On January 11 2019 05:12 SilentchiLL wrote: I find it weird that people say Flash should be removed from the equation. If we remove the best player by far from every race Protoss would lose Bisu and I think one of the guys here who said that without Bisu we might have actually gotten a balance patch wasn't too far off the mark.
On January 11 2019 04:31 Sr18 wrote: Here is a thought. If we need to remove the data from the earliest years of professional starcraft because the level of play back then wasn't developed enough, how do we know that the current level of play is? As sports go, starcraft is still very young. Look at chess, that game has been played for much longer and the level of play is still rising. Who's to say that in starcraft the level of play can't reach much higher levels. At which of these levels are we determining whether or not the game is balanced?
Because it's been 20 years and Starcraft isn't chess, chess is perfectly balanced in nearly all aspects because the players have the same "units" and Broodwar might be great but it will not last centuries. To be honest the comparison is terrible and you should feel terrible for making it in the first place.
(I hope I have understood this argument well)
The fact that SC is not chess doens't mean that there are not relevant similarities. Both have imbalanced match-ups (white v black in chess), require lots of skill, are very mature strategy wise, but still we havent still se their skill cap in any human yet. So the comparison is perfectly valid.
And yes, chess is balanced in nearly all aspects, but on the one it isn't the unbalance makes a substantial difference. White has about 55% of points taken in competition, even higher in world championship matches (from wikipedia: Of 755 games played in 34 matches between 1886 and 1990, White won 234 (31.0%), drew 397 (52.6%), and lost 124 (16.4%), for a total white winning percentage of 57.3%). So its about the same difference as ZvP or TvZ. Still there's a raging debate about the extent of whie's advantage, even with some (Adorjan) saying that it doesnt exist at all.
Even with many centuries of practice there's nothing resembling a consensus on this matter. The fact is that any cutoff point for skill will be arbitrary, because it do not spike in one sudden leap, but evolves over time.
PS. I have been playing and following tournament chess for the past 20 years or so, and have a 2040 fide rating.
On January 11 2019 04:31 Sr18 wrote: Here is a thought. If we need to remove the data from the earliest years of professional starcraft because the level of play back then wasn't developed enough, how do we know that the current level of play is? As sports go, starcraft is still very young. Look at chess, that game has been played for much longer and the level of play is still rising. Who's to say that in starcraft the level of play can't reach much higher levels. At which of these levels are we determining whether or not the game is balanced?
Because it's been 20 years and Starcraft isn't chess, chess is perfectly balanced in nearly all aspects because the players have the same "units" and Broodwar might be great but it will not last centuries. To be honest the comparison is terrible and you should feel terrible for making it in the first place.
It's not about a direct comparison between starcraft and chess, but about comparing a young sport like starcraft with an older one. If you don't like the comparison with chess, pick any other old sport. Any other, it doesn't matter which one because it's not about the sport itself but about the influence it's age has had on it's level of mastery. It seems to me, that the longer we as people try to get good at a sport, the better we become at it. Think of it this way: if starcraft would have a continuous professional scene for a 100 years, do you think the level of play after that 100 years would be higher than it is now? I think it would. And that begs the question, at what level should the game be balanced? The current highest level, the highest level attainable by humans, something else?
On January 11 2019 04:31 Sr18 wrote: Here is a thought. If we need to remove the data from the earliest years of professional starcraft because the level of play back then wasn't developed enough, how do we know that the current level of play is? As sports go, starcraft is still very young. Look at chess, that game has been played for much longer and the level of play is still rising. Who's to say that in starcraft the level of play can't reach much higher levels. At which of these levels are we determining whether or not the game is balanced?
tbh with all the pros going to military soon and getting older, unfortunately I think the peak level of starcraft play may already be behind us.
On January 11 2019 04:31 Sr18 wrote: Here is a thought. If we need to remove the data from the earliest years of professional starcraft because the level of play back then wasn't developed enough, how do we know that the current level of play is? As sports go, starcraft is still very young. Look at chess, that game has been played for much longer and the level of play is still rising. Who's to say that in starcraft the level of play can't reach much higher levels. At which of these levels are we determining whether or not the game is balanced?
The game has to be balanced for the highest currently available human level. People in 2001 were right to discuss their current issues, and we are right to discuss our current issues. What would the game be like if played by super humans with 666+ apm and 200+ IQ? Irrelevant, really. What would it be like if we had more knowledge? Maybe in the future, a strategy will be invented that breaks the game. There's no way to know.
What ever level you're at, you have to try to make the game as good as possible for yourself. Right now, that means making the game balanced at the highest existing level.
On January 11 2019 04:31 Sr18 wrote: Here is a thought. If we need to remove the data from the earliest years of professional starcraft because the level of play back then wasn't developed enough, how do we know that the current level of play is? As sports go, starcraft is still very young. Look at chess, that game has been played for much longer and the level of play is still rising. Who's to say that in starcraft the level of play can't reach much higher levels. At which of these levels are we determining whether or not the game is balanced?
The game has to be balanced for the highest currently available human level. People in 2001 were right to discuss their current issues, and we are right to discuss our current issues. What would the game be like if played by super humans with 666+ apm and 200+ IQ? Irrelevant, really. What would it be like if we had more knowledge? Maybe in the future, a strategy will be invented that breaks the game. There's no way to know.
What ever level you're at, you have to try to make the game as good as possible for yourself. Right now, that means making the game balanced at the highest existing level.
Deep six exists. There just doesn't exist anyone man enough to use it at the pro level.
On January 11 2019 04:31 Sr18 wrote: Here is a thought. If we need to remove the data from the earliest years of professional starcraft because the level of play back then wasn't developed enough, how do we know that the current level of play is? As sports go, starcraft is still very young. Look at chess, that game has been played for much longer and the level of play is still rising. Who's to say that in starcraft the level of play can't reach much higher levels. At which of these levels are we determining whether or not the game is balanced?
The game has to be balanced for the highest currently available human level. People in 2001 were right to discuss their current issues, and we are right to discuss our current issues. What would the game be like if played by super humans with 666+ apm and 200+ IQ? Irrelevant, really. What would it be like if we had more knowledge? Maybe in the future, a strategy will be invented that breaks the game. There's no way to know.
What ever level you're at, you have to try to make the game as good as possible for yourself. Right now, that means making the game balanced at the highest existing level.
Deep six exists. There just doesn't exist anyone man enough to use it at the pro level.
On January 11 2019 05:12 SilentchiLL wrote: I find it weird that people say Flash should be removed from the equation. If we remove the best player by far from every race Protoss would lose Bisu and I think one of the guys here who said that without Bisu we might have actually gotten a balance patch wasn't too far off the mark.
On January 11 2019 04:31 Sr18 wrote: Here is a thought. If we need to remove the data from the earliest years of professional starcraft because the level of play back then wasn't developed enough, how do we know that the current level of play is? As sports go, starcraft is still very young. Look at chess, that game has been played for much longer and the level of play is still rising. Who's to say that in starcraft the level of play can't reach much higher levels. At which of these levels are we determining whether or not the game is balanced?
Because it's been 20 years and Starcraft isn't chess, chess is perfectly balanced in nearly all aspects because the players have the same "units" and Broodwar might be great but it will not last centuries. To be honest the comparison is terrible and you should feel terrible for making it in the first place.
(I hope I have understood this argument well)
The fact that SC is not chess doens't mean that there are not relevant similarities. Both have imbalanced match-ups (white v black in chess), require lots of skill, are very mature strategy wise, but still we havent still se their skill cap in any human yet. So the comparison is perfectly valid.
And yes, chess is balanced in nearly all aspects, but on the one it isn't the unbalance makes a substantial difference. White has about 55% of points taken in competition, even higher in world championship matches (from wikipedia: Of 755 games played in 34 matches between 1886 and 1990, White won 234 (31.0%), drew 397 (52.6%), and lost 124 (16.4%), for a total white winning percentage of 57.3%). So its about the same difference as ZvP or TvZ. Still there's a raging debate about the extent of whie's advantage, even with some (Adorjan) saying that it doesnt exist at all.
Even with many centuries of practice there's nothing resembling a consensus on this matter. The fact is that any cutoff point for skill will be arbitrary, because it do not spike in one sudden leap, but evolves over time.
PS. I have been playing and following tournament chess for the past 20 years or so, and have a 2040 fide rating.
I agree that there are relevant similarities, I don't think I ever denied that. His comparison was just terrible and makes little sense. Interesting albeit irrelevant chess trivia aside, it's just not the same and the white-black advantage is not comparable to the racial (im)balance of starcraft since it has completely different reasons/origins.
So I repeat, the comparison was bad and he should feel bad.
On January 11 2019 06:31 Sr18 wrote:
It's not about a direct comparison between starcraft and chess, but about comparing a young sport like starcraft with an older one. If you don't like the comparison with chess, pick any other old sport. Any other, it doesn't matter which one because it's not about the sport itself but about the influence it's age has had on it's level of mastery. It seems to me, that the longer we as people try to get good at a sport, the better we become at it. Think of it this way: if starcraft would have a continuous professional scene for a 100 years, do you think the level of play after that 100 years would be higher than it is now? I think it would. And that begs the question, at what level should the game be balanced? The current highest level, the highest level attainable by humans, something else?
The problem is that the entire premise is faulty, any balance act in a game or sport with equal sides will affect both "races." And while starting first in chess does make a difference as having the initiative tends to do, pretty much every other change would affect both sides (near) equally. That just isn't the case in Broodwar. You can lower the energy regeneration of medics by 25% and it will not affect the match ups without Terrans in any way at all, it also won't make Protoss or Zerg weaker but will strictly affect Terran. There's a reason why Chess rules have been relatively stable with just minor changes and additions over the centuries: Because at least at the first glance it seems perfectly fair. Broodwar doesn't, because Broodwar isn't. It's a game built around huge differences between the races, which is part of the reason why it's so incredibly popular, but that also means that it has the potential to become incredibly skewed towards one race. Honestly, the question we should ask ourselves isn't whether Terran or any other race is so strong, but why we are so lucky that it isn't worse, because several times in Broodwar's evolution there was a ton of potential for one race to be objectively way superior but the other races always caught up, making a balance patch not (blatantly) necessary. Broodwar was made by nerds in the 90s, it's not a work of God, so it's an incredible miracle that it stayed as balanced as it is now 20 years later despite active balancing having long ceased.
Edit for clarity: The game's inherently imbalanced, will never be balanced and seeing the pros try is fun, but it cannot be compared to chess since it can both be changed in a much easier fashion and you can actually directly weaken one side without directly affecting the other side in any way; Broodwar is also not equal in nearly any way, meaning that acts of balancing aren't just possible but also inherently necessary. Make no mistake, the game we have right now is not balanced, it's just close enough that people can agree to let it slide and certain things, like the extremely narrow techtree for zerg in the midgame or the lack of a real meaty lategame unit for Toss aside from the nowadays nearly never really seen and always situational carrier in comparison to the Zerg's Ultralisks/Guardians or the Siege Tank/Battlecruiser of the Terrans has always been a problem. Those things just don't seem like problems because we aren't used to thinking of them that way, we aren't used to questioning why protoss plays with zealots and dragoons for pretty much the entirety of the match even though neither (especially the dragoons) get incredibly strong due to upgrades like the zerglings later. We don't question these things because they've always been like that and they seem "balanced" despite being obvious weaknesses and Toss being the objectively weakest race judging from pro play alone, even if they are the easiest to play for a beginner. But we really should.
On January 11 2019 01:37 Alpha-NP- wrote: What’s a map that is good for Z in ZvT? Blue Storm?
I can't think of any imbalanced map in favour of Z in ZvT, but there are plenty of maps at 50% (Not CB or FS).
Here's some I can remember:
Ride of the Valkyries (48% TvZ)
Electric Circuit (not Neo) Dante's Peak Triathlon Battle Royale Flight Dreamliner Holy World Holy World SE
Although none of these had the biggest sample size.
Also see more recently Crossing Field Sparkle
I think one of the major components of making a map zerg favoured in ZvT is make it near impossible to leave your base. One thing Dante's Peak, Battle Royale, Flight Dreamliner, Holy World and Holy World SE feature is the aspect of having a huge amount of airspace around the mains where mutas can fly in at a lot of different angles while also having a relatively long rush distance by ground (especially on Flight Dreamliner).
Holy World and Holy World SE's main component alongside the above is the huge amount of open ground in the middle makes it very hard for Terran to go anywhere without either being countered or majorly surrounded.
On January 11 2019 20:51 SilentchiLL wrote: Honestly, the question we should ask ourselves isn't whether Terran or any other race is so strong, but why we are so lucky that it isn't worse, because several times in Broodwar's evolution there was a ton of potential for one race to be objectively way superior but the other races always caught up, making a balance patch not (blatantly) necessary. Broodwar was made by nerds in the 90s, it's not a work of God, so it's an incredible miracle that it stayed as balanced as it is now 20 years later despite active balancing having long ceased.
Maps have always been chosen in major tournaments to cater to the current metagame. A metagame where [s]Flash[s] Terran is strongest will have anti-Terran maps to create a tournament where all the races have a chance.
On January 11 2019 20:51 SilentchiLL wrote: Honestly, the question we should ask ourselves isn't whether Terran or any other race is so strong, but why we are so lucky that it isn't worse, because several times in Broodwar's evolution there was a ton of potential for one race to be objectively way superior but the other races always caught up, making a balance patch not (blatantly) necessary. Broodwar was made by nerds in the 90s, it's not a work of God, so it's an incredible miracle that it stayed as balanced as it is now 20 years later despite active balancing having long ceased.
Maps have always been chosen in major tournaments to cater to the current metagame. A metagame where [s]Flash[s] Terran is strongest will have anti-Terran maps to create a tournament where all the races have a chance.
Then all the terrans bar FlaSh struggle as we saw in ASL6. It really is FlaShsagi, it's not Tesagi.
On January 11 2019 20:51 SilentchiLL wrote: Honestly, the question we should ask ourselves isn't whether Terran or any other race is so strong, but why we are so lucky that it isn't worse, because several times in Broodwar's evolution there was a ton of potential for one race to be objectively way superior but the other races always caught up, making a balance patch not (blatantly) necessary. Broodwar was made by nerds in the 90s, it's not a work of God, so it's an incredible miracle that it stayed as balanced as it is now 20 years later despite active balancing having long ceased.
Maps have always been chosen in major tournaments to cater to the current metagame. A metagame where [s]Flash[s] Terran is strongest will have anti-Terran maps to create a tournament where all the races have a chance.
Then all the terrans bar FlaSh struggle as we saw in ASL6. It really is FlaShsagi, it's not Tesagi.
CB and FS are slightly Terran favoured in both match ups. I support getting rid of them.
On January 11 2019 05:12 SilentchiLL wrote: I find it weird that people say Flash should be removed from the equation. If we remove the best player by far from every race Protoss would lose Bisu and I think one of the guys here who said that without Bisu we might have actually gotten a balance patch wasn't too far off the mark.
On January 11 2019 04:31 Sr18 wrote: Here is a thought. If we need to remove the data from the earliest years of professional starcraft because the level of play back then wasn't developed enough, how do we know that the current level of play is? As sports go, starcraft is still very young. Look at chess, that game has been played for much longer and the level of play is still rising. Who's to say that in starcraft the level of play can't reach much higher levels. At which of these levels are we determining whether or not the game is balanced?
Because it's been 20 years and Starcraft isn't chess, chess is perfectly balanced in nearly all aspects because the players have the same "units" and Broodwar might be great but it will not last centuries. To be honest the comparison is terrible and you should feel terrible for making it in the first place.
(I hope I have understood this argument well)
The fact that SC is not chess doens't mean that there are not relevant similarities. Both have imbalanced match-ups (white v black in chess), require lots of skill, are very mature strategy wise, but still we havent still se their skill cap in any human yet. So the comparison is perfectly valid.
And yes, chess is balanced in nearly all aspects, but on the one it isn't the unbalance makes a substantial difference. White has about 55% of points taken in competition, even higher in world championship matches (from wikipedia: Of 755 games played in 34 matches between 1886 and 1990, White won 234 (31.0%), drew 397 (52.6%), and lost 124 (16.4%), for a total white winning percentage of 57.3%). So its about the same difference as ZvP or TvZ. Still there's a raging debate about the extent of whie's advantage, even with some (Adorjan) saying that it doesnt exist at all.
Even with many centuries of practice there's nothing resembling a consensus on this matter. The fact is that any cutoff point for skill will be arbitrary, because it do not spike in one sudden leap, but evolves over time.
PS. I have been playing and following tournament chess for the past 20 years or so, and have a 2040 fide rating.
I agree that there are relevant similarities, I don't think I ever denied that. His comparison was just terrible and makes little sense. Interesting albeit irrelevant chess trivia aside, it's just not the same and the white-black advantage is not comparable to the racial (im)balance of starcraft since it has completely different reasons/origins.
So I repeat, the comparison was bad and he should feel bad.
It's not about a direct comparison between starcraft and chess, but about comparing a young sport like starcraft with an older one. If you don't like the comparison with chess, pick any other old sport. Any other, it doesn't matter which one because it's not about the sport itself but about the influence it's age has had on it's level of mastery. It seems to me, that the longer we as people try to get good at a sport, the better we become at it. Think of it this way: if starcraft would have a continuous professional scene for a 100 years, do you think the level of play after that 100 years would be higher than it is now? I think it would. And that begs the question, at what level should the game be balanced? The current highest level, the highest level attainable by humans, something else?
The problem is that the entire premise is faulty, any balance act in a game or sport with equal sides will affect both "races." And while starting first in chess does make a difference as having the initiative tends to do, pretty much every other change would affect both sides (near) equally. That just isn't the case in Broodwar. You can lower the energy regeneration of medics by 25% and it will not affect the match ups without Terrans in any way at all, it also won't make Protoss or Zerg weaker but will strictly affect Terran. There's a reason why Chess rules have been relatively stable with just minor changes and additions over the centuries: Because at least at the first glance it seems perfectly fair. Broodwar doesn't, because Broodwar isn't. It's a game built around huge differences between the races, which is part of the reason why it's so incredibly popular, but that also means that it has the potential to become incredibly skewed towards one race. Honestly, the question we should ask ourselves isn't whether Terran or any other race is so strong, but why we are so lucky that it isn't worse, because several times in Broodwar's evolution there was a ton of potential for one race to be objectively way superior but the other races always caught up, making a balance patch not (blatantly) necessary. Broodwar was made by nerds in the 90s, it's not a work of God, so it's an incredible miracle that it stayed as balanced as it is now 20 years later despite active balancing having long ceased.
Edit for clarity: The game's inherently imbalanced, will never be balanced and seeing the pros try is fun, but it cannot be compared to chess since it can both be changed in a much easier fashion and you can actually directly weaken one side without directly affecting the other side in any way; Broodwar is also not equal in nearly any way, meaning that acts of balancing aren't just possible but also inherently necessary. Make no mistake, the game we have right now is not balanced, it's just close enough that people can agree to let it slide and certain things, like the extremely narrow techtree for zerg in the midgame or the lack of a real meaty lategame unit for Toss aside from the nowadays nearly never really seen and always situational carrier in comparison to the Zerg's Ultralisks/Guardians or the Siege Tank/Battlecruiser of the Terrans has always been a problem. Those things just don't seem like problems because we aren't used to thinking of them that way, we aren't used to questioning why protoss plays with zealots and dragoons for pretty much the entirety of the match even though neither (especially the dragoons) get incredibly strong due to upgrades like the zerglings later. We don't question these things because they've always been like that and they seem "balanced" despite being obvious weaknesses and Toss being the objectively weakest race judging from pro play alone, even if they are the easiest to play for a beginner. But we really should.
My posts were not about balance, but about levels of mastery. My hypothesis is that (i) the human race is better at chess than it is at starcraft and (ii) that if we ever get as good at starcraft as we are at chess now, things we percieve to be imbalanced now might be considered balanced then (and vice versa). Whether or not starcraft is inherently more imbalanced than chess, which your last post was about (that made total sense by the way), has no bearing on any of this.
On January 11 2019 01:37 Alpha-NP- wrote: What’s a map that is good for Z in ZvT? Blue Storm?
I can't think of any imbalanced map in favour of Z in ZvT, but there are plenty of maps at 50% (Not CB or FS).
Here's some I can remember:
Ride of the Valkyries (48% TvZ)
Electric Circuit (not Neo) Dante's Peak Triathlon Battle Royale Flight Dreamliner Holy World Holy World SE
Although none of these had the biggest sample size.
Also see more recently Crossing Field Sparkle
I think one of the major components of making a map zerg favoured in ZvT is make it near impossible to leave your base. One thing Dante's Peak, Battle Royale, Flight Dreamliner, Holy World and Holy World SE feature is the aspect of having a huge amount of airspace around the mains where mutas can fly in at a lot of different angles while also having a relatively long rush distance by ground (especially on Flight Dreamliner).
Holy World and Holy World SE's main component alongside the above is the huge amount of open ground in the middle makes it very hard for Terran to go anywhere without either being countered or majorly surrounded.
Off topic but you prompted me to go back and review some OSL seasons. Reading through "2006 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 3" really solidifies why Savior is one of the most incredible Starcraft players. How did he even win this tournament with the map pool?!? 2006 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 3
Longinus " The fact that it still has somewhat passable statistics in ZvT has largely been attributed to sAviOr; without him the map stands at a grim 11-27 ZvT (29%). "
Arkanoid "NaDa dominated Arkanoid during the 2006 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 2, 2006-2007 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 3, and 2007 Shinhan Bank OnGameNet Masters, reflected by his 15-2 record on both map versions combined" *Note Nada lost to Savior in the finals with this map in the pool
Reverse Temple "Zerg had a hard time against Terran on this map; aside from sAviOr, who went 6-1 on it, the TvZ statistics for this map are 14-3 in favor of Terran. "
I agree that there are relevant similarities, I don't think I ever denied that. His comparison was just terrible and makes little sense. Interesting albeit irrelevant chess trivia aside, it's just not the same and the white-black advantage is not comparable to the racial (im)balance of starcraft since it has completely different reasons/origins.
So I repeat, the comparison was bad and he should feel bad.
On January 11 2019 06:31 Sr18 wrote:
Silent, I will disagree once again. At least I understood that the comparison was centered in between the rising skill level of players over time, which IS relevant in both BW and chess (and you responded about simmetry). And even though chess armies are symmetrical, there are changes that could reduce the imbalance while reducing white's power, and increasing black's one, namely "fair first move": "after player 1 makes the first move with the white pieces, player 2 has the option of either moving normally or choosing to switch colors (and then the game proceeds normally, with player 1 moving again and playing the black pieces for the rest of the game)".
Of course when both games are dissimilar certain comparisons should have little value, but it was not the case here, the comparison between skill level over time is similar, and relevant to the topic of arbitrary cutoffs from where to analyse the game balance by (also) using percentages of winning (for W/B or P/T/Z) in both games.
I also hope I will not offend you to say that you were responding to a strawman, and should feel bad.
Edit: And Armaggedon rules also tries to balance W/B while not affecting bot sides equally.
On January 11 2019 20:51 SilentchiLL wrote: Honestly, the question we should ask ourselves isn't whether Terran or any other race is so strong, but why we are so lucky that it isn't worse, because several times in Broodwar's evolution there was a ton of potential for one race to be objectively way superior but the other races always caught up, making a balance patch not (blatantly) necessary. Broodwar was made by nerds in the 90s, it's not a work of God, so it's an incredible miracle that it stayed as balanced as it is now 20 years later despite active balancing having long ceased.
Maps have always been chosen in major tournaments to cater to the current metagame. A metagame where [s]Flash[s] Terran is strongest will have anti-Terran maps to create a tournament where all the races have a chance.
Having a chance to win and playing a balanced game are different things though. Objectively worse strategies have won countless games in Starcraft after all.
On January 11 2019 05:12 SilentchiLL wrote: I find it weird that people say Flash should be removed from the equation. If we remove the best player by far from every race Protoss would lose Bisu and I think one of the guys here who said that without Bisu we might have actually gotten a balance patch wasn't too far off the mark.
On January 11 2019 04:31 Sr18 wrote: Here is a thought. If we need to remove the data from the earliest years of professional starcraft because the level of play back then wasn't developed enough, how do we know that the current level of play is? As sports go, starcraft is still very young. Look at chess, that game has been played for much longer and the level of play is still rising. Who's to say that in starcraft the level of play can't reach much higher levels. At which of these levels are we determining whether or not the game is balanced?
Because it's been 20 years and Starcraft isn't chess, chess is perfectly balanced in nearly all aspects because the players have the same "units" and Broodwar might be great but it will not last centuries. To be honest the comparison is terrible and you should feel terrible for making it in the first place.
(I hope I have understood this argument well)
The fact that SC is not chess doens't mean that there are not relevant similarities. Both have imbalanced match-ups (white v black in chess), require lots of skill, are very mature strategy wise, but still we havent still se their skill cap in any human yet. So the comparison is perfectly valid.
And yes, chess is balanced in nearly all aspects, but on the one it isn't the unbalance makes a substantial difference. White has about 55% of points taken in competition, even higher in world championship matches (from wikipedia: Of 755 games played in 34 matches between 1886 and 1990, White won 234 (31.0%), drew 397 (52.6%), and lost 124 (16.4%), for a total white winning percentage of 57.3%). So its about the same difference as ZvP or TvZ. Still there's a raging debate about the extent of whie's advantage, even with some (Adorjan) saying that it doesnt exist at all.
Even with many centuries of practice there's nothing resembling a consensus on this matter. The fact is that any cutoff point for skill will be arbitrary, because it do not spike in one sudden leap, but evolves over time.
PS. I have been playing and following tournament chess for the past 20 years or so, and have a 2040 fide rating.
I agree that there are relevant similarities, I don't think I ever denied that. His comparison was just terrible and makes little sense. Interesting albeit irrelevant chess trivia aside, it's just not the same and the white-black advantage is not comparable to the racial (im)balance of starcraft since it has completely different reasons/origins.
So I repeat, the comparison was bad and he should feel bad.
On January 11 2019 06:31 Sr18 wrote:
It's not about a direct comparison between starcraft and chess, but about comparing a young sport like starcraft with an older one. If you don't like the comparison with chess, pick any other old sport. Any other, it doesn't matter which one because it's not about the sport itself but about the influence it's age has had on it's level of mastery. It seems to me, that the longer we as people try to get good at a sport, the better we become at it. Think of it this way: if starcraft would have a continuous professional scene for a 100 years, do you think the level of play after that 100 years would be higher than it is now? I think it would. And that begs the question, at what level should the game be balanced? The current highest level, the highest level attainable by humans, something else?
The problem is that the entire premise is faulty, any balance act in a game or sport with equal sides will affect both "races." And while starting first in chess does make a difference as having the initiative tends to do, pretty much every other change would affect both sides (near) equally. That just isn't the case in Broodwar. You can lower the energy regeneration of medics by 25% and it will not affect the match ups without Terrans in any way at all, it also won't make Protoss or Zerg weaker but will strictly affect Terran. There's a reason why Chess rules have been relatively stable with just minor changes and additions over the centuries: Because at least at the first glance it seems perfectly fair. Broodwar doesn't, because Broodwar isn't. It's a game built around huge differences between the races, which is part of the reason why it's so incredibly popular, but that also means that it has the potential to become incredibly skewed towards one race. Honestly, the question we should ask ourselves isn't whether Terran or any other race is so strong, but why we are so lucky that it isn't worse, because several times in Broodwar's evolution there was a ton of potential for one race to be objectively way superior but the other races always caught up, making a balance patch not (blatantly) necessary. Broodwar was made by nerds in the 90s, it's not a work of God, so it's an incredible miracle that it stayed as balanced as it is now 20 years later despite active balancing having long ceased.
Edit for clarity: The game's inherently imbalanced, will never be balanced and seeing the pros try is fun, but it cannot be compared to chess since it can both be changed in a much easier fashion and you can actually directly weaken one side without directly affecting the other side in any way; Broodwar is also not equal in nearly any way, meaning that acts of balancing aren't just possible but also inherently necessary. Make no mistake, the game we have right now is not balanced, it's just close enough that people can agree to let it slide and certain things, like the extremely narrow techtree for zerg in the midgame or the lack of a real meaty lategame unit for Toss aside from the nowadays nearly never really seen and always situational carrier in comparison to the Zerg's Ultralisks/Guardians or the Siege Tank/Battlecruiser of the Terrans has always been a problem. Those things just don't seem like problems because we aren't used to thinking of them that way, we aren't used to questioning why protoss plays with zealots and dragoons for pretty much the entirety of the match even though neither (especially the dragoons) get incredibly strong due to upgrades like the zerglings later. We don't question these things because they've always been like that and they seem "balanced" despite being obvious weaknesses and Toss being the objectively weakest race judging from pro play alone, even if they are the easiest to play for a beginner. But we really should.
My posts were not about balance, but about levels of mastery. My hypothesis is that (i) the human race is better at chess than it is at starcraft and (ii) that if we ever get as good at starcraft as we are at chess now, things we percieve to be imbalanced now might be considered balanced then (and vice versa). Whether or not starcraft is inherently more imbalanced than chess, which your last post was about (that made total sense by the way), has no bearing on any of this.
The question of human mastery is only relevant in so far as how much we should ignore in regards to balancing because it will either work itself out or doesn't actually need balancing due to individual prowess. But neither is the case here, we've had 20 years of Starcraft with pretty obvious results and I suggest anybody who wants to ignore Flash should ignore Bisu and see what happens to the stats. Those are points I've mentioned before already, points which I feel make the comparison senseless. If you need a more practical one: We simply don't have the time to wait for centuries when it comes to Starcraft, I don't think we'll get to enjoy centuries of SC:BW, man.
Silent, I will disagree once again. At least I understood that the comparison was centered in between the rising skill level of players over time, which IS relevant in both BW and chess (and you responded about simmetry). And even though chess armies are symmetrical, there are changes that could reduce the imbalance while reducing white's power, and increasing black's one, namely "fair first move": "after player 1 makes the first move with the white pieces, player 2 has the option of either moving normally or choosing to switch colors (and then the game proceeds normally, with player 1 moving again and playing the black pieces for the rest of the game)".
Of course when both games are dissimilar certain comparisons should have little value, but it was not the case here, the comparison between skill level over time is similar, and relevant to the topic of arbitrary cutoffs from where to analyse the game balance by (also) using percentages of winning (for W/B or P/T/Z) in both games.
I also hope I will not offend you to say that you were responding to a strawman, and should feel bad.
Edit: And Armaggedon rules also tries to balance W/B while not affecting bot sides equally.
I responded about symmetry because there are clear disadvantages you simply cannot make up for in an asymmetrical game. The only unequal thing in Chess is the fact that white starts first, which has a pretty big impact on the game. Meanwhile Broodwar has a ton of unequal things about it, so of course it'll have a huge impact. I reponded about symmetry because it is directly related to the skill level as it can counterbalance that fact and CANNOT simply be discounted in a game which is not symmetrical.
And don't worry about the strawman, people build their argument while arguing it unless they're just repeating talking points from earlier conversations so responding to points both real and imagined can have value, though I think you just don't see the connection here that I do.
EDIT: Cut some unnecessarily quoted text.
PS: Armageddon rules don't change the internal rules of chess in any way, they generally give one player a bit more time and say that a draw is enough to win for one side, they have absolutely no effect on the actual mechanics and just change the environment of decision making for the players and the win-condition. It's like saying Protoss only needs to survive for 30 minutes to win and the Terran player gets a dead fish thrown at his face every 5 minutes. Sure it helps, but it doesn't change the actual balance inside of the game in any way, which makes it irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
EDIT2: I think the crux of my argument (rather philosophical side-discussions aside) is basically: No amount of waiting will change the inherent flaws and drawbacks of the Protoss race, waiting 100 years will not give Protoss a viable beefy ground unit to build a lategame army around, so you'll never not need several midgame armies in waves to beat Terran armies in the late game. It's a restriction set by the very game you cannot overcome with skill because the necessary tools don't exist in the game.
I know hitchhiker was considered t >> z at the time of saviors osl run. Might of ended up more balanced, or just happened to be statistically balanced despite an underlying imbalance, i dont know. I just remember at the time it was viewed as a slight t map.
The landscape of AfreecaTV has warped the distribution of the match-ups, and I think the overwhelming number of matches where the zerg player gets stomped (with Flash being one of the main culprits for the phenomenon) has shaped the current perception of the terran race to an unhealthy degree.
On January 11 2019 01:37 Alpha-NP- wrote: What’s a map that is good for Z in ZvT? Blue Storm?
I can't think of any imbalanced map in favour of Z in ZvT, but there are plenty of maps at 50% (Not CB or FS).
Here's some I can remember:
Ride of the Valkyries (48% TvZ)
Electric Circuit (not Neo) Dante's Peak Triathlon Battle Royale Flight Dreamliner Holy World Holy World SE
Although none of these had the biggest sample size.
Also see more recently Crossing Field Sparkle
I think one of the major components of making a map zerg favoured in ZvT is make it near impossible to leave your base. One thing Dante's Peak, Battle Royale, Flight Dreamliner, Holy World and Holy World SE feature is the aspect of having a huge amount of airspace around the mains where mutas can fly in at a lot of different angles while also having a relatively long rush distance by ground (especially on Flight Dreamliner).
Holy World and Holy World SE's main component alongside the above is the huge amount of open ground in the middle makes it very hard for Terran to go anywhere without either being countered or majorly surrounded.
Off topic but you prompted me to go back and review some OSL seasons. Reading through "2006 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 3" really solidifies why Savior is one of the most incredible Starcraft players. How did he even win this tournament with the map pool?!? 2006 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 3
Longinus " The fact that it still has somewhat passable statistics in ZvT has largely been attributed to sAviOr; without him the map stands at a grim 11-27 ZvT (29%). "
Arkanoid "NaDa dominated Arkanoid during the 2006 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 2, 2006-2007 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 3, and 2007 Shinhan Bank OnGameNet Masters, reflected by his 15-2 record on both map versions combined" *Note Nada lost to Savior in the finals with this map in the pool
Reverse Temple "Zerg had a hard time against Terran on this map; aside from sAviOr, who went 6-1 on it, the TvZ statistics for this map are 14-3 in favor of Terran. "
That's interesting. Savior is such an outlier, the only non-T player to really dominate the scene (bonjwa) and apparently he even did it on maps that were rigged against Zerg.
The funny thing is, it doesn't seem like Savior had particularly great mechanics, at least not by pro standards. I know he was the first one to really perfect the 3-hatch macro Zerg style of play, but I'm surprised that it took so long for opponents to cope or for other zerg players to copy it. It almost seems like he rode to fame on the back of this one crazy build order and micro trick.
Also to go back to the idea that Tesagi is caused by the leaders... it really sucks for Zerg players that, after years of being beaten down by boxer-oov-nada, they finally get a real champion and it turns out he's a selfish piece of shit, lol. Somehow I doubt Savior was doing much mentoring or sharing his strategies.
Oh, and for toss players, they finally get a player who can win reliably at PvZ- Bisu- and... for some reason no one else can copy him. It's just weird. I've never understood why seemingly no one else can do what Bisu does. Not like he's a flash in the pan either, he's been winning at PvZ for a long time now. He might be the biggest outlier of them all.
EPT
2006 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 3
