On April 17 2021 03:27 Bonyth wrote: and what's the overall race distribution data? without it, how can we compare to what we see here
check the site.. 42.57% P on ladder overall if u want to know
and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
lets be real when it comes to competitive games in general people tend to choose the fastest easiest way to succeed its human behavior choosing the path of least resistance
starcraft is absolutely no different ladder is 43% protoss because it is the easy race to play and climb the ladder with & get some succes in relatively shorter term than picking z or t on ladder.
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
the least percentage of people playing protoss become S rank. It should be normal if 43% player base --> 43% S rank, but if 43% player base protoss --> only 40% S rank protosses, then it's only clear that it's harder to get S rank as protoss. Statistically speaking, obviously.
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
the least percentage of people playing protoss become S rank. It should be normal if 43% player base --> 43% S rank, but if 43% player base protoss --> only 40% S rank protosses, then it's only clear that it's harder to get S rank as protoss. Statistically speaking, obviously.
these statistics show that you have the least chance of getting S rank as protoss if u pick protoss the other races are over populated in S obviously
On April 17 2021 04:03 onlystar wrote: lets be real when it comes to competitive games in general people tend to choose the fastest easiest way to succeed its human behavior choosing the path of least resistance
starcraft is absolutely no different ladder is 43% protoss because it is the easy race to play and climb the ladder with & get some succes in relatively shorter term than picking z or t on ladder.
On April 17 2021 04:03 onlystar wrote: lets be real when it comes to competitive games in general people tend to choose the fastest easiest way to succeed its human behavior choosing the path of least resistance
starcraft is absolutely no different ladder is 43% protoss because it is the easy race to play and climb the ladder with & get some succes in relatively shorter term than picking z or t on ladder.
spotted the real braindead person in here.
chuckles yeah right everybody plays protoss on ladder because its the hardest race...
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
balance is only relevant at the highest level because they're the ones who actually play the game properly, everyone else is just looking to blame something other than themselves
you'd feel better about yourself if you played a moba ^^
genuinely surprised that Terran outnumbers Zerg. it's relatively small and probably skewed by relatively inactive F rank accounts, but in any case surprising
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
On April 17 2021 04:36 TT1 wrote: balance is only relevant at the highest level because they're the ones who actually play the game properly, everyone else is just looking to blame something other than themselves
you'd feel better about yourself if you played a moba ^^
It's not so much pure game or unit balance I think it's also that Protoss is a easier race to play in terms of mechanics and micro which gives Protoss a slight advantage over a comparable Zerg or Terran player that has the same skill and that affects players in all levels.
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
One of the worst possible analogies because Chinese parents DO favor boys over girls LOL, is this a Chinese shill account??
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
One of the worst possible analogies because Chinese parents DO favor boys over girls LOL, is this a Chinese shill account??
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
One of the worst possible analogies because Chinese parents DO favor boys over girls LOL, is this a Chinese shill account??
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
One of the worst possible analogies because Chinese parents DO favor boys over girls LOL, is this a Chinese shill account??
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
This analogy is so bad, it borders on harmful misinformation/propaganda.
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
One of the worst possible analogies because Chinese parents DO favor boys over girls LOL, is this a Chinese shill account??
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
One of the worst possible analogies because Chinese parents DO favor boys over girls LOL, is this a Chinese shill account??
Well these are well known facts at this point. Protoss is the easiest race until the very highest end of the skill range, at which point it becomes almost impossible for Protoss to dominate (number of Protoss championships / Bonjwas vs. Terran-Zerg). (Low) S Protoss is still easier than S Terran or Zerg, hence the distribution we see, but of course increasingly harder than A Protoss (hence the decrease in overall share), and high S Protoss is almost impossibly difficult.
It's also the least APM intensive, which is also a nice added bonus (how many injured T/Z players, and how many injured P players?). Overall, all races are insanely hard to play and the difference is small, but still definitely significant in such a razor-cut game.
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
One of the worst possible analogies because Chinese parents DO favor boys over girls LOL, is this a Chinese shill account??
Read my sentence again and find in which part I say they do not, alright Mr Big Brain?
He's right. Reread your own post lol.
If I say "I play BSL because I like BW, not because the top prize is 2000$", does that mean the prize is not 2000$?
Can't believe I'm having this conversation. Hope this is just a language misunderstanding.
Yet another horrible analogy because the $2000 is not tied into you liking BW whatsoever, whereas the reason why there are so many men in China IS to some extent due to the preference of male babies over female ones. So, while the logic structure you are referring to is correct, it's also false in the first case - which makes the analogy horrible on its own - and reeks of revisionism because the implication is that the number of men is not in any way associated with the well-known phenomena of male preference. Just a total train wreck. Stick to writing your words plainly, you can't handle much else.
On April 17 2021 20:39 fazek42 wrote: Well these are well known facts at this point. Protoss is the easiest race until the very highest end of the skill range, at which point it becomes almost impossible for Protoss to dominate (number of Protoss championships / Bonjwas vs. Terran-Zerg). (Low) S Protoss is still easier than S Terran or Zerg, hence the distribution we see, but of course increasingly harder than A Protoss (hence the decrease in overall share), and high S Protoss is almost impossibly difficult.
It's also the least APM intensive, which is also a nice added bonus (how many injured T/Z players, and how many injured P players?). Overall, all races are insanely hard to play and the difference is small, but still definitely significant in such a razor-cut game.
Please show me the “facts“ about protoss being easy on lower levels, i never saw any empirical evidence for it.
On the contrary, the facts for p unterrepresentation at higher ranks are well explored and can be documented. Im inclined to call your first sentiment racial bias :p
On April 17 2021 03:55 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: [quote] Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
One of the worst possible analogies because Chinese parents DO favor boys over girls LOL, is this a Chinese shill account??
Read my sentence again and find in which part I say they do not, alright Mr Big Brain?
He's right. Reread your own post lol.
If I say "I play BSL because I like BW, not because the top prize is 2000$", does that mean the prize is not 2000$?
Can't believe I'm having this conversation. Hope this is just a language misunderstanding.
Yet another horrible analogy because the $2000 is not tied into you liking BW whatsoever, whereas the reason why there are so many men in China IS to some extent due to the preference of male babies over female ones. So, while the logic structure you are referring to is correct, it's also false in the first case - which makes the analogy horrible on its own - and reeks of revisionism because the implication is that the number of men is not in any way associated with the well-known phenomena of male preference. Just a total train wreck. Stick to writing your words plainly, you can't handle much else.
Wtf are you on about? The analogy was never about why there are more men than women in China, it's about there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 mil US men because their population is much higher (and that's just some arbitrary numbers for example, pls dont interpret it as facts). The male preference - which I never denied - has an influence on China demographic itself, but it has nothing to do with Chinese having 850 mil more men than the US. Any implications are inside your convoluted mind.
Even the part where you initially disagree with, is because you can't read a sentence properly.
This board is full of sensitive people isn't it. First the topic about USSR (which I can partly understand), and now this shit. Just an arbitrary example and there are people jumping on you calling this is a shill account (what does that even mean anyway?)
Anyway I'm in no way interested in this conversation anymore so let's call it a day here and get back to the main topic.
On April 17 2021 04:36 TT1 wrote: balance is only relevant at the highest level because they're the ones who actually play the game properly, everyone else is just looking to blame something other than themselves
you'd feel better about yourself if you played a moba ^^
While I never used the balance issues to excuse for my failure in being a decent player (best rank D+ on iccup) I still felt the balance was tilted. Back then I had 50% in PvT and about 10% win rate in PvZ while studying and practicing PvZ a lot more than PvT. And the overall level of Ts and Z's I encountered was about the same. PvZ is just harder at all levels I would guess.
On April 17 2021 04:36 TT1 wrote: balance is only relevant at the highest level because they're the ones who actually play the game properly, everyone else is just looking to blame something other than themselves
you'd feel better about yourself if you played a moba ^^
While I never used the balance issues to excuse for my failure in being a decent player (best rank D+ on iccup) I still felt the balance was tilted. Back then I had 50% in PvT and about 10% win rate in PvZ while studying and practicing PvZ a lot more than PvT. And the overall level of Ts and Z's I encountered was about the same. PvZ is just harder at all levels I would guess.
Interesting. zvp is the matchup I studied the most. Practised the most. I even stoped at some point playing vs other races. my zvp is still trash.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
One of the worst possible analogies because Chinese parents DO favor boys over girls LOL, is this a Chinese shill account??
Read my sentence again and find in which part I say they do not, alright Mr Big Brain?
He's right. Reread your own post lol.
If I say "I play BSL because I like BW, not because the top prize is 2000$", does that mean the prize is not 2000$?
Can't believe I'm having this conversation. Hope this is just a language misunderstanding.
Yet another horrible analogy because the $2000 is not tied into you liking BW whatsoever, whereas the reason why there are so many men in China IS to some extent due to the preference of male babies over female ones. So, while the logic structure you are referring to is correct, it's also false in the first case - which makes the analogy horrible on its own - and reeks of revisionism because the implication is that the number of men is not in any way associated with the well-known phenomena of male preference. Just a total train wreck. Stick to writing your words plainly, you can't handle much else.
Wtf are you on about? The analogy was never about why there are more men than women in China, it's about there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 mil US men because their population is much higher (and that's just some arbitrary numbers for example, pls dont interpret it as facts). The male preference - which I never denied - has an influence on China demographic itself, but it has nothing to do with Chinese having 850 mil more men than the US. Any implications are inside your convoluted mind.
Even the part where you initially disagree with, is because you can't read a sentence properly.
This board is full of sensitive people isn't it. First the topic about USSR (which I can partly understand), and now this shit. Just an arbitrary example and there are people jumping on you calling this is a shill account (what does that even mean anyway?)
Anyway I'm in no way interested in this conversation anymore so let's call it a day here and get back to the main topic.
If parents in China are aborting female fetuses in favor of keeping male fetuses on the next pregnancy, that contributes to there being more men in China, and thus more men than there are in America. Saying it's because of X and NOT Y is implying that Y DOESN'T contribute, which is FALSE and moronic to boot. Is the size of the population a bigger factor? Yes. Is it the only factor? No. Is it disingenuous to imply that the problematic factor isn't a factor at all? Yes.
On April 17 2021 03:34 onlystar wrote: and besides you can judge the S rank statistics by itself dont need to include the rest of the ladder perse it gives you what it is S rank race distribution in S.
Well if 42-43% of the whole ladder is playing P then P is actually underrepresented at the top rank. 2% doesn't seem that significant of an amount in any case so the results are in line with what you would expect.
keep in mind we are speaking about the top 1% here so just having a bigger player base of protoss users doesnt make a big factor here its remarkable that of those 1% there is an abundance of protoss players
What does this even mean
If half the population plays a race and we assume perfect balance across all races, then we would expect half the population will be that race at the top level.
okay except no game is perfectly balanced
Yep and that's why there's 43% Protoss players overall but only 41% Protoss in S rank. If it were perfect you'd see exactly 43% Protoss in S rank.
Protoss has ~10% more players than the other races in S because overall they have ~10% more players than the other races, not because of maps or whatever.
It's like there are 1 billion Chinese men compared to 150 million US men. It's because the Chinese population is freaking 2 billions, not because Chinese parents favor boys over girls more than US parents. What's hard to understand?
Great analogy. While it's true that chinese parents favour boys over girls, this have a minimal impact in why there are so more chinese men than american men.
Edit: of course Jealous is right, but TMNT's point is still valid in my view.
On April 18 2021 02:50 plast1c wrote: Maybe beginners tend to play toss, thus the race contains more low-skilled players and therefore is expected to be underrepresented in S rank 🔥
Maybe most beginners play terran and since we know that beginners need somebody to blame, it became popular to blame toss 🔥🔥
On April 18 2021 02:50 plast1c wrote: Maybe beginners tend to play toss, thus the race contains more low-skilled players and therefore is expected to be underrepresented in S rank 🔥
Maybe most beginners play terran and since we know that beginners need somebody to blame, it became popular to blame toss 🔥🔥
I mean toss is just objectively easier to play at lower levels. All the mechanical constraints of BW, like limited unit selection, and how easy it is to macro out of gates, building every building off of one probe, canons etc. Nothing imbalanced, yet for newcomers those things make protoss really friendly to play.
It's like there are 40.62% Protoss winrate compared to 30.46% Terran in S rank. It's because the Protoss population is freaking 42.57%, not because Siege Tanks have a high range. What's hard to understand?
Anybody would come to the conclusion that the intention would be to try to persuade people that Siege tanks do not have a high range.
On April 17 2021 04:36 TT1 wrote: balance is only relevant at the highest level because they're the ones who actually play the game properly, everyone else is just looking to blame something other than themselves
you'd feel better about yourself if you played a moba ^^
While I never used the balance issues to excuse for my failure in being a decent player (best rank D+ on iccup) I still felt the balance was tilted. Back then I had 50% in PvT and about 10% win rate in PvZ while studying and practicing PvZ a lot more than PvT. And the overall level of Ts and Z's I encountered was about the same. PvZ is just harder at all levels I would guess.
Interesting. zvp is the matchup I studied the most. Practised the most. I even stoped at some point playing vs other races. my zvp is still trash.
Interesting indeed. If you meant that my personal experience is not any proof of the imbalances in the game I agree 100%. We need much more evidence than that to prove something. However on your liquipedia profile it says you have an career 68% win rate in ZvP, 64% in ZvZ and 61% in ZvT. That's hardly comparable to my 40% spread between my 50% PvT and 10% PvZ.
But my main point anyways is that differences between races does affect the chances in any matchups, at any levels.
How can this even be measured?...Most people tend to play every race at least once on one account ... Than most ladder people tend to play with different ids depending on practise, strategy,race... Than there is mmr inflation depending on time, when you play, aswell as which gateway you play in combination with vPn, luck and connection problems ... Skill wise even latencyT laggs matters,specially in connection with leavers that dont want to play with certain lagg or certain matchups... And than there are hackers who also influence the whole matter ... How can you even decide which race they play? Specially when one selection isnt even displayed ... Random ... Even if this statistic displays the most played race of certain IDS, if the player is Random, it would be quite random.
I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
explain, chances are for every gameplay problem you present there are more than one solutions to them.
I've been coding in my spare time for the past few months and it's actually absurd how shitty Java is. Like the whole structure is just trash. And people complain about C++, shit isn't even comparable lol. I'm an expert now btw, and my name is TentativeDumbass.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
Would be fun to see, since historically speaking ZvP was always the most 'imbalanced' mu by quite a margin (favouring Z), followed by PvT (favouring P) and TvZ (favouring T).
I wonder how that has changed (if at all) in the new/amateur era of BW.
Would be fun to see, since historically speaking ZvP was always the most 'imbalanced' mu by quite a margin (favouring Z), followed by PvT (favouring P) and TvZ (favouring T).
I wonder how that has changed (if at all) in the new/amateur era of BW.
On April 20 2021 21:43 Avi-Love wrote: We have something way better, it's called Sponbbang.
The slight problem with sponbbang games is that some match-ups are selected specifically because they want to see XvY specialist play a series - for example, setting up Bisu in PvZ against someone. They are also more top-heavy as a result, aren't they? So the data may be somewhat skewed, but it would be hard to tell by how much... I feel like SSL/KSL/ASL stats may be a better metric?
In my opinion, the sample size for ASL/KSL would be way too small to be statistically significant, they also rotate maps every season which doesn't help. Since people don't want to watch/play mirrors, I actually don't think it's that big of an issue -- sure Bisu probably plays more pvz than pvt, but it's not like his win rate against the best zergs in the world is good enough to skew the perceived balance of PvZ; especially seeing that people will also then be more likely to sponsor the best zvp players in the world to play the mu, presumably also meeting the same % of worse players that Bisu would in the first scenario, theoretically.
One issue I could see is that the number of spongames played by a given player is heavily influenced by their popularity, which is not always directly correlated to their skill. An example would be that LighT has played 652 spon games this year, while Larva has played 1172 and Rush has played 1234.
I do think that sponbbang is by far the best metric we have, since it's a large sample of the very top Koreans playing for prize money, even doing so in different formats; the proleague format is quite popular nowadays, which allows players to kill all and such. A year ago it was almost exclusively bo3/bo5 between two players, as far as I know.
On April 20 2021 14:44 Jealous wrote: I've been coding in my spare time for the past few months and it's actually absurd how shitty Java is. Like the whole structure is just trash. And people complain about C++, shit isn't even comparable lol. I'm an expert now btw, and my name is TentativeDumbass.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
On April 20 2021 14:44 Jealous wrote: I've been coding in my spare time for the past few months and it's actually absurd how shitty Java is. Like the whole structure is just trash. And people complain about C++, shit isn't even comparable lol. I'm an expert now btw, and my name is TentativeDumbass.
High effort, low quality response
Respond to my post first, instead of the insults hurled at you.
You won't get a balance patch but at least you won't get stuck in a position where you end up making statements that warrant such responses as the ones you got.
On April 20 2021 21:43 Avi-Love wrote: We have something way better, it's called Sponbbang.
So, in other words, not much has changed, except the gap in TvZ widening slightly (I'll blindly blame Flash playing a bunch of these showmatches for that).
On April 20 2021 21:43 Avi-Love wrote: We have something way better, it's called Sponbbang.
So, in other words, not much has changed.
Please help me see how this is the conclusion you arrived at.
The numbers are fairly similar to what I recall seeing at the end of professional BW. I guess protoss actually fares slightly worse nowadays, too (seeing as the mu is very slightly T favoured now).
In fact, I found something on TL.net while looking for the exact numbers (not sure how accurate that is):
On March 21 2016 02:00 StarN wrote: Hey guys I'm working on a presentation and I wasn't able to figure out how to get TLPD to show me OSL win-loss records for TvP PvZ and ZvT
That is, is there a (mostly) completed win-loss statistic for every OSL game played (in Brood War)?
Alas, didn't separate based on the league itself (OSL, MSL, etc,), but cumulatively for the Korean leagues --
For individual standard leagues (non-show matches): v 1254-1042 or 54.6% v 1192-1139 or 51.1% v 1871-1597 or 54.0%
For team standard leagues (non-show matches) v 709-644 or 52.4% v 742-702 or 51.4% v 800-684 or 53.9%
Do note these are all-time stats and don't reflect the state of the game at a given point.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
This post is so ironic lmao. Let me start with, yes in a game that is about how few errors you can make, how easy a race is is literally what balance is.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
This post is so ironic lmao. Let me start with, yes in a game that is about how few errors you can make, how easy a race is is literally what balance is.
If that makes the race better, then why isn't that race winning the most? It is in fact winning the least (but not by much)
Or do we have a badass over here who claims that Terran is the easiest race for a beginner to start getting some wins with?
On April 20 2021 21:43 Avi-Love wrote: We have something way better, it's called Sponbbang.
So, in other words, not much has changed.
Please help me see how this is the conclusion you arrived at.
The numbers are fairly similar to what I recall seeing at the end of professional BW. In fact, I found something on TL.net while looking for the exact numbers (not sure how accurate that is):
On March 21 2016 02:00 StarN wrote: Hey guys I'm working on a presentation and I wasn't able to figure out how to get TLPD to show me OSL win-loss records for TvP PvZ and ZvT
That is, is there a (mostly) completed win-loss statistic for every OSL game played (in Brood War)?
Alas, didn't separate based on the league itself (OSL, MSL, etc,), but cumulatively for the Korean leagues --
For individual standard leagues (non-show matches): v 1254-1042 or 54.6% v 1192-1139 or 51.1% v 1871-1597 or 54.0%
For team standard leagues (non-show matches) v 709-644 or 52.4% v 742-702 or 51.4% v 800-684 or 53.9%
Fairly similar in what universe based on what kind of mathematics? Terran is winning in TvP at ~55% percent now.
The eye test (especially the last 1-2 years) is very much in line with the sponbbang statistics posted by Avi. Protoss is significantly the weakest race right now. Rain leaving the game definitely played a role but there are leavers from the other races as well: SK absent for a while, JD always had decent sponbbang stats, Last, Mind for Terran etc..
So overall I would say the latest revisions of the meta have generally distanced Terran and Zerg from Protoss and by the looks of it this trend will continue since the latest map-pool of ASL is very anti-Protoss again.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
This post is so ironic lmao. Let me start with, yes in a game that is about how few errors you can make, how easy a race is is literally what balance is.
If that makes the race better, then why isn't that race winning the most? It is in fact winning the least (but not by much)
Or do we have a badass over here who claims that Terran is the easiest race for a beginner to start getting some wins with?
I’m talking sub pro level, something often ignored, but very important to the scenes/games health.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
This post is so ironic lmao. Let me start with, yes in a game that is about how few errors you can make, how easy a race is is literally what balance is.
If that makes the race better, then why isn't that race winning the most? It is in fact winning the least (but not by much)
Or do we have a badass over here who claims that Terran is the easiest race for a beginner to start getting some wins with?
I’m talking sub pro level, something often ignored, but very important to the scenes/games health.
I'm sub pro level and Protoss isn't OP at my level. When I played Zerg I smashed Protoss left and right, and when I switched to Protoss I didn't get any better than I had been with Zerg. My PvP was about equal to my ZvP.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
This post is so ironic lmao. Let me start with, yes in a game that is about how few errors you can make, how easy a race is is literally what balance is.
If that makes the race better, then why isn't that race winning the most? It is in fact winning the least (but not by much)
Or do we have a badass over here who claims that Terran is the easiest race for a beginner to start getting some wins with?
I’m talking sub pro level, something often ignored, but very important to the scenes/games health.
I'm sub pro level and Protoss isn't OP at my level. When I played Zerg I smashed Protoss left and right, and when I switched to Protoss I didn't get any better than I had been with Zerg. My PvP was about equal to my ZvP.
In fact just about any sub pro who plays enough ladder games will be at a point where they win about 50% of their games regardless of what race they play, strange how that works.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
This post is so ironic lmao. Let me start with, yes in a game that is about how few errors you can make, how easy a race is is literally what balance is.
If that makes the race better, then why isn't that race winning the most? It is in fact winning the least (but not by much)
Or do we have a badass over here who claims that Terran is the easiest race for a beginner to start getting some wins with?
I’m talking sub pro level, something often ignored, but very important to the scenes/games health.
I'm sub pro level and Protoss isn't OP at my level. When I played Zerg I smashed Protoss left and right, and when I switched to Protoss I didn't get any better than I had been with Zerg. My PvP was about equal to my ZvP.
In fact just about any sub pro who plays enough ladder games will be at a point where they win about 50% of their games regardless of what race they play, strange how that works.
Every one who isn't among the very best or the very worst will reach a 50% win rate eventually. But, this is the case even in an imbalanced game. In an imbalanced game, even though every one has 50% wins, the superior race will let players plateau at a higher ladder rating compared to their skill level, and where they would plateau with a different race. Of course people have affinities for different races, too, which complicates the matter of measuring this.
Anyway, Protoss is stronger at a low enough skill level. I agree. I saw this and picked Protoss when I started because StarCraft was a scary game compared to Command & Conquer. This skill level ends much sooner than TentativePanda thinks, however. I remember how it was to start out, and to progress to where I am now, and I remember when Protoss stopped being stronger (I've mained every race). There is also, in my experience, a level at which Zerg is the strongest, which comes after the level at which Protoss is the strongest, but maybe that was just me having an affinity for Zerg. I think that people should play what they think is the strongest, and what they believe in. If every one were to do this, then every race would still be represented, and we'd have a lot more fun and a lot less complaining. I actually used to think that Protoss was the strongest, and then I changed my mind to thinking that Zerg was the strongest (for me at my skill level).
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
This post is so ironic lmao. Let me start with, yes in a game that is about how few errors you can make, how easy a race is is literally what balance is.
If that makes the race better, then why isn't that race winning the most? It is in fact winning the least (but not by much)
Or do we have a badass over here who claims that Terran is the easiest race for a beginner to start getting some wins with?
I’m talking sub pro level, something often ignored, but very important to the scenes/games health.
Non Koreans are sub pro level, but during the SOSPA era, Zerg dominated the non Korean tournaments. Sziky was the best player, followed by Eonzerg and Trutacz. It wasn't Zerg imbalance when Zerg won tournaments then any more than it is Protoss imbalance when Protoss wins tournaments now.
Bonyth and Dewalt played, but just weren't as good as those Zergs. Now, Bonyth and Dewalt are the best. The races didn't change; the players did.
Usually Flash plays a significant role in the sponbbang stats, but the truth is that he hasn't actually played much this year; it's quite clear that his injuries and impending military service played a big part in it. For anyone interested, this is the current top 20 based on statistics from 2021 (Jan-April). Note: The zerg ranked 4th is Soma, the terran ranked 12th is sOrry(Royal) and the zerg ranked 15 is Action.
As a bonus here are the 3 most popular maps in that time period
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
This post is so ironic lmao. Let me start with, yes in a game that is about how few errors you can make, how easy a race is is literally what balance is.
That is just not true.
What if playing the harder race good/good enough gives you an advantage vs the easier race?
We always talk about balance from a pure game theory point of view not considering how hard a race is to play. This could be a different discussion but generally speaking whenever we talk balance we simply talk about
how do certain match ups present themselves in terms of win% and thus we deduce wether a map or mappool is fair (45-55% in every match up is deemed fair)
So balance discussion do or at least SHOULD NOT exist without maps.
If you want to discuss what different levels of difficulty do to the game and match ups we can do that BUT that is not what we do when we talk about BALANCE in SC BW.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
To be fair, they are related though.
Race balance judging only by the nature of the race itself is an unrealistic concept, because the true power of a race can only be utilized by an AI controlling every single unit at once, i.e. it has 10000 apm or something.
When controlled by human, the power of the race is restricted by how much the two human hands can handle. So practically, how hard a race is to play does affect the balance.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
To be fair, they are related though.
Race balance judging only by the nature of the race itself is an unrealistic concept, because the true power of a race can only be utilized by an AI controlling every single unit at once, i.e. it has 10000 apm or something.
When controlled by human, the power of the race is restricted by how much the two human hands can handle. So practically, how hard a race is to play does affect the balance.
... And at the top level of human skill, the match-ups are fairly balanced, which is what people have been saying... Meaning that any perceived imbalances by scrubs can be overcome just by learning how to play better instead of spreading their misinformed opinions...
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
To be fair, they are related though.
Race balance judging only by the nature of the race itself is an unrealistic concept, because the true power of a race can only be utilized by an AI controlling every single unit at once, i.e. it has 10000 apm or something.
When controlled by human, the power of the race is restricted by how much the two human hands can handle. So practically, how hard a race is to play does affect the balance.
... And at the top level of human skill, the match-ups are fairly balanced, which is what people have been saying... Meaning that any perceived imbalances by scrubs can be overcome just by learning how to play better instead of spreading their misinformed opinions...
Well, we have one the most influential people in foreign BW spreading it on a daily basis on his stream, so...
Its same story over and over. Terran is probably the hardest race to master, but as you go to pro levels it shows to be the strongest. Problem is that where 99% of terrans are it is P>T and T=>Z, with like 60% PvT winrate at lower levels.
On April 21 2021 18:05 kogeT wrote: Its same story over and over. Terran is probably the hardest race to master, but as you go to pro levels it shows to be the strongest. Problem is that where 99% of terrans are it is P>T and T=>Z, with like 60% PvT winrate at lower levels.
The hardest race to master is Zerg, and no human will ever master it because of obvious mechanical limitations.
Turtle + late game Zerg army with near perfect army control = unbeatable. However no one will achieve that so that "imbalance" doesn't matter in the end.
As for your other point, there are dozens of Korean Terrans that are better than the top foreigner protosses so I wouldn't just say that it's only at Pro level that Terran is obviously stronger. I think we can go even one tier below that.
And it's not just mechanics/execution, there is a gap in meta-game knowledge as well.
On April 20 2021 13:04 TentativePanda wrote: I've been playing brood war for a few months now and it's actually absurd how unbalanced the game is. Like one race is explicitly easy to play. And people complain about balance in sc2 , shit isn't even comparable lol. Brood War needs a balance patch to thrive
User was warned for this post
a race being harder to play than the other -/- racial balance
just THINK about what u are saying:
you are talking about "how hard a race is to play/master" and not how balanced the races are. Different things
some people really lack common sense and logic ;(
To be fair, they are related though.
Race balance judging only by the nature of the race itself is an unrealistic concept, because the true power of a race can only be utilized by an AI controlling every single unit at once, i.e. it has 10000 apm or something.
When controlled by human, the power of the race is restricted by how much the two human hands can handle. So practically, how hard a race is to play does affect the balance.
... And at the top level of human skill, the match-ups are fairly balanced, which is what people have been saying... Meaning that any perceived imbalances by scrubs can be overcome just by learning how to play better instead of spreading their misinformed opinions...
Well, we have one the most influential people in foreign BW spreading it on a daily basis on his stream, so...
Yes, but he also believes that accounts can be cursed and that he's constantly unlucky, so...
As for your other point, there are dozens of Korean Terrans that are better than the top foreigner protosses so I wouldn't just say that it's only at Pro level that Terran is obviously stronger. I think we can go even one tier below that.
That means the players are better. Why do you think this proves any thing about a race? There are dozens of Korean protosses who are better than the best foreign protosses. There are better Koreans of every race than the best non Koreans. This was true when the best non Koreans were Zerg, and it's true now that they're Protoss.
As for your other point, there are dozens of Korean Terrans that are better than the top foreigner protosses so I wouldn't just say that it's only at Pro level that Terran is obviously stronger. I think we can go even one tier below that.
There are dozens of Korean protosses who are better than the best foreign protosses. There are better Koreans of every race than the best non Koreans. This was true when the best non Koreans were Zerg, and it's true now that they're Protoss.
I disagree with your first point. However, this can also mean that Protoss at the highest level are in lower numbers overall so there's a dissonance there that would not confirm or disprove my point or yours.
The fact of the matter is that if you go top-to-bottom Terran has the most favorable skill gap out of all races and that gap extends further than widely accepted by the general BW fanbase. Numbers generally seem to back this as well.
This implies a meta-advantage from my POV, perhaps a racial imbalance too if you want to go there. It can be a compounding factor, not just one or the other.
Another balance discussion? Yay! I could not think of a more exciting topic, let me present you my own list of arguments
I like to point back to the quick mech transition in TvZ that initially revolutionized the matchup and years later was met by mass queens which completely flipped the meta back on its head. The matchup underwent several revolutions that initially had zerg players cry their eyeballs out on the regular when terran players (primarily Flash) kept introducing increasingly absurd quick mech transitions (meanwhile Rush never fully hopped on that train, he just kept practicing his hyper aggro m&m strats). There was a rivalry building between Flash and Larva, with the latter trying to figure out a way to combat Flash's superior builds. He eventually discovered that queens could counter siege tanks at literally any point in the game and weren't just a late-late option to break terran defenses, which they were previously used for. The two players got to a point where Larva was in fact almost showing a positive winrate against Flash's mech transitions, and it became clear that Larva had a verrrrry significant advantage if he could reach the late game. Flash's tanks were just getting exploded all over the place by mass broodling assaults. This wasn't just a successful counter to quick mech transition, it actually changed the whole dynamic of TvZ. Suddenly a new meta was reached: terran players feared having to enter the late game as they learned they had a natural and very significant disadvantage at that point. This is still true today. Rush was probably quite happy to see that development, because he was in the process of perfecting his hyper aggro m&m style, which is now considered the optimal approach.
Imagine if a balance talk had taken place (I'd guess it probably has) during the domination that terran players saw during the days of the quick mech transition. Would the complaints be more valid, less valid or equally valid compared to now?
Rather than discussing the imbalance protoss players are facing right now, maybe we should ask the question when will protoss players eventually learn from Bisu how to beat zergs properly? It could happen, it's still his best matchup and he's leading the charge. Maybe the question should be what he's doing differently that's giving him so much better results. Because look at his current PvT and PvP winrates, they're nowhere close to his PvZ winrate. There's clearly something that he understands that seemingly no one else does. Maybe balance is not the real issue, but rather... strategy? Should I be banned for asking such a daring question?
On April 21 2021 20:49 Magic Powers wrote: Another balance discussion? Yay! I could not think of a more exciting topic, let me present you my own list of arguments
I like to point back to the quick mech transition in TvZ that initially revolutionized the matchup and years later was met by mass queens which completely flipped the meta back on its head. The matchup underwent several revolutions that initially had zerg players cry their eyeballs out on the regular when terran players (primarily Flash) kept introducing increasingly absurd quick mech transitions (meanwhile Rush never fully hopped on that train, he just kept practicing his hyper aggro m&m strats). There was a rivalry building between Flash and Larva, with the latter trying to figure out a way to combat Flash's superior builds. He eventually discovered that queens could counter siege tanks at literally any point in the game and weren't just a late-late option to break terran defenses, which they were previously used for. The two players got to a point where Larva was in fact almost showing a positive winrate against Flash's mech transitions, and it became clear that Larva had a verrrrry significant advantage if he could reach the late game. Flash's tanks were just getting exploded all over the place by mass broodling assaults. This wasn't just a successful counter to quick mech transition, it actually changed the whole dynamic of TvZ. Suddenly a new meta was reached: terran players feared having to enter the late game as they learned they had a natural and very significant disadvantage at that point. This is still true today. Rush was probably quite happy to see that development, because he was in the process of perfecting his hyper aggro m&m style, which is now considered the optimal approach.
Imagine if a balance talk had taken place (I'd guess it probably has) during the domination that terran players saw during the days of the quick mech transition. Would the complaints be more valid, less valid or equally valid compared to now?
Rather than discussing the imbalance protoss players are facing right now, maybe we should ask the question when will protoss players eventually learn from Bisu how to beat zergs properly? It could happen, it's still his best matchup and he's leading the charge. Maybe the question should be what he's doing differently that's giving him so much better results. Because look at his current PvT and PvP winrates, they're nowhere close to his PvZ winrate. There's clearly something that he understands that seemingly no one else does. Maybe balance is not the real issue, but rather... strategy? Should I be banned for asking such a daring question?
Bisu just got smacked by Zero in KCM in his supposed slump.
Larva, no matter the strategy that he employed has always been dispatched easily by Flash, his greatest achievement being peaking in the 30% winrate for a few weeks a few years ago.
On April 21 2021 22:06 oxKnu wrote: Bisu just got smacked by Zero in KCM in his supposed slump.
Larva, no matter the strategy that he employed has always been dispatched easily by Flash, his greatest achievement being peaking in the 30% winrate for a few weeks a few years ago.
So Bisu lost one game to one of the best zerg players. Uhm, hold the press?
A 30% winrate against Flash is impressive. How many zerg players can do better? Also, how is this relevant to him figuring out the counter against quick mech and thus solving one of the greatest problems zerg players were facing, and doing so in the process of battling against the best terran player of all time, without requiring a balance patch to do so?
I have trouble seeing how your response counters my arguments.
On April 21 2021 22:06 oxKnu wrote: Bisu just got smacked by Zero in KCM in his supposed slump.
Larva, no matter the strategy that he employed has always been dispatched easily by Flash, his greatest achievement being peaking in the 30% winrate for a few weeks a few years ago.
So Bisu lost one game to one of the best zerg players. Uhm, hold the press?
A 30% winrate against Flash is impressive. How many zerg players can do better? Also, how is this relevant to him figuring out the counter against quick mech and thus solving one of the greatest problems zerg players were facing, and doing so in the process of battling against the best terran player of all time, without requiring a balance patch to do so?
I have trouble seeing how your response counters my arguments.
The other Zerg's didn't follow his meta and his win-rate didn't improve substantially to where it normally was.
Style and novelty is cool but isn't the whole point of a meta to shift the game entirely when it comes to win-rate?
A response to a current strategy is just a response until it proves that is winning at large if implemented by the population.
Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
Take PvT for example. Switch the meta all you want, from DT to Reaver, Arbiter... but once Terran gets to 200/200 it's a mountain to climb. Same for PvZ. In a sense, Protoss is the only race who has to play against a ticking bomb. So if they dont take enough advantage until the late game, the chance for them to lose just keep increasing. I think this partly explains their inferiority at the top level.
On April 21 2021 22:50 oxKnu wrote: The other Zerg's didn't follow his meta and his win-rate didn't improve substantially to where it normally was.
Style and novelty is cool but isn't the whole point of a meta to shift the game entirely when it comes to win-rate?
A response to a current strategy is just a response until it proves that is winning at large if implemented by the population.
It wasn't up to the zerg players to "follow that meta". Larva led the charge in forcing terran players to abandon the quick mech transition and go back to aggro m&m strats. Other zerg players didn't need to contribute much to that strategy shift because Larva was already so successful with it that even Flash surrendered his builds (at least for the time being, but that part of the meta may not yet be fully settled). The point I was making is that, without Larva's mass queen intervention, zerg players would be struggling a lot more against terran than they do now. Terran winrates would likely be skyrocketing rather than being closer to 50%. So the point is that a shift in the meta brought balance to the matchup, it wasn't a balance patch that did it - in fact a balance patch would've likely robbed us of these back and forth discoveries.
To conclude, a strategy shift doesn't have to move the needle from, say, 40% to 60%. That would just make it uneven again - in the opposite direction. Bringing winrates back to somewhat even is by itself a great success, and that's what Larva accomplished with his strategic counter that he developed during his rivalry with Flash.
The meta continues to develop. Balance patches would only ruin that development.
On April 21 2021 23:22 TMNT wrote: Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
Take PvT for example. Switch the meta all you want, from DT to Reaver, Arbiter... but once Terran gets to 200/200 it's a mountain to climb. Same for PvZ. In a sense, Protoss is the only race who has to play against a ticking bomb. So if they dont take enough advantage until the late game, the chance for them to lose just keep increasing. I think this partly explains their inferiority at the top level.
Protoss have certain advantages to compensate for their disadvantages. They have greater mobility in PvT and a more robust cluster in PvZ. These advantages can be utilized in various ways and they also make for interesting asymmetric battles. In PvZ late game there's a race for resources happening that's not immediately obvious: for protoss, while trying to defeat zerg head on, they have an added goal that is to reduce zerg's access to fresh bases when only few are left on the map. If protoss can hold on to one last mining base and survive, they have a great chance of winning the game, sometimes even if zerg still has two mining bases. This is because, with compressed armies, and especially on narrow space, protoss tends to have the advantage (see protoss advantage of a robust clustered army). Due to this fact, zerg is pressured into continuously denying protoss expansions. Zerg must attack from many angles and force the protoss army to keep moving around - which is disadvantageous for protoss. If for example the map is split in half and both players keep all of their bases intact, then protoss is almost certainly going to win the game in the long run because they can have almost unlimited psi storms. In PvT late game something very similar as in PvZ is going on, with protoss kind of playing the role of zerg and terran kind of playing the role of protoss (that is unless protoss goes for carriers, which have their own type of mobility advantage but are not as fast-moving compared to zealots and dragoons).
Protoss isn't necessarily "inferior" at the top levels. I think protoss players need to study Bisu for PvZ and Snow/Best/Stork for PvT. There's a lot yet to be uncovered.
Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
I completely disagree. Carriers + arbiters + HT is the strongest army in PvT, and is practical to get to if you did well and got an advantage in the midgame.
In PvZ, I have seen lategame armies of only reavers, archons, and HT, which are strong af, especially if you recall them. But even if you don't they're great. I always went for this when I was ahead in PvZ and it got me to A+ on ICCup as Protoss
On April 21 2021 20:07 Terrorbladder wrote: Why did onlystar get banned?
he was?
Did either of you try reading the thread?
well i think that should have been a warning not a ban... this is the reason i post more and more on reddit they just give you a downvote instead of ban you if you disagree with someone...
On April 21 2021 20:07 Terrorbladder wrote: Why did onlystar get banned?
he was?
Did either of you try reading the thread?
well i think that should have been a warning not a ban... this is the reason i post more and more on reddit they just give you a downvote instead of ban you if you disagree with someone...
Maybe you, specifically, should stay there, considering your posting history is a trainwreck.
On April 21 2021 20:07 Terrorbladder wrote: Why did onlystar get banned?
he was?
Did either of you try reading the thread?
well i think that should have been a warning not a ban... this is the reason i post more and more on reddit they just give you a downvote instead of ban you if you disagree with someone...
Maybe you, specifically, should stay there, considering your posting history is a trainwreck.
dont need to be this rude... where is your warning?
i lost interest in this site long ago Joined TL.net Friday, 21st of June 2013.
as you can see i dont even post here because everything you said people tend to get offended by minor miss understandings, and then u get a warning for nothing or banned for nothing
Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
I completely disagree. Carriers + arbiters + HT is the strongest army in PvT, and is practical to get to if you did well and got an advantage in the midgame.
In PvZ, I have seen lategame armies of only reavers, archons, and HT, which is strong af, especially if you recall them. But even if you don't they're great. I always went for this when I was ahead in PvZ and it got me to A+ on ICCup as Protoss
But, what if you don't get an advantage in the midgame? I am just talking about the regular games where no one gets an advantage and both players max out for the first time.
The army composition you mention is indeed strong af, but chances are if you're able to get to that composition, your opponent is probably 50 supply or so behind you.
On April 22 2021 06:48 TMNT wrote: But, what if you don't get an advantage in the midgame? I am just talking about the regular games where no one gets an advantage and both players max out for the first time.
The army composition you mention is indeed strong af, but chances are if you're able to get to that composition, your opponent is probably 50 supply or so behind you.
That's a bit of a conundrum. If no player has the advantage at some point (any point), that would imply they each have a 50% chance of winning moving forward (given they both play as perfectly as a human can). That would imply that any momentarily existing supply (dis)advantage would be entirely irrelevant for the question who's winning - because the premise is that there's currently no advantage on either side. A supply difference would just be cosmetics.
On April 22 2021 06:48 TMNT wrote: But, what if you don't get an advantage in the midgame? I am just talking about the regular games where no one gets an advantage and both players max out for the first time.
The army composition you mention is indeed strong af, but chances are if you're able to get to that composition, your opponent is probably 50 supply or so behind you.
That's a bit of a conundrum. If no player has the advantage at some point (any point), that would imply they each have a 50% chance of winning moving forward (given they both play as perfectly as a human can). That would imply that any momentarily existing supply (dis)advantage would be entirely irrelevant for the question who's winning - because the premise is that there's currently no advantage on either side. A supply difference would just be cosmetics.
No I meant advantage in the midgame, like the other poster said. He was talking about Protoss army composition like Carrier + Arbiter + HT which may or may not be the strongest in the game, but is rarely seen because you can only get to it by holding some significant advantages previously.
On April 21 2021 23:22 TMNT wrote: Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
Take PvT for example. Switch the meta all you want, from DT to Reaver, Arbiter... but once Terran gets to 200/200 it's a mountain to climb. Same for PvZ. In a sense, Protoss is the only race who has to play against a ticking bomb. So if they dont take enough advantage until the late game, the chance for them to lose just keep increasing. I think this partly explains their inferiority at the top level.
Use high templars with shuttles against a late terran army... Jangbi never had trouble dealing with a late terran. Or the Best style of just macroing back an army after losing the first one. I could go on and on since there are many many ways but protoss players just prefer complaining instead of being better. When the best protoss pro is a terran player, that should ring a bell, but nope, just blame the race instead.
On April 22 2021 07:34 TMNT wrote: No I meant advantage in the midgame, like the other poster said. He was talking about Protoss army composition like Carrier + Arbiter + HT which may or may not be the strongest in the game, but is rarely seen because you can only get to it by holding some significant advantages previously.
Right, I think if I were to argue against carrier + arbiter + ht, I'd side with you on this. This army composition is extremely rare (as in we've almost never seen it over the course of 20+ years of professional SC:BW), therefore it shouldn't be used in an argument about late game balance or anything like that. A much more common late game army composition that is meaningful in a discussion about late game balance would be zeal + goon + ht + archon + reaver, for example.
Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
I completely disagree. Carriers + arbiters + HT is the strongest army in PvT, and is practical to get to if you did well and got an advantage in the midgame.
In PvZ, I have seen lategame armies of only reavers, archons, and HT, which is strong af, especially if you recall them. But even if you don't they're great. I always went for this when I was ahead in PvZ and it got me to A+ on ICCup as Protoss
But, what if you don't get an advantage in the midgame? I am just talking about the regular games where no one gets an advantage and both players max out for the first time.
The army composition you mention is indeed strong af, but chances are if you're able to get to that composition, your opponent is probably 50 supply or so behind you.
Getting ahead in the midgame is not "an intrinsic problem that can never get fixed by strategy development". Being 50 psi ahead of Terran isn't unusual either; it's common, but it doesn't automatically let you go for carrier + HT, although there are strategies that revolve around guaranteed carriers. You get ahead on psi, so the Terran can't do a timing attack against you, and then you go carriers, but then you have to add the high templar later before your army truly becomes superior in a straight up battle. This style caused a headache for Terrans when it was new until they learned to play against it.
Anyway, carrier arbiter HT is rare, but carrier HT isn't. It's a lot of work to get to, but the best players do occasionally get to it, and even that is a very strong lategame army. It's stronger than tank goliath vulture. Terran doesn't beat it by having a better army, but by outmanoeuvring the Protoss to get more expansions and win economically, as seen in for example Light vs Rain on Eddy (Don't remember if it was ASL or KSL). The Protoss army is only stronger when it's in a deathball, so if the Protoss stays in a deathball, you expand to all corners (with some mines to prevent lone zealots from denying the expansions), and if the Protoss splits up, you snipe templar with vultures, you ambush isolated carriers with cloaked wraiths behind goliaths that have zoned out observers, you kill small squads sent to deny your expansions with vultures, and then return to your tanks in time to protect them because the vultures are so fast, and stuff like that.
The problem is not that you don't have a strong lategame army. The problem is setting yourself up for a good position before that. I think that it's time for less Terran favoured maps, but with the right maps, Protoss can thrive. We know this because even in 2021, there are maps with a positive PvT (and maps with a positive PvZ) winrate. They're just more rare. Most maps that people like to make end up good for Terran in one or both match ups.
Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
I completely disagree. Carriers + arbiters + HT is the strongest army in PvT, and is practical to get to if you did well and got an advantage in the midgame.
In PvZ, I have seen lategame armies of only reavers, archons, and HT, which is strong af, especially if you recall them. But even if you don't they're great. I always went for this when I was ahead in PvZ and it got me to A+ on ICCup as Protoss
But, what if you don't get an advantage in the midgame? I am just talking about the regular games where no one gets an advantage and both players max out for the first time.
The army composition you mention is indeed strong af, but chances are if you're able to get to that composition, your opponent is probably 50 supply or so behind you.
Most maps that people like to make end up good for Terran in one or both match ups.
This is the reason why we have the historical stats that. this game has had over time. Top Terran players winning the gold more often than not because they have a cumulative advantage over the other two races.
Also worth noticing that in recent years this has not changed and novelty and/or risk is preferred in tournaments over choosing a very well tested balanced map-set.
Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
I completely disagree. Carriers + arbiters + HT is the strongest army in PvT, and is practical to get to if you did well and got an advantage in the midgame.
In PvZ, I have seen lategame armies of only reavers, archons, and HT, which is strong af, especially if you recall them. But even if you don't they're great. I always went for this when I was ahead in PvZ and it got me to A+ on ICCup as Protoss
But, what if you don't get an advantage in the midgame? I am just talking about the regular games where no one gets an advantage and both players max out for the first time.
The army composition you mention is indeed strong af, but chances are if you're able to get to that composition, your opponent is probably 50 supply or so behind you.
Most maps that people like to make end up good for Terran in one or both match ups.
This is the reason why we have the historical stats that. this game has had over time. Top Terran players winning the gold more often than not because they have a cumulative advantage over the other two races.
Also worth noticing that in recent years this has not changed and novelty and/or risk is preferred in tournaments over choosing a very well tested balanced map-set.
A problem with the metagame is not a problem with the game. I call it the metagame because the game itself allows for any kind of map, but the culture, the way that people play the game (the metagame, literally meaning "behind the game") is such that people have accepted a map that is slightly Terran favoured as "standard". The "standard" map is good for Terran. Shakuras Plateau has a 60% TvP winrate so far in 2021, and that map is considered "standard". Maps like this shouldn't be the norm.
When people look at a map like Ultimate Stream, that has an expansion right next to high ground so that sunkens are immediately effective (no crawling or lurker blockades necessary), and with a free fourth base behind that one, people think that it's Zerg favoured, because it's better for Zerg than the "standard" Fighting Spirit.
What are the stats for Ultimate Stream so far in 2021?
Above 50% winrate TvZ.
We can never have perfect balance, and we shouldn't give up interesting maps to have it. I just want the map pool to be balanced overall, so Zergs can have their Benzene (55% ZvT in 2021), and Terrans can have their Eclipse (55% TvZ so far, 50% TvP though). The point is that there should be an even amount of maps good for each match up, instead of mostly Terran maps with a few Zerg and Protoss like we have.
Having 50% in some but not all match ups is good. Having 50% in all of them is great. This can't be expected to happen often, though. I can only think of one recent map that achieved this: Sylphid. (When I say 50% I mean closer to 50% than to 60%. a 51% or some thing is fine.)
Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
I completely disagree. Carriers + arbiters + HT is the strongest army in PvT, and is practical to get to if you did well and got an advantage in the midgame.
In PvZ, I have seen lategame armies of only reavers, archons, and HT, which is strong af, especially if you recall them. But even if you don't they're great. I always went for this when I was ahead in PvZ and it got me to A+ on ICCup as Protoss
But, what if you don't get an advantage in the midgame? I am just talking about the regular games where no one gets an advantage and both players max out for the first time.
The army composition you mention is indeed strong af, but chances are if you're able to get to that composition, your opponent is probably 50 supply or so behind you.
Most maps that people like to make end up good for Terran in one or both match ups.
This is the reason why we have the historical stats that. this game has had over time. Top Terran players winning the gold more often than not because they have a cumulative advantage over the other two races.
Also worth noticing that in recent years this has not changed and novelty and/or risk is preferred in tournaments over choosing a very well tested balanced map-set.
A problem with the metagame is not a problem with the game. I call it the metagame because the game itself allows for any kind of map, but the culture, the way that people play the game (the metagame, literally meaning "behind the game") is such that people have accepted a map that is slightly Terran favoured as "standard". The "standard" map is good for Terran. Shakuras Plateau has a 60% TvP winrate so far in 2021, and that map is considered "standard". Maps like this shouldn't be the norm.
When people look at a map like Ultimate Stream, that has an expansion right next to high ground so that sunkens are immediately effective (no crawling or lurker blockades necessary), and with a free fourth base behind that one, people think that it's Zerg favoured, because it's better for Zerg than the "standard" Fighting Spirit.
What are the stats for Ultimate Stream so far in 2021?
Above 50% winrate TvZ.
We can never have perfect balance, and we shouldn't give up interesting maps to have it. I just want the map pool to be balanced overall, so Zergs can have their Benzene (55% ZvT in 2021), and Terrans can have their Eclipse (55% TvZ so far, 50% TvP though). The point is that there should be an even amount of maps good for each match up, instead of mostly Terran maps with a few Zerg and Protoss like we have.
Having 50% in some but not all match ups is good. Having 50% in all of them is great. This can't be expected to happen often, though. I can only think of one recent map that achieved this: Sylphid. (When I say 50% I mean closer to 50% than to 60%. a 51% or some thing is fine.)
Sylphid is balanced because it's a completely new map so it didn't carry the statistical load of purists regurgitating 10 year old stats in pro league matches between donkeys that haven't played the game since then.
Benzene is another good example where at some point it was considered ok and balanced but recent games on it has shown us that it's not that.
Tau Cross is an even better example. A map that has 'perfect' stats but is absolutely horrendous and unplayable by modern standards in the current metagame.
ASL maps that get labelled as unbalanced, get that label over a sample of 10 games or less so they quickly see the bin because of that.
Neo-Sylphid has had thousands of games played under the same meta by top players so it has been battle tested and proven to be balanced.
In most other scenarios, the actual real test of whether a map is balanced or not doesn't even exist. Even ladder is not good enough of a barometer since those stats end up always deviating from pro-stats by a significant margin (in the few cases where ladder maps are also played in spon-matches frequently).
Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
I completely disagree. Carriers + arbiters + HT is the strongest army in PvT, and is practical to get to if you did well and got an advantage in the midgame.
In PvZ, I have seen lategame armies of only reavers, archons, and HT, which is strong af, especially if you recall them. But even if you don't they're great. I always went for this when I was ahead in PvZ and it got me to A+ on ICCup as Protoss
But, what if you don't get an advantage in the midgame? I am just talking about the regular games where no one gets an advantage and both players max out for the first time.
The army composition you mention is indeed strong af, but chances are if you're able to get to that composition, your opponent is probably 50 supply or so behind you.
Most maps that people like to make end up good for Terran in one or both match ups.
A large sample size of recently played games at the highest level is the best way we have to measure balance. I claim that we have access to this in sponbbang
This is the reason why we have the historical stats that. this game has had over time. Top Terran players winning the gold more often than not because they have a cumulative advantage over the other two races.
Also worth noticing that in recent years this has not changed and novelty and/or risk is preferred in tournaments over choosing a very well tested balanced map-set.
A problem with the metagame is not a problem with the game. I call it the metagame because the game itself allows for any kind of map, but the culture, the way that people play the game (the metagame, literally meaning "behind the game") is such that people have accepted a map that is slightly Terran favoured as "standard". The "standard" map is good for Terran. Shakuras Plateau has a 60% TvP winrate so far in 2021, and that map is considered "standard". Maps like this shouldn't be the norm.
When people look at a map like Ultimate Stream, that has an expansion right next to high ground so that sunkens are immediately effective (no crawling or lurker blockades necessary), and with a free fourth base behind that one, people think that it's Zerg favoured, because it's better for Zerg than the "standard" Fighting Spirit.
What are the stats for Ultimate Stream so far in 2021?
Above 50% winrate TvZ.
We can never have perfect balance, and we shouldn't give up interesting maps to have it. I just want the map pool to be balanced overall, so Zergs can have their Benzene (55% ZvT in 2021), and Terrans can have their Eclipse (55% TvZ so far, 50% TvP though). The point is that there should be an even amount of maps good for each match up, instead of mostly Terran maps with a few Zerg and Protoss like we have.
Having 50% in some but not all match ups is good. Having 50% in all of them is great. This can't be expected to happen often, though. I can only think of one recent map that achieved this: Sylphid. (When I say 50% I mean closer to 50% than to 60%. a 51% or some thing is fine.)
Sylphid is balanced because it's a completely new map so it didn't carry the statistical load of purists regurgitating 10 year old stats in pro league matches between donkeys that haven't played the game since then.
Benzene is another good example where at some point it was considered ok and balanced but recent games on it has shown us that it's not that.
Tau Cross is an even better example. A map that has 'perfect' stats but is absolutely horrendous and unplayable by modern standards in the current metagame.
ASL maps that get labelled as unbalanced, get that label over a sample of 10 games or less so they quickly see the bin because of that.
Neo-Sylphid has had thousands of games played under the same meta by top players so it has been battle tested and proven to be balanced.
In most other scenarios, the actual real test of whether a map is balanced or not doesn't even exist. Even ladder is not good enough of a barometer since those stats end up always deviating from pro-stats by a significant margin (in the few cases where ladder maps are also played in spon-matches frequently).
Protoss suffers from an intrinsic gameplay problem that can never get fixed by strategy development, that their maxed out army is the weakest among 3 races, especially against Terran (not talking about unrealistic situations like 200 carriers).
I completely disagree. Carriers + arbiters + HT is the strongest army in PvT, and is practical to get to if you did well and got an advantage in the midgame.
In PvZ, I have seen lategame armies of only reavers, archons, and HT, which is strong af, especially if you recall them. But even if you don't they're great. I always went for this when I was ahead in PvZ and it got me to A+ on ICCup as Protoss
But, what if you don't get an advantage in the midgame? I am just talking about the regular games where no one gets an advantage and both players max out for the first time.
The army composition you mention is indeed strong af, but chances are if you're able to get to that composition, your opponent is probably 50 supply or so behind you.
Most maps that people like to make end up good for Terran in one or both match ups.
Tau Cross is imbalanced in modern play? Which match-ups does it favor these days ? It was my go to map like 10 years ago with good memories and games
This is the reason why we have the historical stats that. this game has had over time. Top Terran players winning the gold more often than not because they have a cumulative advantage over the other two races.
Also worth noticing that in recent years this has not changed and novelty and/or risk is preferred in tournaments over choosing a very well tested balanced map-set.
A problem with the metagame is not a problem with the game. I call it the metagame because the game itself allows for any kind of map, but the culture, the way that people play the game (the metagame, literally meaning "behind the game") is such that people have accepted a map that is slightly Terran favoured as "standard". The "standard" map is good for Terran. Shakuras Plateau has a 60% TvP winrate so far in 2021, and that map is considered "standard". Maps like this shouldn't be the norm.
When people look at a map like Ultimate Stream, that has an expansion right next to high ground so that sunkens are immediately effective (no crawling or lurker blockades necessary), and with a free fourth base behind that one, people think that it's Zerg favoured, because it's better for Zerg than the "standard" Fighting Spirit.
What are the stats for Ultimate Stream so far in 2021?
Above 50% winrate TvZ.
We can never have perfect balance, and we shouldn't give up interesting maps to have it. I just want the map pool to be balanced overall, so Zergs can have their Benzene (55% ZvT in 2021), and Terrans can have their Eclipse (55% TvZ so far, 50% TvP though). The point is that there should be an even amount of maps good for each match up, instead of mostly Terran maps with a few Zerg and Protoss like we have.
Having 50% in some but not all match ups is good. Having 50% in all of them is great. This can't be expected to happen often, though. I can only think of one recent map that achieved this: Sylphid. (When I say 50% I mean closer to 50% than to 60%. a 51% or some thing is fine.)
Sylphid is balanced because it's a completely new map so it didn't carry the statistical load of purists regurgitating 10 year old stats in pro league matches between donkeys that haven't played the game since then.
Benzene is another good example where at some point it was considered ok and balanced but recent games on it has shown us that it's not that.
Tau Cross is an even better example. A map that has 'perfect' stats but is absolutely horrendous and unplayable by modern standards in the current metagame.
ASL maps that get labelled as unbalanced, get that label over a sample of 10 games or less so they quickly see the bin because of that.
Neo-Sylphid has had thousands of games played under the same meta by top players so it has been battle tested and proven to be balanced.
In most other scenarios, the actual real test of whether a map is balanced or not doesn't even exist. Even ladder is not good enough of a barometer since those stats end up always deviating from pro-stats by a significant margin (in the few cases where ladder maps are also played in spon-matches frequently).