|
There are a lot of variables left unaccounted for in this idea. Race distribution is almost certainly not even across leagues. With the campaign focus on Terran, you would expect people new to starcraft to go for Terran most likely. The existence of Random as a 'race' choice further complicates things.
To do this in a serious way you would need a LOT more data than just a list of the MMR of every player on the ladder. You would need tons of demographic data on race choice, and the reasons why people chose certain races (as some of those reasons will be based on a race being perceived as stronger by the player) and so on.
A project like this could literally be a Master's thesis worth of work, without the academic value those usually provide. I mean the first thing you'd have to figure out is what all the variables actually are.
|
On July 11 2012 00:27 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 00:19 Geiko wrote:On July 10 2012 23:55 BlaineMono wrote:On July 10 2012 23:18 Oshuy wrote:On July 10 2012 22:12 BlaineMono wrote:If race X is more powerful than race Y than if you have two players of each race on the same skill level, the X race guy will have higher MMR but the same win rate as player X (because obviously he will be matched with tougher opponents). This supposes that: 1- there is such a thing as "skill", one dimensional and valid across all leagues 2- there is a function F that gives a MMR value for a couple (skill, race), 3- that F is monotonic and rising with skill 4- that an ordering between races exists, so that if "race A" > "race B" then F(x,A)>F(x,B) for all x I would agree with other posts that 4 is the easiest to prove wrong, although I also disagree with the other points. It's easiest to prove wrong, yet you conviniently left it out of your post. And to the first three points I would only add that F is a changing function for each player. F is a changing function for each player ?? Do you realize that this makes no sense at all ? No need to be so arrogant in your OP and replies when you clearly don't fully understand the problem yourself... It makes no sense why exactly? If you would identify skill with a number it would be definately not be a constant - every pro has bad days and there are thousands of factors that have an effect on a particular players performance. But you can definately say that Nestea is more skilled than some random bronze player. It's an approximation.
I think you misunderstand what it means for F to be a function of skill and race. This means that F is a function where you put in a given skill level (arbitrary number) and a given race, and it gives you the MMR for that skill-race combo. The changing based on player is not necessary because different players have different skill levels and therefore you would put in different numbers and get out different numbers.
What Geiko is doing, is pointing out the actual statistical reasoning behind your argument only holds if 1-4 are true. If F does not exist (that is if F is a function, as you suggest of (skill, race , player) ), then you must do a great deal more math to make statistical arguments based off races and MMR. He is not necessarily saying you are wrong, just that you are making a lot of assumptions in your math.
|
On July 11 2012 01:07 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 01:07 Roxor9999 wrote:On July 11 2012 01:05 Shiori wrote:On July 11 2012 01:03 toiletCAT wrote:On July 11 2012 00:59 Heh_ wrote:On July 11 2012 00:57 toiletCAT wrote:On July 11 2012 00:14 Shiori wrote:On July 11 2012 00:10 toiletCAT wrote:On July 10 2012 23:00 VanGooL wrote:On July 10 2012 22:54 iamperfection wrote:
[quote]
Its so obvious its painful to try to explain it. Why would you balance around something as meaningless as the ladder? Pro tournaments are the only things that matter. Because the game is about those who purchased it, not the exclusive minority that goes to tournaments. Why was the the thread not closed after this? Just because you agree, it doesn't mean it's right. It doesn't matter. Balancing for ladder is a lost cause because there is a substantial group of people that isn't skilled enough for minute balance changes to make a tonne of difference. People under Masters league can win just by sheer outmacro in any given scenario, because the people they're playing against are bad. What's more, people on ladder copy the strategies of pro players, which means that pro players need to be playing a balanced game, or there aren't going to be any pro players after a time. This means that the strategic morphing of the game stops, the spectating stops, and people lose interest in the game. Blizzard shouldn't balance the game for Bronze just because a lot of people are in Bronze. Doing so would make the game unplayable for anyone else, and would kill the competitive scene. You don't get it, though. This is a game for everyone, regardless of how bad players can be. They purchased this game, they have the right to be included in the changes. So what do you suggest? Balancing to bronze league players? Balancing to individual requests? If you designed a game (or anything for that matter) to every whim and fancy of players, you don't get a good game. You get a piece of shit that's unplayable. Balancing takes time, give it time. Blizzard will obviously balance the game from a standpoint of the most skilled players, let them do that. What a contentless post. If you were just going to revert back to agreeing with everyone else, then you shouldn't have posted contrarian bullshit to begin with. You shouldn't respond to toiletcat he is a known troll. Apparently. Th guy just did a complete 180 in two pages.
He's right, though. You completely ignored his posts and read what you wanted to read. Also, "known troll", really? He's making a lot of good points, can't always agree but that's just how it goes. Please keep it that way.
|
I like your theory. However, too much of your post is a bit confusing. Only pros should be allowed to talk about balance - but the game shouldn't be balanced around the pros?
Then... Do you think any pro has any idea how balance works out in any low-mid league?
Balancing the game all around is even less possible than trying to do it on the highest level anyway. I hear from several friends how in bronze-gold protoss players can dominate - yet, protoss has the worst win% for pros in tournaments.
If you want to save this topic - then you have to do some actual math and throw up some charts or graphs or something. Half your post is just complaining about how ignorant you think everybody is. I'm honestly happy you don't post that often.
|
I think that blizzard needs to balance for all skill levels of play. Which honestly isn't that hard, because SC 2 is a game of rock paper scissors. Every race must have an answer to something. Example, Roaches countered by Maraders, Marders counter by zerglings and so on. I think that at lower level play, players who learn these basic counters can beat each other even though they aren't doing it like a pro. At the pro level everything is very complex. Also when you said "If you think that SC2 should be balanced based on pro level only because we will see only X's left in GSL than that ultimately means that the game is broken and attempts should be made to fix that rather than nerf/buff units. You are attempting to fix this game in a terrible way for every single person including those GSL players. Start looking at race skill ceilings and race & units micro and macro capabilities rather than messing with unit stats." I feel like they did with Terran. For a long time Terran was winning everything. And nearly every patch was a nerf to Terran. I feel like one of the reasons we are seeing zerg and protoss dominating more now is that they understand how to play there races now, and the maps are much better now. Also if you look at it Terran have the hardest micro and macro of all the races(depending on the strat you do. I feel like zerg and toss can be more A move than terran)
|
Well im with the "game should be balanced at all levels" mentality. This is why. All levels of play are connected. So if you are making changes to the game you should aim for the best possible effect for all levels. Surely the highest level of play has top priority. But if you can fix some low level issues without compromising high level why not? For example voidray used to be a huge issue in lower levels because if you allowed them to charge up in your base you are screwed. For top players this was a minor issue but for noobs it was huge. And though the fix was probably for good in both high and low levels of play it shows that the same balancing tweak can have different effects on different levels of play. So basicly what I'm saying is that almost any balancing decision has different effects on different levels. So if we stick to the "game should be balanced only at highest levels" mentality we will approve the fixes that will only slightly improve the balance at highest level but will ruin the game for lower levels. What we should aim for is a compromise, while the highest level surely has the priority. And that is exactly what blizzard is doing.
|
On July 11 2012 01:12 Celimas wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 00:27 BlaineMono wrote:On July 11 2012 00:19 Geiko wrote:On July 10 2012 23:55 BlaineMono wrote:On July 10 2012 23:18 Oshuy wrote:On July 10 2012 22:12 BlaineMono wrote:If race X is more powerful than race Y than if you have two players of each race on the same skill level, the X race guy will have higher MMR but the same win rate as player X (because obviously he will be matched with tougher opponents). This supposes that: 1- there is such a thing as "skill", one dimensional and valid across all leagues 2- there is a function F that gives a MMR value for a couple (skill, race), 3- that F is monotonic and rising with skill 4- that an ordering between races exists, so that if "race A" > "race B" then F(x,A)>F(x,B) for all x I would agree with other posts that 4 is the easiest to prove wrong, although I also disagree with the other points. It's easiest to prove wrong, yet you conviniently left it out of your post. And to the first three points I would only add that F is a changing function for each player. F is a changing function for each player ?? Do you realize that this makes no sense at all ? No need to be so arrogant in your OP and replies when you clearly don't fully understand the problem yourself... It makes no sense why exactly? If you would identify skill with a number it would be definately not be a constant - every pro has bad days and there are thousands of factors that have an effect on a particular players performance. But you can definately say that Nestea is more skilled than some random bronze player. It's an approximation. I think you misunderstand what it means for F to be a function of skill and race. This means that F is a function where you put in a given skill level (arbitrary number) and a given race, and it gives you the MMR for that skill-race combo. The changing based on player is not necessary because different players have different skill levels and therefore you would put in different numbers and get out different numbers. What Geiko is doing, is pointing out the actual statistical reasoning behind your argument only holds if 1-4 are true. If F does not exist (that is if F is a function, as you suggest of (skill, race , player) ), then you must do a great deal more math to make statistical arguments based off races and MMR. He is not necessarily saying you are wrong, just that you are making a lot of assumptions in your math.
Here's an interesting thought that you're post made me think of: What if we treated all T players as 1 player, all Z players as 1 player and all P players as 1 player, and calculated the MMR as if there are only these 3 players. In this case, there shouldn't be anything forcing a 50% win ratio in each matchup, and we can compare the overall T, Z, and P MMRs. We can even ignore games below a certain skill level to look at balance at the top. I haven't given this too much thought but it sounds like a plausible and useful idea.
|
None of us should have the audacity to cry about balance.
The skill gap between a pro and a low-tier player is so dramatically huge, that it's foolish to think it is realistic to achieve a balance throughout all skill levels. Unless you're at the top, you never lose because of possible imbalances. You always lose because you made the game deciding mistake(s) and your opponent didn't. You lose because you were not able to play in a way that wins you the game.
"The game is for everyone, therefore ...blablabla" ... What a lame excuse to justify your losses on everything else but your own incapabilities.
|
I have to defend the OP a little here. That MMR is not a good indicator of race balace on its own should be correct.
And that the game could be pretty well balaced at all skill levels should also be correct. That more fine tuned balance is more important at higher skill levels should not be directly related to bad balance at lower levels unless you try to design it that way.. And that something is important does not mean that something else does not matter.
|
What about balancing over the long term? Blizzard is doing a better than you guys think. For example, Terran players had a distinct advantage against Z and P for the first 20 months of this game's existence. Now, Terran's have been at a disadvantage for 2 months. If this trend just continues on for another 18 months, the game will have been balanced perfectly. Just something to think about before you start to whine for the xzillionth time.
|
On July 11 2012 00:34 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 00:23 imMUTAble787 wrote:On July 11 2012 00:10 toiletCAT wrote:On July 10 2012 23:00 VanGooL wrote:On July 10 2012 22:54 iamperfection wrote:On July 10 2012 22:51 BlaineMono wrote:On July 10 2012 22:50 Koshi wrote:On July 10 2012 22:12 BlaineMono wrote:
I have very little respect for people that tell that balance should be made for top play only. Usually the most math and science illiterate people post such things. This simply doesn't make sense and is destroying the game. A game balanced in a tought out way is balanced across all skill levels. And no, that's not impossible. It's impossible if you think balance can be achieved by messing only with unit stats. Arrogant. Ignorant. Please explain how am i ignorant. Thank you. Its so obvious its painful to try to explain it. Why would you balance around something as meaningless as the ladder? Pro tournaments are the only things that matter. Because the game is about those who purchased it, not the exclusive minority that goes to tournaments. Why was the the thread not closed after this? Just because you agree, it doesn't mean it's right. People like you.... wow. I'll just put it this way : people playing the game as close to perfect as possible are the type of people the game should be balanced around. If you cannot understand that, then I recommend you get sterilized asap for the good of humanity. And I'm arrogant...
Why balance around the pros? They are scrubs. Why not balance around a hypothetical perfect play then? What is your reason to balancing the game according to a current group of top players if their abilities aren't even perfected yet? Wows don't really make you look clever. REASON?
Oh the irony, unless there was sarcasm i missed.
You come off extremely arrogant in OP and in your replies, tone it down perhaps?
I'll jump on the bandwagon and say as well that this game is way too complex to balance across all leagues and all skill sets. Take this very simple example - when you learn how to stim and stutter step you will suddenly beat a lot better opponents than you did before, just because you learned this 1 key mechanic. In lower leagues, where people are not able to do that, terrans will have a hard time. You try to balance TvX for that league, and give them a buff. All of the sudden in that league TvX is balanced, but a league up, where T utilize this core mechanic, TvX begins favoring T too much.
I really have no idea how you could possibly balance the game so that non stutter stepping Terrans and stutter stepping Terrans will have equally hard time vs other race opponents of "equal skill" to them (unless obviously you give other races similar abilities, which Bliz tries to avoid to keep races different). Just woke up, hope this makes sense lol, but if it doesnt i think lichter's post explains why you shouldnt be concerned with lower level players too much better anyway
|
|
|
People can debate how to balance a game until they are blue in the face.
The reality is no matter what you do the game will probably never be 100% balanced. Additionally in many circumstances any imbalance will simply be solved by the players due to an shift in the meta game, essentially pointing to the imbalance as only a temporary situation due to people 'playing wrong'. Lastly though most yell for it blizzard as a developer should never make knee jerk reactions to any balance complaint, it's always better to give players time to solve the imbalance and only take action if the imbalance is significant enough to completely upset a match up.
|
mods really failing at leaving this garbage thread open
OP is obviously a troll. at least i hope so for his sake
|
Unfortunately it doesnt matter how we think the game should be balanced, because blizzard does it multiple ways. They look at winrates, pro tournament winrates, winrates from ladder and arbitrarily decide what to balance at times just to shift the metagame or for whatever reason. I mean, look no further than TSL3 and the nerfing of Thor to the ground after like 2 games of seeing it. Then look at how long it took to decide to remove Amulet from the game, or for the ghost nerf to come in ( I tend to think the nerf against zerg units was more of the Thor type of decision after watching MVP vs July on Metal, but you could debate that one.) It is at their whim, and whether they SHOULD balance the game for everyone or for the top pro level so every race can win the same amount in profesional starcraft is somewhat useless.
|
On July 11 2012 01:05 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 00:57 13_Doomblaze_37 wrote:On July 11 2012 00:51 BlaineMono wrote:On July 11 2012 00:45 karpo wrote:On July 11 2012 00:41 BlaineMono wrote:On July 11 2012 00:33 TrippSC2 wrote:On July 10 2012 23:40 BlaineMono wrote:How can you say that? I mean there is a question whether it's possible, but if it is, you don't think it should be? When you can't play the game properly, what is there to balance? Why should I or Blizzard care if Bronze Protoss has a 70% winrate over Bronze Terran when both players haven't engaged at the 15-minute mark and have 20 workers a piece? That point remains true to a lesser degree as you go up the leagues. Why should I care about the balance of my own league (Platinum) when I end the game with too much queen energy?. I'm curious of your definition of proper play. The pros are also incompetent you know, just a bit less then average. They are best but are also super far from optimal play. If you want to balance the game your way, why not do it around Automaton? This is such a cop out. Pro play is as close to optimal human play as we can see. People in the lower leagues could, potentially, practise and do what pros do if they had the time and dedication. That's what's observable, disregarding it (like we do bronze or platinum players) because pros still make mistakes is beyond silly. How is that a cop out? You don't want to balance on everyone, yet do you don't want to balance around perfect play. You want to balance according to what 32 players can do at a particular moment in time. Yes, because that is the way to balance the game without horribly breaking it. How do you balance a game where banelings are the hard counter to marines in plat and below and almost useless vs them in diamond and above? How do you balance a game where marine ghost is a very strong comp in top masters and a useless comp below because of the micro it takes to execute it? You can't. You do it at the highest level because that is the level people have to reach towards We also can't balance perfect play because it's impossible for humans to play perfectly, due to our limitations (there is only 1 Flash), This is the only post that I will make involving a particular matchup discussion, just to give an example of what I mean by my suggestion. And this is only an example of a way of thinking- I'm not an advocate for this change! You make it possible to counter banelings by something which requires less or same amount of skill that it is required to use banelings. Or make banelings harder to use.
I hate arguing against statements like this, so vague and amorphous it can be contorted to counter any statements. Like boxing a giant jello cube.
The game should always reward the player with better mechanical skill and better decision making. Mechanical skill should be measured across the entire course of the game, rather than if X unit is harder to use against Y unit. There is to much focus on the requirement for a specific unit to deal with another unit. Decision making, scouting and other more difficult to measure skills are not taken into account by APM or resources spent efficiently and play a much larger roll the majority of games. The game should reward practice and hard work.
Highschool basketball leagues do not change the basic rules of basket ball because their players are not professionals. They do not change the rules to allow players to travel because they don't know how to dribble the ball as well as professionals. (before somone makes the t-ball or little league argument, the rules in those leagues are changed to match the development of their players, ie: children) Starcraft 2 should not be made easier because a set of players stopped advancing on the ladder and they feel it is the games fault.
|
United States13896 Posts
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
