terran, 3 are Zerg, and 4 are Protoss. That means that 1/11 of Terrans are gay, 3/40 of Zerg are gay, and 4/27 Protoss are gay. 1/11 = .09090909 etc. 3/40 = .075. 4/27= .148. That's right everyone, it's official: Protoss are almost twice as likely to be gay as Zerg are. I have a sample size of 100 players, 67 Zerg/Protoss, and 10 gay players to prove it.
Seriously, do any of you realize that statistics isn't just compelling-sounding word combinations, self-evident subtraction or division, pretty graphs and quaint hypothetical scenarios that only occur in ideal worlds with no mitigating factors, confounding elements, and that everything is causation? FFS I can't anymore.
Wait a few weeks. I will be back with impartial statistical analyses. Until then, wallow in your ignorance.
This post made me lol so hard and pretty much summarises evry balance whine Thread out there, this one here included. As baku said before, there were tons of these kinda threads created over the past few months and years which is always the same. I don't get it, why do people start making these threads over and over again T_T someone please close this...
How many more people are going to post random numbers and figures and argue that they represent a trend in balance? How many more silly arguments are we going to see where Maks points out 4 players' relative stats and uses them to explain the overarching issues with the game, with absolutely no statistical analysis whatsoever?
How many more arguments are we going to see about "Terran dominance?" I fucking wish I was home and not on vacation so I could shut you down with some serious knowledge, but for now consider this:
While Terran (Flash) may have won more leagues than Zerg, did you know that Zergs consistently had more players in the top 8/top 16 of every tournament? Doesn't that mean that Zerg is imbalanced, since they can fit more players into the highest echelons of tournaments, and Flash is just that good?
Or wait, perhaps pointing out nominal data and extrapolating them to a mathematical trend without any sort of statistical analysis is the witchdoctor of medicine, the blood-letting of hygiene, the ponzi scheme of economics, the grape Jolly Rancher? In other words, a total joke?
Here is how many of you like to argue about balance:
People with more TVs are imba because more of them get into better secondary education and have better dental hygiene than people with less TVs. TVs make their teeth whiter and increase their chances during applications. My friend Johnny, he got into Dental school because his teeth were so clean, and he had SO many TVs, that he got in no problem. Let's ignore that Johnny had the highest GPA in his high school and did a lot of community service; although, that is probably because he had more TVs too. I mean, look at these statistics:
Chance of going to medical school vs. amount of TVs you own: 10% - 0 15% - 1 30% - 2 80% - 3+
That's right folks, if you have 1 TV and you buy 2 more, you will be more than 5x more likely to get into med school. That's how statistics works. Just look at the years of dominance by TV-having people in the realm of medical school applications, and it becomes clear that TVs are at least slightly OP.
Here's another example:
I take a random sample of 100 TeamLiquid players. 33 of them are Terran, 40 are Zerg, and 27 are Protoss. 10 of them are gay, 1 is trans, and 10 are homophobic. 3 of the 10 gay players are Terran, 3 are Zerg, and 4 are Protoss. That means that 1/11 of Terrans are gay, 3/40 of Zerg are gay, and 4/27 Protoss are gay. 1/11 = .09090909 etc. 3/40 = .075. 4/27= .148. That's right everyone, it's official: Protoss are almost twice as likely to be gay as Zerg are. I have a sample size of 100 players, 67 Zerg/Protoss, and 10 gay players to prove it.
Seriously, do any of you realize that statistics isn't just compelling-sounding word combinations, self-evident subtraction or division, pretty graphs and quaint hypothetical scenarios that only occur in ideal worlds with no mitigating factors, confounding elements, and that everything is causation? FFS I can't anymore.
Wait a few weeks. I will be back with impartial statistical analyses. Until then, wallow in your ignorance.
This post made me lol so hard and pretty much summarises evry balance whine Thread out there, this one here included. As baku said before, there were tons of these kinda threads created over the past few months and years which is always the same. I don't get it, why do people start making these threads over and over again T_T someone please close this...
RedW4rr10r your well thought out constructive criticism is highly appreciated. ^_._^
How many more people are going to post random numbers and figures and argue that they represent a trend in balance? How many more silly arguments are we going to see where Maks points out 4 players' relative stats and uses them to explain the overarching issues with the game, with absolutely no statistical analysis whatsoever?
How many more arguments are we going to see about "Terran dominance?" I fucking wish I was home and not on vacation so I could shut you down with some serious knowledge, but for now consider this:
While Terran (Flash) may have won more leagues than Zerg, did you know that Zergs consistently had more players in the top 8/top 16 of every tournament? Doesn't that mean that Zerg is imbalanced, since they can fit more players into the highest echelons of tournaments, and Flash is just that good?
Or wait, perhaps pointing out nominal data and extrapolating them to a mathematical trend without any sort of statistical analysis is the witchdoctor of medicine, the blood-letting of hygiene, the ponzi scheme of economics, the grape Jolly Rancher? In other words, a total joke?
Here is how many of you like to argue about balance:
People with more TVs are imba because more of them get into better secondary education and have better dental hygiene than people with less TVs. TVs make their teeth whiter and increase their chances during applications. My friend Johnny, he got into Dental school because his teeth were so clean, and he had SO many TVs, that he got in no problem. Let's ignore that Johnny had the highest GPA in his high school and did a lot of community service; although, that is probably because he had more TVs too. I mean, look at these statistics:
Chance of going to medical school vs. amount of TVs you own: 10% - 0 15% - 1 30% - 2 80% - 3+
That's right folks, if you have 1 TV and you buy 2 more, you will be more than 5x more likely to get into med school. That's how statistics works. Just look at the years of dominance by TV-having people in the realm of medical school applications, and it becomes clear that TVs are at least slightly OP.
Here's another example:
I take a random sample of 100 TeamLiquid players. 33 of them are Terran, 40 are Zerg, and 27 are Protoss. 10 of them are gay, 1 is trans, and 10 are homophobic. 3 of the 10 gay players are Terran, 3 are Zerg, and 4 are Protoss. That means that 1/11 of Terrans are gay, 3/40 of Zerg are gay, and 4/27 Protoss are gay. 1/11 = .09090909 etc. 3/40 = .075. 4/27= .148. That's right everyone, it's official: Protoss are almost twice as likely to be gay as Zerg are. I have a sample size of 100 players, 67 Zerg/Protoss, and 10 gay players to prove it.
Seriously, do any of you realize that statistics isn't just compelling-sounding word combinations, self-evident subtraction or division, pretty graphs and quaint hypothetical scenarios that only occur in ideal worlds with no mitigating factors, confounding elements, and that everything is causation? FFS I can't anymore.
Wait a few weeks. I will be back with impartial statistical analyses. Until then, wallow in your ignorance.
This post made me lol so hard and pretty much summarises evry balance whine Thread out there, this one here included. As baku said before, there were tons of these kinda threads created over the past few months and years which is always the same. I don't get it, why do people start making these threads over and over again T_T someone please close this...
RedW4rr10r your well thought out constructive criticism is highly appreciated. ^_._^
xD Well, on a serious note though, there have been a lot of these kind of threads and this topic has been discussed sooooo much and, quite frankly, it is annoying to have this topic once again with repeating cases/statements/"proofs" etc.
How many more people are going to post random numbers and figures and argue that they represent a trend in balance? How many more silly arguments are we going to see where Maks points out 4 players' relative stats and uses them to explain the overarching issues with the game, with absolutely no statistical analysis whatsoever?
How many more arguments are we going to see about "Terran dominance?" I fucking wish I was home and not on vacation so I could shut you down with some serious knowledge, but for now consider this:
While Terran (Flash) may have won more leagues than Zerg, did you know that Zergs consistently had more players in the top 8/top 16 of every tournament? Doesn't that mean that Zerg is imbalanced, since they can fit more players into the highest echelons of tournaments, and Flash is just that good?
Or wait, perhaps pointing out nominal data and extrapolating them to a mathematical trend without any sort of statistical analysis is the witchdoctor of medicine, the blood-letting of hygiene, the ponzi scheme of economics, the grape Jolly Rancher? In other words, a total joke?
Here is how many of you like to argue about balance:
People with more TVs are imba because more of them get into better secondary education and have better dental hygiene than people with less TVs. TVs make their teeth whiter and increase their chances during applications. My friend Johnny, he got into Dental school because his teeth were so clean, and he had SO many TVs, that he got in no problem. Let's ignore that Johnny had the highest GPA in his high school and did a lot of community service; although, that is probably because he had more TVs too. I mean, look at these statistics:
Chance of going to medical school vs. amount of TVs you own: 10% - 0 15% - 1 30% - 2 80% - 3+
That's right folks, if you have 1 TV and you buy 2 more, you will be more than 5x more likely to get into med school. That's how statistics works. Just look at the years of dominance by TV-having people in the realm of medical school applications, and it becomes clear that TVs are at least slightly OP.
Here's another example:
I take a random sample of 100 TeamLiquid players. 33 of them are Terran, 40 are Zerg, and 27 are Protoss. 10 of them are gay, 1 is trans, and 10 are homophobic. 3 of the 10 gay players are Terran, 3 are Zerg, and 4 are Protoss. That means that 1/11 of Terrans are gay, 3/40 of Zerg are gay, and 4/27 Protoss are gay. 1/11 = .09090909 etc. 3/40 = .075. 4/27= .148. That's right everyone, it's official: Protoss are almost twice as likely to be gay as Zerg are. I have a sample size of 100 players, 67 Zerg/Protoss, and 10 gay players to prove it.
Seriously, do any of you realize that statistics isn't just compelling-sounding word combinations, self-evident subtraction or division, pretty graphs and quaint hypothetical scenarios that only occur in ideal worlds with no mitigating factors, confounding elements, and that everything is causation? FFS I can't anymore.
Wait a few weeks. I will be back with impartial statistical analyses. Until then, wallow in your ignorance.
This post made me lol so hard and pretty much summarises evry balance whine Thread out there, this one here included. As baku said before, there were tons of these kinda threads created over the past few months and years which is always the same. I don't get it, why do people start making these threads over and over again T_T someone please close this...
if you are annoyed by a discussion you might just not participate in it instead of trying to tell people to shut up lol, that's just weird, balance is many things, I'm tired of being "forbidden" to talk about it on TL and threads buried, that's why they keep coming back cause some people try to prevent others from discussing a topic, we're not even actually trying to push for a patch just discussing.... I don't rly want blizzard to come up with a patch now, but I'm interested in discussing yo, is what forums are for isn't it
The Korean Kespa era has shown that balancing the game through maps is extremely effective and probably the way to go.
The only difficulty is tuning map parameters in such a way so you can tune TvP balance and not affect TvZ and PvZ balance, for example. That seems very hard or even impossible.
There is a solution. Have a slightly different version of the same map for each matchup. For example, you can narrow or widen a ramp. Or even change the number of mineral patches at expansions.
And as nicely balanced as SC is, despite Blizzard's efforts, we should also realize how odd and asymmetrical the balance is. For example, defilers in ZvT. That matchup is oh so focused around one ability. That cannot be sound design principle, even though it works. Of course, it shouldn't be changed, because of Blizzard's incompetence as well as preserving that what is good. Therefore, with SC2 Blizzard should have tried to make a more robust novel and creative version of SC BW. But of course, they had no vision or insights into basic RTS on their dev team, despite lonely David Kim, who quickly realized just to stop caring and to just collect his paycheck.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/D2bnGpz.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GG2PXXv.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1VIQwgL.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/dF7p30R.png)
No comment on the quality as I haven't read it recently. 
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MJmwXV4.png)
The balance is already there.
