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There was a thread that was closed today explaining why we can't look at players win rates to determine the current balance of the game. Wasn't a very interesting one but one thing really struck me. I've seen some threads like that and many threads regarding SC2 match making system, MMR, leagues etc. And I don't understand why anyone hasn't posted what really points out the balance (the most objective one that we can really have) when the system is based on MMR... Do you guys just like to post anything rather than post thought out things? Or has the average TL user zero clue about statistics and math? Or is just the race bias that really so strong that it keeps statistics, math and common reasoning out?
This post is an attempt to explain what can we really look on to determine balance. It should be obvious to anyone that the win rates don't matter at all, cause the ladder system tries to achieve 50% win rate for everyone. Blizzards adjusted result rates might matter but we don't have the formula so we can't really say anything. What WE can really draw conclusions from is the race distribution in leagues divided by total players of a particular race. By balancing the win rate blizzard automaticly flips the balance indicator on percentage of players of particular race in a given league.
This is so obvious it's painful to even try to explain it. 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). It's only natural that if both X and Y have the same number of players and X players tend to be placed higher in MMR system that means that simply X is more powerful. So the only viable balance indicator for all levels is the normalized MMR race distribution.
I don't post regularly, but i felt this needs to be said. 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.
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.
If anyone wants to discuss against what i wrote, I very welcome to do so. I'd only ask that the arguments touch only the theory of what i posted (statistics, math behind MMR system) and have nothing to do with particular races.
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balance around GM or tournament data only since those players are outliers concerning MMR
/thread
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Hum, I am not quite sure whether you or me is science illiterate, but surely there is a self-selection problem based on the player's unobservable ability. (Noobs play T, Pros play Z)
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ARRRG another thread with balance in the title!!!! Doesn’t everyone know that amateur (aka not pros, even if GM level) players as extremely poor judges of another players overall skill. Many players naturally devalue their opponents skill level and simply blame the game as a whole. Why, because it takes the sting out of the loss. Also, win rates on the ladder are not a system to determine balance. In fact, the ladder is simply a tool to assure that everyone has the most enjoyable experience when finding games.
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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.
no, it isn't
if you tried to balance brood war across all levels, you'd end up nerfing protoss into the ground, because protoss is by far the strongest at low level play, and as a result top level korean professional play becomes even more of a tvz-fest than it already is
so your entire argument has been shut down in 1 run-on sentence, i'm afraid
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On July 10 2012 22:23 Plansix wrote:
Doesn’t everyone know that amateur (aka not pros, even if GM level) players as extremely poor judges of another players overall skill. Many players naturally devalue their opponents skill level and simply blame the game as a whole.
You're 100% right. Now, please kindly quote from OP a single line where I wrote an amateurs opinion of balance. In fact, please quote any line that says ANYTHING about anyones opinion on balance. Did you read the OP? I posted theory behind MMR league system and you have just replayed with something that has 0 correlation with what I wrote.
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On July 10 2012 22:41 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 22:23 Plansix wrote:
Doesn’t everyone know that amateur (aka not pros, even if GM level) players as extremely poor judges of another players overall skill. Many players naturally devalue their opponents skill level and simply blame the game as a whole. You're 100% right. Now, please kindly quote from OP a single line where I wrote an amateurs opinion of balance. In fact, please quote any line that says ANYTHING about anyones opinion on balance. Did you read the OP? I posted theory behind MMR league system and you have just replayed with something that has 0 correlation with what I wrote.
okay
I have very little respect for people that tell that balance should be made for top play only.
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On July 10 2012 22:37 Zanno wrote:
if you tried to balance brood war across all levels, you'd end up nerfing protoss into the ground, because protoss is by far the strongest at low level play, and as a result top level korean professional play becomes even more of a tvz-fest than it already is
so your entire argument has been shut down in 1 run-on sentence, i'm afraid
How would you end up nerfing protoss into the ground? Balance how? Unit stats? Race capabilities? Skill ceiling? Did you read my whole post? You're argument is so vague, it makes really no sense and really doesn't address anything that I've wrote.
EDIT: Let's play the ball. Let's take a hypothetical situation where T and Z players in BW are much more skilled than P players. I'm curious what would be your opinion if there were 0 protoss in competitive play in such circumstances?
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Blaine, you might consider editing your OP because you come off sounding arrogant and not the smartest. Just take the parts out where you insult your readers and talk about how you're smarter than they are. That should do the trick.
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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.
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On July 10 2012 22:42 Zanno wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 22:41 BlaineMono wrote:On July 10 2012 22:23 Plansix wrote:
Doesn’t everyone know that amateur (aka not pros, even if GM level) players as extremely poor judges of another players overall skill. Many players naturally devalue their opponents skill level and simply blame the game as a whole. You're 100% right. Now, please kindly quote from OP a single line where I wrote an amateurs opinion of balance. In fact, please quote any line that says ANYTHING about anyones opinion on balance. Did you read the OP? I posted theory behind MMR league system and you have just replayed with something that has 0 correlation with what I wrote. okay Show nested quote +I have very little respect for people that tell that balance should be made for top play only.
Please don't troll.. How is that an opinion on balance? If you can't see a difference between an opinion on balance and opinion on the way people think the game should be balanced then you have proved you shouldn't be posting in this thread. I'm interested in logical discussion.
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On July 10 2012 22:50 Koshi wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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This has been debated many times by people who are smarter than you... not gonna do the research for you but you should look it up.
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On July 10 2012 22:51 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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It's not completely the same argument. You posted race distribution in GM. There would be nothing bad with race being underrepresented in GM if that race had less players overall. My argument is about normalized MMR distribution.
On July 10 2012 22:54 MilesTeg wrote:
This has been debated many times by people who are smarter than you... not gonna do the research for you but you should look it up.
I did and found nothing, I wrote that in my OP. I'd appriciate if you posted a SINGLE link to the discussion. Also please elaborate how can you determine how smart is a person through an internet cable. Thanks.
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On July 10 2012 22:54 iamperfection wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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Until you do this math on a real example people won't understand you. Maybe you do have a good idea but your op is nonsensical.
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It's always good to start a thread with a theme of "Hey idiots, look how smart I am!"
That being said, MMR distribution across all leagues would be a useful metric, if we accept your premise that all leagues should be balanced. I don't.
However, MMR distribution has some problems, as well. It says nothing about preference at each level of play (maybe people who play casually prefer X race and therefore there is a higher representation in bronze-silver league). It also has no real reference point for per-matchup balance, which is where real discussion can be had and where problems with balance will be solved. This is why matchup winrates with normalization for MMR are also a good metric. Neither can be the only metric used.
There are several good reasons why balance at lower levels isn't a focus. One reason is that lower level players don't play properly or even similarly to the point that changes made to the game won't reliably make the desired effect. The other reason is that no change is made in a vacuum. Changes will affect all leagues, no matter how much you can try to limit the effect. Finally, the most important level of play is the professional level, where there is actual money on the line.
Your final point is a complete departure from the rest of your post, which is about using empirical data to make decisions about objective balance. "race skill ceilings and race & units micro and macro capabilities" is abstraction that can't be reliably predicted. When you add a new mechanic/unit/ability to the game (which I'm assuming is what you're getting at because it is an overly vague statement) you can't predict how the top-of-the-top players will use that ability. This means that this type of balance would completely disrupt the balance of pro play in a very undesirable way, while pros are forced to experiment with the new change without any common ground from the previous patch. Do you really want a pro play to be that unstable?
TL;DR: Complex game is complex. Balance is too complex of a topic for one metric to tell the whole story. Also, I reject the premise that all leagues should be balanced, because pro play matters much more than casual play. "race skill ceilings and race & units micro and macro capabilities" is an abstraction that is both vague and impractical.
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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 only natural that if both X and Y have the same number of players and X players tend to be placed higher in MMR system that means that simply X is more powerful.
Except "More Powerful" is meaningless if your ordering is undefined. If you have 80% winrate PvZ, 80% winrate ZvT and 80% winrate TvP, you can get a perfect distribution by your standards. Some would still argue this is not balance.
So the only viable balance indicator for all levels is the normalized MMR race distribution.
An indicator: yes, but it has so far failed to provide any significant information. "the only viable", of course not.
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On July 10 2012 22:50 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 22:42 Zanno wrote:On July 10 2012 22:41 BlaineMono wrote:On July 10 2012 22:23 Plansix wrote:
Doesn’t everyone know that amateur (aka not pros, even if GM level) players as extremely poor judges of another players overall skill. Many players naturally devalue their opponents skill level and simply blame the game as a whole. You're 100% right. Now, please kindly quote from OP a single line where I wrote an amateurs opinion of balance. In fact, please quote any line that says ANYTHING about anyones opinion on balance. Did you read the OP? I posted theory behind MMR league system and you have just replayed with something that has 0 correlation with what I wrote. okay I have very little respect for people that tell that balance should be made for top play only. Please don't troll.. How is that an opinion on balance? If you can't see a difference between an opinion on balance and opinion on the way people think the game should be balanced then you have proved you shouldn't be posting in this thread. I'm interested in logical discussion.
I would argue that there is little, to no difference between an opinion on balance and an opinion on the way the game should be balanced. I understand that you feel there are points where the two things differ. However, even if that is true, those points are so minute that any argument is simply splitting hairs.
The game should always be balanced to the highest skill level, as it should reward the players that put in more time and care more about their play. Of course, with all practices, this should be done within reason. Obviously, if there were some race/unit/build that was dominating the lower leagues to an extreme and hurting the game as a whole, something should be done. This breaking point of this is up for debate, but everyone can agree that there are points when things need to be made “accessible” for beginners, within reason.
But people who want the game balanced for their skill level have a flawed argument. Their reasons are selfish and they do not want to put in the time and effort to overcome their weaknesses. Some people are of the opinion that they are doing well and should be advancing, but they have simply hit the point in their skill where the time to improvement ratio has decreased. This is when a lot of players go to the balance arguments and claim that their opponents are less skilled then they are. The game should not be balanced around these complaints.
MMR does not factor into balance as well. It is an abstraction that allows Blizzard to match players that they will have a reasonable chance of winning against. It does not show the overall balance of the matchups, or which race is more powerful. Even if we found that some players from a specific race where better at some aspect of the game, it would be more likely that the race rewards that specific skill more than others.
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I generally dont post in these flamefests but here goes.. Balance at GM level is the only one that matters. Why? Because, that is the only group of people playing the game right or at the very least as right as possible they know more about what works and doesn't and are capable of actually seeing the game for what it is. When I was in bronze I thought void rays were imba as fuck, and now they are useless and I am only platinum. OP you need to chill out if people don't agree with you, that doesn't mean you are wrong it just means we don't agree stop getting so heated bro :D
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On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
It's always good to start a thread with a theme of "Hey idiots, look how smart I am!"
Maybe I did sound a bit arrogant for which I'm sorry, but look at this thread. You are the first person to even try to attempt a reasonable argument.
On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
That being said, MMR distribution across all leagues would be a useful metric, if we accept your premise that all leagues should be balanced. I don't.
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?
On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
However, MMR distribution has some problems, as well. It says nothing about preference at each level of play (maybe people who play casually prefer X race and therefore there is a higher representation in bronze-silver league). It also has no real reference point for per-matchup balance, which is where real discussion can be had and where problems with balance will be solved. This is why matchup winrates with normalization for MMR are also a good metric. Neither can be the only metric used.
There is no reason to belive that there is a preference at each level of play other than balance one. The burden of proof that there exists such a trend is on the person claiming.
On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
Finally, the most important level of play is the professional level, where there is actual money on the line.
On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
Finally, the most important level of play is the professional level, where there is actual money on the line. When you add a new mechanic/unit/ability to the game (which I'm assuming is what you're getting at because it is an overly vague statement) you can't predict how the top-of-the-top players will use that ability. This means that this type of balance would completely disrupt the balance of pro play in a very undesirable way, while pros are forced to experiment with the new change without any common ground from the previous patch. Do you really want a pro play to be that unstable?
Professional level play is really messy atm. Besides each recent patch caused instability. That's not a valid argument. The thing i was suggesting wouldn't cause any more mess that the avarage patch brings.
I appreciate the post :-)
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On July 10 2012 22:16 imMUTAble787 wrote:
balance around GM or tournament data only since those players are outliers concerning MMR
/thread
He pretty much gave the answer right there
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On July 10 2012 23:18 Oshuy wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Show nested quote +It's only natural that if both X and Y have the same number of players and X players tend to be placed higher in MMR system that means that simply X is more powerful. Except "More Powerful" is meaningless if your ordering is undefined. If you have 80% winrate PvZ, 80% winrate ZvT and 80% winrate TvP, you can get a perfect distribution by your standards. Some would still argue this is not balance.
I don't really understand what you mean by perfect distribution. Care to elaborate? And the ordering is defined if you identifiy skill as some number (even if it's only a changing approximation for each player).
Show nested quote +So the only viable balance indicator for all levels is the normalized MMR race distribution. An indicator: yes, but it has so far failed to provide any significant information. "the only viable", of course not.
What I meant by only viable, is the only viable for us, not Blizzard. Which I stated in OP. If you think otherwise please post which other ones. I hope you don't mean opinions of players (not even top ones).
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On July 10 2012 22:16 imMUTAble787 wrote:
balance around GM or tournament data only since those players are outliers concerning MMR
/thread
Why was the the thread not closed after this?
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Qatar284 Posts
On July 10 2012 23:00 VanGooL wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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On July 11 2012 00:10 toiletCAT wrote:Show nested quote +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. 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.
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On July 10 2012 23:40 Sylverin wrote:
I generally dont post in these flamefests but here goes.. Balance at GM level is the only one that matters. Why? Because, that is the only group of people playing the game right or at the very least as right as possible they know more about what works and doesn't and are capable of actually seeing the game for what it is. When I was in bronze I thought void rays were imba as fuck, and now they are useless and I am only platinum. OP you need to chill out if people don't agree with you, that doesn't mean you are wrong it just means we don't agree stop getting so heated bro :D
Hey, I don't mind people not agreeing with me when they explain the reasoning behind their argument. Just tired of those drones above writing a single line: 'Balance should be made based on GM and pro' and not even giving any argument why. You also make a flawed argument by saying the same about GM, and then you give an example of bronze player, like there is nothing in between those leagues. You think what people do in masters and diamond or w/e doesn't make any sense? Where do you draw the line? What does it mean someone's a GM? Being a GM means anything only in a context; a context that there are other people in other leagues, that the guy is better than.
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LoL. Your post have a good timing.
I finished today my resarch about MMR - Race distribution with the userdata i have from my mmr tool
Way more accurate than leagues.
Will publish the data today...
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Very thinly disguised balance whine.
If you think you're smarter than the balance team, you can apply for their job. Or you can do what others have attempted: create a mod with your own "balance". And then stare into space as nobody plays it.
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On July 10 2012 23:55 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +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...
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On July 11 2012 00:14 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +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. 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 mention bronze, then you mention masters, then someone mentions GM. So where do you draw the line? Balance on the ladder is only a lost cause if you think balance for pros is the lost cause. Even pros abilities drasticly grow over time which according to your argument would make the balance deprecate over time...
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On July 11 2012 00:19 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +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: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. 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 mention bronze, then you mention masters, then someone mentions GM. So where do you draw the line? Balance on the ladder is only a lost cause if you think balance for pros is the lost cause. Even pros abilities drasticly grow over time which according to your argument would make the balance deprecate over time...
Ideally I'd draw the line at pros, because the gap between even a mediocre pro player and an average GM player is massive. However, I'd be fine with including GM and maybe very high Masters just because it would give a larger sample size. I don't care, for example, that sub-Masters TvP is Protoss favoured because Terrans in that league lack the mechanics to make things work. I only care if/when it's an issue at the highest level, because until then the players who are having trouble can simply improve and start winning again.
We should always be balancing for the highest level of competition that we have.
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On July 11 2012 00:18 Heh_ wrote:
Very thinly disguised balance whine.
If you think you're smarter than the balance team, you can apply for their job. Or you can do what others have attempted: create a mod with your own "balance". And then stare into space as nobody plays it.
I understand what you wrote and it's definately easy to be on the complaining side. But I think all reasonable people (including the pros) can agree that Blizz balancing team (DK & DB) have absolutely no clue what they are doing and they don't seem to mind it.
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On July 11 2012 00:10 toiletCAT wrote:Show nested quote +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. 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.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On July 11 2012 00:14 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 23:40 Sylverin wrote:
I generally dont post in these flamefests but here goes.. Balance at GM level is the only one that matters. Why? Because, that is the only group of people playing the game right or at the very least as right as possible they know more about what works and doesn't and are capable of actually seeing the game for what it is. When I was in bronze I thought void rays were imba as fuck, and now they are useless and I am only platinum. OP you need to chill out if people don't agree with you, that doesn't mean you are wrong it just means we don't agree stop getting so heated bro :D Hey, I don't mind people not agreeing with me when they explain the reasoning behind their argument. Just tired of those drones above writing a single line: 'Balance should be made based on GM and pro' and not even giving any argument why. You also make a flawed argument by saying the same about GM, and then you give an example of bronze player, like there is nothing in between those leagues. You think what people do in masters and diamond or w/e doesn't make any sense? Where do you draw the line? What does it mean someone's a GM? Being a GM means anything only in a context; a context that there are other people in other leagues, that the guy is better than.
You haven't given much of an answer to what should be done to balance all through the leagues either. You haven't even begun to. All you've done is call more or less everyone stupid then said that we should magically balance everything through microability and changed macro abilities.
Being a pro or at least GM means you know what you're doing and how small details change the matchups. The guy you quoted typed it out for you but it seems you missed it. Here it is again: People in platinum/diamond/masters can look at what people at the top are doing and if they practise enough and have enough innate RTS skills they should be able to increase their winrate.
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On July 11 2012 00:22 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 00:18 Heh_ wrote:
Very thinly disguised balance whine.
If you think you're smarter than the balance team, you can apply for their job. Or you can do what others have attempted: create a mod with your own "balance". And then stare into space as nobody plays it. I understand what you wrote and it's definately easy to be on the complaining side. But I think all reasonable people (including the pros) can agree that Blizz balancing team (DK & DB) have absolutely no clue what they are doing and they don't seem to mind it.
So you think you're better than them? Create your own mod, and watch it fail hilariously.
All reasonable people? You're deluding yourself.
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On July 11 2012 00:19 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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On July 10 2012 23:40 BlaineMono wrote:
Maybe I did sound a bit arrogant for which I'm sorry, but look at this thread. You are the first person to even try to attempt a reasonable argument. I'm the first person to ignore the tone of the post and respond. There is plenty of legitimate discussion on this forum, but if you open your thread this way you discourage discussion.
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?
On July 10 2012 23:40 BlaineMono wrote:There is no reason to belive that there is a preference at each level of play other than balance one. The burden of proof that there exists such a trend is on the person claiming. Firstly, there is no burden of proof. This is a discussion, not a court of law. If you find my argument to be uncompelling, I will attempt to provide evidence, but I'm ultimately fine with you disagreeing. I am of no obligation to prove anything to you.
Secondly, I didn't make any claim here. What I said was that the statistic that you were referencing has the problem of not being able to account for these tendencies which are bound to exist. For example, several of my friends who played the game casually, played Terran simply because that was the only race in the campaign.
While this is anecdotal and not proof that a preference exists, it is a good example of the type of preference that would confound the usefulness of MMR distribution as a metric of balance.
On July 10 2012 23:40 BlaineMono wrote:Professional level play is really messy atm. Besides each recent patch caused instability. That's not a valid argument. The thing i was suggesting wouldn't cause any more mess that the avarage patch brings. Your opinion of the professional play level is your own. I find it to be acceptable.
The types of patches that we are currently seeing are inherently more stable changes than core gameplay. Wait until the HotS beta is out and you'll see what I mean.
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On July 11 2012 00:23 imMUTAble787 wrote:Show nested quote +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?
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There is no reason to belive that there is a preference at each level of play other than balance one. The burden of proof that there exists such a trend is on the person claiming.
Blizzard has already confirmed that at lower levels, there is a preference for Terran by the players who begin playing ladder after learning the game through playing the campaign.
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proof read your OP's next time, it's hard to take you seriously when you talk about intelligence and can't even spell words correctly. Whine! 
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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?
If there were a standard of perfect play that we could actually observe, then we'd balance around that, but the fact is that we have no way of knowing what that play would look like. What we do know is that the first people that are going to get there are the pros, and we know this because of the way BW evolved. Therefore, we need to make sure the game is balanced based on strategies the pros implement and discover, because their mechanics are the ceiling for what anyone has achieved right now. When the pros improve enough to change the metagame, it's worth changing the balance, but until then, we want to keep this game exciting and competitive.
Either way, nothing about what you suggest entails that we should be balancing for the even scrubbier players.
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guys your discussion leads nowhere you just flame eachother.
I calculated balance data with mmr and can prove the statistic significant without having to relay on assumptions or win/loose ratio or inaccurate league system.
I publish it as soon as i have ok from mods because i dont want it to turn out like this thread...
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On July 11 2012 00:33 TrippSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +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?
On July 11 2012 00:38 llSpektrll wrote:proof read your OP's next time, it's hard to take you seriously when you talk about intelligence and can't even spell words correctly. Whine!
Hey, thanks for your great input. I really must be the person with worst english on the planet, right? I'm not really a native english speaker. I'd really enjoy you even try to speak my language. Next time please try to address the points made. Or if you actually want to be any constructive you can point out where i made mistakes so at least some good can come out of it.
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On July 11 2012 00:41 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +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?
Because the game is played by humans, and humans are better at the game than bots?
Now you're grasping at straws.
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On July 11 2012 00:41 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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Regardless of MMR, it seems like match winrates are still the best indicator of balance. MMR targets an overall winrate of 50%, but you only have 1 MMR. If a matchup is imbalanced, you'd expect overall winrates in that matchup to be <50%.
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On July 11 2012 00:41 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +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?
I'm starting to think you're just trolling.
The fact is that there is an industry that surrounds this game at the highest currently attainable level. It makes sense to balance around that industry. That shouldn't need much more elaboration to make sense.
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On July 10 2012 23:40 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
It's always good to start a thread with a theme of "Hey idiots, look how smart I am!"
Maybe I did sound a bit arrogant for which I'm sorry, but look at this thread. You are the first person to even try to attempt a reasonable argument. Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
That being said, MMR distribution across all leagues would be a useful metric, if we accept your premise that all leagues should be balanced. I don't. 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? Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
However, MMR distribution has some problems, as well. It says nothing about preference at each level of play (maybe people who play casually prefer X race and therefore there is a higher representation in bronze-silver league). It also has no real reference point for per-matchup balance, which is where real discussion can be had and where problems with balance will be solved. This is why matchup winrates with normalization for MMR are also a good metric. Neither can be the only metric used.
There is no reason to belive that there is a preference at each level of play other than balance one. The burden of proof that there exists such a trend is on the person claiming. Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
Finally, the most important level of play is the professional level, where there is actual money on the line.
Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 23:14 TrippSC2 wrote:
Finally, the most important level of play is the professional level, where there is actual money on the line. When you add a new mechanic/unit/ability to the game (which I'm assuming is what you're getting at because it is an overly vague statement) you can't predict how the top-of-the-top players will use that ability. This means that this type of balance would completely disrupt the balance of pro play in a very undesirable way, while pros are forced to experiment with the new change without any common ground from the previous patch. Do you really want a pro play to be that unstable?
Professional level play is really messy atm. Besides each recent patch caused instability. That's not a valid argument. The thing i was suggesting wouldn't cause any more mess that the avarage patch brings. I appreciate the post :-)
Posting from my phone so I can't edit the post down but in regards to the 80% PvZ, 80%ZvT, and 80%TvP he means that by your metric the game would appear balanced P,Z,T all 50% overall winrate but when you check the PvX stats you'd see that P is completely OP vZ but terrible vT which is why no one metric can truly represent balance. They're all inherently flawed on their own.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
Let us assume (and I think it is a fair assumption) that there exists Perfect P, Perfect T, Perfect Z, a state of playing each race perfectly. This Perfect state can be represented by a set of numbers that represent various skills, abilities, game sense, BOs, mechanics, etc that make up the Perfect P/T/Z. We assume that each element in the set is equal in importance, or we can group together sub-elements to create equal elements. Each P T or Z set can contain different skills even though they are denoted by the same numbers. These elements are also assumed to be of equal value.
Now, we assume another kind of state, Imperfect P, T and Z, states of playing each race with variance from perfection. The higher the level of play, the lower the variance; the lower the level of play, the higher the variance from the Perfect set.
(Note: I do not mean variance in a statistics context (how far a number strays from the mean). In this case it basically means how different something is from the Perfect set).
Assuming the game is balanced at the Perfect set level, each set Perfect P/T/Z should be equal in value. Assuming the game is balanced at some Imperfect set (-x) P/T/Z, all variations of those Imperfect sets should be equal.
Each player can be simplified into a set of different skills for their race, and the game should be balance for an "average" set. The argument we keep having is whether that average set should only consist of data from Pro players, or consist of Data from ALL players of all skill levels. My argument is that there is too much variance in lower levels for their data to be useful or reasonable to be used in balancing the game.
Let me explain.
Perfect state P or T or Z contains {1, 2, 3, 4, ... 100}; this is the perfect state of playing each race.
Imperfect state, with variance, will contain less than 100. However, Imperfect states with equal variance (that is, equally far from the Perfect state), may or may not contain the same numbers even though they are equally skillful (since we assume each element is of equal skill value).
I denote it "Imperfect set (variance from Perfect) example letter {}"
Imperfect T set (-1) A: {1, 2, 4, ... 100}
Imperfect T set (-1) B: {1, 3, 4, ... 100}
See, that both Imperfect sets (-1) A and B vary from the Perfect set by 1 element, but that element is different for each set. These two sets can be assumed to be GM players of equal skill.
Now let us look at two Silver players:
Imperfect T set (-80) C: {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20}
Imperfect T set (-80) D: {21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40}
You can see that both C and D players should be equal in skill (-80) from Perfect. However, how they differ from the Perfect set is completely different.
Now, if we have two players of different races, with equal skill, but also different skillsets:
Imperfect P set (-80) E: {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20}
Imperfect Z set (-80) F: {21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40}
What I am trying to illustrate is that at the Perfect State of playing the game, there is far less variance between each player. At lower levels of the game, there is greater variance in each person's skillset and ability, even though they are of equal overall skill. Herein lies the difficulty in balancing at lower levels of the game: there is greater variance in skills, abilities, game sense, mechanical skill, etc.
Do note that I am not saying that the game should not be balanced at lower levels; I am saying that because there is greater variance, it is almost impossible to balance the game for each Imperfect skillset. Taking my example of a silver league player with Imperfect set (-80), there are... well, an absurd number of different skillsets(100 choose 20) to balance for. At near perfect levels, there are only 100 choose 99/90/some high number different skillsets or player types to balance for. It is almost impossible to find Imperfect P set (-99) i = Imperfect T set (-99) i = Imperfect Z set (-99) i. Where i = all variations of these sets.
Do we balance the game based on each race's Perfect state, or do we balance at the Imperfect state?
Obviously we have yet to reach the Perfect set, and we most likely never will, but balancing based on players closer to the Perfect set is easier and more stable than balancing for all levels. I'd even argue, based on my above arguments, that it is impossible to balance at lower levels.
TL;DR: It's impossible to balance at lower levels because there is too much variance with the skillsets for lower league players.
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You are underestimating the knowledge, studies, careers and wits of many people inside this community. You are being so arrogant, and worst, without numbers, statistics, results and real discussion you are being plainly absurd.
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The reason you cant balance easily at low levels without affecting the upper levels is that glaring holes in peoples play make the balancing process very difficult. When i was in silver, my macro was (relatively) very good; if I was allowed to take a 3rd uncontested and just macro up i had a very high win percentage. However, my micro was absolutely terrible; so if i was under any form of pressure that required micro i would almost always lose. At the pro level, things are much closer and that should ultimately be what is examined for balance.
And seeing as that is the case, please stop threads like this; they inevitably become balance whine.
Thnik about how long was zerg destroyed by protoss in BW before the bisu build compared to the month and a half since the queen buff that people are complaining about. thats what patches do; they make you reevaluate your strategies and explore new styles/areas of play.
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On July 11 2012 00:45 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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On July 11 2012 00:51 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +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 perfect play is unattainable by a human being and doesn't even look anything like what a human being will ever be able to do.
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On July 11 2012 00:51 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +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.
It's a cop out because you're stupid if you don't understand that we can't know what true perfect play is. Also you've not suggested anything that would actually balance every league, all you've done is said it should be done with micro/macro mechanics yet nothing more concrete than that.
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On July 11 2012 00:48 TrippSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +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? I'm starting to think you're just trolling.The fact is that there is an industry that surrounds this game at the highest currently attainable level. It makes sense to balance around that industry. That shouldn't need much more elaboration to make sense.
If you are not trolling. Please reread this thread without the assumption that you are right.
Lower leagues need a modicum of balance to make things fun. MMR will balance out the inconsistencies as long as things are reasonably even.
Professional play needs a very balanced game so that skill, not race selection, is the deciding factor.
Ideal play (balancing for perfect macro/micro, like the OP suggests) makes for interesting theory-crafting. But, it's a moot point.
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Qatar284 Posts
On July 11 2012 00:14 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +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. 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.
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On July 11 2012 00:51 BlaineMono wrote:Show nested quote +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),
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On July 11 2012 00:57 toiletCAT wrote:Show nested quote +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: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. 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.
They aren't losing games and money because of balance. They losing because they suck and make fundamental mistakes. The gameplay that exists in Gold league isn't even really Starcraft 2. It is to Sc2 what HORSE is to basketball.
It's not like noobs are suffering because of any balance changes, anyway. Whenever there's been something stupidly overpowered that's affected everyone, it's been promptly changed. As a game, though, Sc2 is past those sort of problems. At a low, low level, the better player will usually win.
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On July 11 2012 00:54 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +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. It's a cop out because you're stupid if you don't understand that we can't know what true perfect play is. Also you've not suggested anything that would actually balance every league, all you've done is said it should be done with micro/macro mechanics yet nothing more concrete than that.
I don't want to give any example of such change because, as I stated in the OP, I don't want to even bring concrete race discussion to this thread. This was suppose to be the discussion of MMR league system more than anything else. I'm sure everyone can think of a change that doesn't include changing damage or range but the way a particular unit works.
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On July 11 2012 00:49 lichter wrote:
Let us assume (and I think it is a fair assumption) that there exists Perfect P, Perfect T, Perfect Z, a state of playing each race perfectly. This Perfect state can be represented by a set of numbers that represent various skills, abilities, game sense, BOs, mechanics, etc that make up the Perfect P/T/Z. We assume that each element in the set is equal in importance, or we can group together sub-elements to create equal elements. Each P T or Z set can contain different skills even though they are denoted by the same numbers. These elements are also assumed to be of equal value.
Now, we assume another kind of state, Imperfect P, T and Z, states of playing each race with variance from perfection. The higher the level of play, the lower the variance; the lower the level of play, the higher the variance from the Perfect set.
(Note: I do not mean variance in a statistics context (how far a number strays from the mean). In this case it basically means how different something is from the Perfect set).
Assuming the game is balanced at the Perfect set level, each set Perfect P/T/Z should be equal in value. Assuming the game is balanced at some Imperfect set (-x) P/T/Z, all variations of those Imperfect sets should be equal.
Each player can be simplified into a set of different skills for their race, and the game should be balance for an "average" set. The argument we keep having is whether that average set should only consist of data from Pro players, or consist of Data from ALL players of all skill levels. My argument is that there is too much variance in lower levels for their data to be useful or reasonable to be used in balancing the game.
Let me explain.
Perfect state P or T or Z contains {1, 2, 3, 4, ... 100}; this is the perfect state of playing each race.
Imperfect state, with variance, will contain less than 100. However, Imperfect states with equal variance (that is, equally far from the Perfect state), may or may not contain the same numbers even though they are equally skillful (since we assume each element is of equal skill value).
I denote it "Imperfect set (variance from Perfect) example letter {}"
Imperfect T set (-1) A: {1, 2, 4, ... 100}
Imperfect T set (-1) B: {1, 3, 4, ... 100}
See, that both Imperfect sets (-1) A and B vary from the Perfect set by 1 element, but that element is different for each set. These two sets can be assumed to be GM players of equal skill.
Now let us look at two Silver players:
Imperfect T set (-80) C: {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20}
Imperfect T set (-80) D: {21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40}
You can see that both C and D players should be equal in skill (-80) from Perfect. However, how they differ from the Perfect set is completely different.
Now, if we have two players of different races, with equal skill, but also different skillsets:
Imperfect P set (-80) E: {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20}
Imperfect Z set (-80) F: {21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40}
What I am trying to illustrate is that at the Perfect State of playing the game, there is far less variance between each player. At lower levels of the game, there is greater variance in each person's skillset and ability, even though they are of equal overall skill. Herein lies the difficulty in balancing at lower levels of the game: there is greater variance in skills, abilities, game sense, mechanical skill, etc.
Do note that I am not saying that the game should not be balanced at lower levels; I am saying that because there is greater variance, it is almost impossible to balance the game for each Imperfect skillset. Taking my example of a silver league player with Imperfect set (-80), there are... well, an absurd number of different skillsets(100 choose 20) to balance for. At near perfect levels, there are only 100 choose 99/90/some high number different skillsets or player types to balance for. It is almost impossible to find Imperfect P set (-99) i = Imperfect T set (-99) i = Imperfect Z set (-99) i. Where i = all variations of these sets.
Do we balance the game based on each race's Perfect state, or do we balance at the Imperfect state?
Obviously we have yet to reach the Perfect set, and we most likely never will, but balancing based on players closer to the Perfect set is easier and more stable than balancing for all levels. I'd even argue, based on my above arguments, that it is impossible to balance at lower levels.
TL;DR: It's impossible to balance at lower levels because there is too much variance with the skillsets for lower league players.
Wow great post.
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Qatar284 Posts
On July 11 2012 00:58 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +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: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. 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. They aren't losing games and money because of balance. They losing because they suck and make fundamental mistakes. The gameplay that exists in Gold league isn't even really Starcraft 2. It is to Sc2 what HORSE is to basketball.
It's as much StarCraft 2 as the gameplay in Grandmaster league is StarCraft 2, you cannot argue against that, and really, that was a dumb-ass argument.
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On July 11 2012 00:57 toiletCAT wrote:Show nested quote +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: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. 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.
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On July 11 2012 00:59 toiletCAT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 00:58 Shiori 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: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. 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. They aren't losing games and money because of balance. They losing because they suck and make fundamental mistakes. The gameplay that exists in Gold league isn't even really Starcraft 2. It is to Sc2 what HORSE is to basketball. It's as much StarCraft 2 as the gameplay in Grandmaster league is StarCraft 2, you cannot argue against that, and really, that was a dumb-ass argument.
I can argue against that. I just did. People playing at a Bronze level aren't playing the game well/properly. There's no way to balance for them, barring egregious problems, because they're basically just screwing around relative to what actual skilled players do.
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On July 10 2012 22:37 Zanno wrote:Show nested quote +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. no, it isn't if you tried to balance brood war across all levels, you'd end up nerfing protoss into the ground, because protoss is by far the strongest at low level play, and as a result top level korean professional play becomes even more of a tvz-fest than it already is so your entire argument has been shut down in 1 run-on sentence, i'm afraid
the problem is that sc1 is a different game and the balance there is well... different. If you force people below diamond to play sc1 as T and Z they would suck, but not because the balance is bad but because the game mechanics punish slow players too much for Z and T. Those kind of things have been fixed. The OP is right in saying that the balance can be achieved not only by messing with unit stats.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
On July 11 2012 00:59 aintthatfunny wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 00:49 lichter wrote:
Let us assume (and I think it is a fair assumption) that there exists Perfect P, Perfect T, Perfect Z, a state of playing each race perfectly. This Perfect state can be represented by a set of numbers that represent various skills, abilities, game sense, BOs, mechanics, etc that make up the Perfect P/T/Z. We assume that each element in the set is equal in importance, or we can group together sub-elements to create equal elements. Each P T or Z set can contain different skills even though they are denoted by the same numbers. These elements are also assumed to be of equal value.
Now, we assume another kind of state, Imperfect P, T and Z, states of playing each race with variance from perfection. The higher the level of play, the lower the variance; the lower the level of play, the higher the variance from the Perfect set.
(Note: I do not mean variance in a statistics context (how far a number strays from the mean). In this case it basically means how different something is from the Perfect set).
Assuming the game is balanced at the Perfect set level, each set Perfect P/T/Z should be equal in value. Assuming the game is balanced at some Imperfect set (-x) P/T/Z, all variations of those Imperfect sets should be equal.
Each player can be simplified into a set of different skills for their race, and the game should be balance for an "average" set. The argument we keep having is whether that average set should only consist of data from Pro players, or consist of Data from ALL players of all skill levels. My argument is that there is too much variance in lower levels for their data to be useful or reasonable to be used in balancing the game.
Let me explain.
Perfect state P or T or Z contains {1, 2, 3, 4, ... 100}; this is the perfect state of playing each race.
Imperfect state, with variance, will contain less than 100. However, Imperfect states with equal variance (that is, equally far from the Perfect state), may or may not contain the same numbers even though they are equally skillful (since we assume each element is of equal skill value).
I denote it "Imperfect set (variance from Perfect) example letter {}"
Imperfect T set (-1) A: {1, 2, 4, ... 100}
Imperfect T set (-1) B: {1, 3, 4, ... 100}
See, that both Imperfect sets (-1) A and B vary from the Perfect set by 1 element, but that element is different for each set. These two sets can be assumed to be GM players of equal skill.
Now let us look at two Silver players:
Imperfect T set (-80) C: {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20}
Imperfect T set (-80) D: {21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40}
You can see that both C and D players should be equal in skill (-80) from Perfect. However, how they differ from the Perfect set is completely different.
Now, if we have two players of different races, with equal skill, but also different skillsets:
Imperfect P set (-80) E: {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20}
Imperfect Z set (-80) F: {21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40}
What I am trying to illustrate is that at the Perfect State of playing the game, there is far less variance between each player. At lower levels of the game, there is greater variance in each person's skillset and ability, even though they are of equal overall skill. Herein lies the difficulty in balancing at lower levels of the game: there is greater variance in skills, abilities, game sense, mechanical skill, etc.
Do note that I am not saying that the game should not be balanced at lower levels; I am saying that because there is greater variance, it is almost impossible to balance the game for each Imperfect skillset. Taking my example of a silver league player with Imperfect set (-80), there are... well, an absurd number of different skillsets(100 choose 20) to balance for. At near perfect levels, there are only 100 choose 99/90/some high number different skillsets or player types to balance for. It is almost impossible to find Imperfect P set (-99) i = Imperfect T set (-99) i = Imperfect Z set (-99) i. Where i = all variations of these sets.
Do we balance the game based on each race's Perfect state, or do we balance at the Imperfect state?
Obviously we have yet to reach the Perfect set, and we most likely never will, but balancing based on players closer to the Perfect set is easier and more stable than balancing for all levels. I'd even argue, based on my above arguments, that it is impossible to balance at lower levels.
TL;DR: It's impossible to balance at lower levels because there is too much variance with the skillsets for lower league players. Wow great post.
Well I'm glad someone read it because I stopped laddering to type all that >.>
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Qatar284 Posts
On July 11 2012 00:59 Heh_ wrote:Show nested quote +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: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. 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.
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On July 11 2012 00:57 13_Doomblaze_37 wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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On July 11 2012 01:03 toiletCAT wrote:Show nested quote +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: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. 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.
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Okay guys. I know from the OP, Blaine here comes off kind of arrogant and superior. Put that aside, though, and he makes multiple good points. For what concrete reasons can a game not be accurately balanced throughout all skill levels. And it seems to me that his balance checking suggestion is one of the most intuitive I've heard in a long time.
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Qatar284 Posts
On July 11 2012 01:01 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 00:59 toiletCAT wrote:On July 11 2012 00:58 Shiori 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:On July 10 2012 22:51 BlaineMono wrote:On July 10 2012 22:50 Koshi wrote:
[quote]
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. 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. They aren't losing games and money because of balance. They losing because they suck and make fundamental mistakes. The gameplay that exists in Gold league isn't even really Starcraft 2. It is to Sc2 what HORSE is to basketball. It's as much StarCraft 2 as the gameplay in Grandmaster league is StarCraft 2, you cannot argue against that, and really, that was a dumb-ass argument. I can argue against that. I just did. People playing at a Bronze level aren't playing the game well/properly. There's no way to balance for them, barring egregious problems, because they're basically just screwing around relative to what actual skilled players do.
No, you cannot, and you did not. You cannot say that one player is playing the game "more properly" than another. What I think you're on about is "balancing the game after the better player's standpoint", which is a method that I think is good. Also, I don't know why you're talking about balancing the game specifically by catering to lower leagues, that would be dumb.
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On July 11 2012 01:05 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +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:On July 10 2012 22:51 BlaineMono wrote:On July 10 2012 22:50 Koshi wrote:
[quote]
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. 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.
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Qatar284 Posts
On July 11 2012 01:05 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +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:On July 10 2012 22:51 BlaineMono wrote:On July 10 2012 22:50 Koshi wrote:
[quote]
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. 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.
I never disagreed with what "everyone (lol)" said, in terms of balancing. I simply pointed out that it's wrong to exclude the majority of players because they're "worse" than you.
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On July 11 2012 01:07 Roxor9999 wrote:Show nested quote +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:On July 10 2012 22:51 BlaineMono wrote:
[quote]
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. 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.
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Qatar284 Posts
On July 11 2012 01:07 Roxor9999 wrote:Show nested quote +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:On July 10 2012 22:51 BlaineMono wrote:
[quote]
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. 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.
And now is the time where I realize I'm too mature for this discussion. :-) Toodles.
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Arrogant OP is arrogant. It easy to come up with an analogy that effectively shows a major flaw with this argument. Let’s switch the sport from Starcraft to Tennis and change “race” to the brand of tennis racket that the players use.
OP, ask yourself this, would your analysis still work in this situation? If a high proportion of bad players use a brand famous for beginner rackets, does it matter to the professional player at all? Moreover, is it even useful in this situation to include statistics from separate tiers outside the highest ones?
There is no reason to belive that there is a preference at each level of play other than balance one. The burden of proof that there exists such a trend is on the person claiming.
What a piss poor application of Russel’s teapot. When the default hypothesis itself is an assertion, you can’t plug your ears and ignore the alternative explanations for the data. This kind of bull shit is what makes me strongly concerned on how well you did in statistics and the stability of your “logical” assertions.
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To lichter, your notation is awful, poorly explained and so your explanation does not make sense.
Whether the game is balanced around the top players, the theoretical best possible play, the average player or Bronze league players is a design decision that doesn't really have anything to do with math and statistics.
The OPs suggestion to use the number of players of each race in each league as a proportion of the total number of players of each race is flawed. Different races maybe easier or harder to play. For example, P is considered easy to play at a low level, so it may have a small proportion of players in GM simply because a very large proportion of Bronze players play P, i.e. Bronze players can stuff up GM stats.
Blizzard's "skill-adjusted" win ratio is the best measure of balance. It's a posterior mean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes_estimator#Posterior_mean), which basically means it's a function of skill, such that if you sub in a skill level you get the probability of winning for a player of that skill in a particular matchup, derived using Bayesian inference. We know it's a posterior mean because they showed the equation at Blizzcon (the equation can be found on the Internet if you look for it). Essentially, it gives the probability of winning in a matchup when skill is fixed at some level, say the top 1%.
Looking at Korean (or global) tournament win rates is an OK measure of skill, but the problem is that it isn't skill adjusted, or equivalently, it is skill-adjusted under the assumption that all the players in the sample are equally skilled, which is a wrong assumption, although probably not wrong enough to make these tournament stats worthless. So there are some issues with using tournament stats.
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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.
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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.
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Denmark657 Posts
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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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mods really failing at leaving this garbage thread open
OP is obviously a troll. at least i hope so for his sake
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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.
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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.
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United States13896 Posts
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EPT
