[D] VS Random ? - Page 22

On January 05 2013 06:02 kill619 wrote:
1. You have to make quite a few assumption to assume that any given random player will, on average be worst, how ever your defining "worst", than his opponent. Even if those assumption could be made, which they can't be, why do random players deserve any advantage for willingly picking a, very arguably, harder race?

2. Pretty sure I've only been trying to find out why this advantage exist, why random need's some sort of incentive to be played. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough on that. Yes, random, in some ways, is harder way to play, with or without your race being hidden, but that's the point. It's suppose to be challenge, there for people who want more of a challenge because the player finds picking their own race boring or too easy. So what's the point of creating more of an incentive than what would already exist if random didn't have the race hidden?

Again, it's not an opinion. Stating that something exist != explaining why something exist or what purpose it serves. If you asked me, "Why is the sky blue?", and I responded, "It's always been that way" technically be correct but it would take away from the fact that my statement has nothing to do with why the sky is blue. The, "If somethings broken and it can be fixed it shouldn't be kept for tradition's sake", was a turn of phrase(?) not meant to be taken literally and in the context of our other argument. If something can be improved, the fact that it hasn't been for x amount of time isn't a reason against not doing it.

On January 05 2013 08:46 Ashent wrote:
Again, if an R player rolls Z in an RvP - and then just hatches first and plays out a 'normal' game against someone who did an uneconomical opening that they were forced into, how is that fun? How is that fair?

On January 05 2013 08:58 kill619 wrote:
If playing random is truly harder than main-ing a race, which I agree it is to an extent, and having your race hidden is an advantage, wouldn't the win rates for random only represent the diffidence in difficultly between picking a race and random not compensated for by your race being hidden, the compensation itself requiring some experimenting to even begin to quantify? Even if on average a random player will be worst than an equally ranked non random player, I don't understand why it makes since to introduce such an element of chance into the game. It seems so counter intuitive to go through the trouble of making a match making system that does such a good job of giving players such evenly matched opponents and such a balanced game to turn around and tell the player,"Is your opponent random? Man, better hope he's not good enough to overcome the disadvantage he gave him self combined with the advantage we gave him too". Random, or offracing, already messes with how the match making system interprets a players skill, so I don't understand how they could think it would be a good idea to mess with it a little more by hiding the race. The only advantage I can think of to this whole thing is that the advantage in the early game allows random players to win more in their weaker match ups(kinda have to exclude higher level play where the gimmicks aren't enough to overcome skill) lowering their mmr's uncertainty, making their ranking slightly more accurate and making Random player's games "closer". Even that explanation is trumped by the fact that they could have just had separate ranks for each race on an account and have the "Random" option just tap into one of those ranks.

I get that playing random is fun and isn't meant to and probably never will be viable, hidden race or not, at the highest levels of play, but something about giving players the option of any sort of an advantage in such a competitive setting as a ranked match making system, where most people care so much about winning as it is, seems misplaced. Maybe having it as an option in custom and arcade games would be fun, but feels like it contrast the competitive aesthetic(?) a match making system creates.

Your last sentence seems a bit ironic.Of all the fun things about playing random the only things that's ruined by revealing the race is the ability to "have fun" at the expense of non-Random players.

On January 05 2013 08:58 kill619 wrote:
Your last sentence seems a bit ironic.Of all the fun things about playing random the only things that's ruined by revealing the race is the ability to "have fun" at the expense of non-Random players.

On January 05 2013 06:02 kill619 wrote:
2. Pretty sure I've only been trying to find out why this advantage exist, why random need's some sort of incentive to be played. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough on that. Yes, random, in some ways, is harder way to play, with or without your race being hidden, but that's the point. It's suppose to be challenge, there for people who want more of a challenge because the player finds picking their own race boring or too easy. So what's the point of creating more of an incentive than what would already exist if random didn't have the race hidden?

...The, "If somethings broken and it can be fixed it shouldn't be kept for tradition's sake", was a turn of phrase(?) not meant to be taken literally and in the context of our other argument. If something can be improved, the fact that it hasn't been for x amount of time isn't a reason against not doing it.

On January 05 2013 08:46 Ashent wrote:
Again, if an R player rolls Z in an RvP - and then just hatches first and plays out a 'normal' game against someone who did an uneconomical opening that they were forced into, how is that fun? How is that fair?

On January 05 2013 08:58 rd wrote:
Why does anyone care if it's not fun to you?

On January 05 2013 08:58 rd wrote:
He is statistically worse than the protoss on average. Why does anyone care if it's not fun to you? Muta base trades aren't fun therefore they aren't fair either; which I guess means they should be nerfed to satisfy what I want on ladder, lol. Tell me when a random manages to take a game off a relevant top level protoss when they hit zerg -- whenever a random can actually get within MMR range.

On January 04 2013 11:36 Larkin wrote:


What about Random vs Random?

On January 05 2013 09:30 rd wrote:


That's a very general issue with match-making though, lol. When you queue up against the random player who's as good as you, you're basically queueing against a slightly favored opponent. You're just as likely to hit the random whos on par with you in a match-up as you are hitting up a Terran who is simply a better player -- he doesn't even have to be rated higher either. Either way, there are way too few random players to dent the ladder's rating inflation. The entirety of the match-making rating system is shaken by much more common abuses of rating inflation/deflation: You could be a Zerg with a sick ZvP but terrible ZvT. Any protoss you fight will get stomped as your MMR is held back by the fact you lose more often than normal to Terran. You could simply be smurfing and purposefully tanking your MMR to stomp lowbies. MMR inflation is pretty normal, and random is by far one of the most benign forms of it. In a game with multiple races you can't expect people to be equally competent against all three of them -- let alone be trusted to exert their full effort and achieve their proper rating.

Random doesn't really have any advantages in an even rating setting. If it were a perfect world maybe randoms would be slightly better, but the nature of ladder means you will never always have an even match-up with ANY race; random included. Theres nothing wrong with random in a competitive setting where skill levels vary pretty wildly. You generally break even at equal ratings, and you have occasional favored for and against with all races including random. The only time random is really affected by ladder is when the skill levels asymptote at top ratings and random players can no longer win by being better than their opponent.

Every race has early game advantages, but because they're advantages of a traditional race it's okay -- fuck random. Random exists with hidden races. It's not the other way around. Non-random players bear the burden that it's a material fact of life; you dont simply wish it gone. You can literally take that exact idea and strawman it to oblivion with ANYTHING in starcraft 2 that isn't fun: Ling run-by's are fun for zerg at the expense of Terran and Protoss, etc. SC2 is a game of solving problems. Problems aren't always fun. If you don't enjoy brick walls, SC2 probably isn't for you.

On January 05 2013 19:42 Latringuden wrote:
TL;DR: You won't know if your opponent will rush/early push/preassure you even if you know your opponents race if you don't scout. The Random players should always be scouted early. This makes Random a non-issue and just gives more joy to the player who enjoys playing Random.

On January 05 2013 13:02 kill619 wrote:


1.Sure, I'd agree that's a problem with the match making system that I would also argue is made worst by having random, in any form, as an option, but for the sake of staying on topic lets just assume that were talking about a RvX game where no matter what match up gets rolled that the Random player is of the same skill level as his opponent, seeing as how that't the only way you could balance Starcraft and it's match making system based on player skill.(if were gonna keep talking about this)


2. "Random doesn't really have any advantages in an even rating setting"

I don't even know where you stand on this any more.

"The advantage wasn't given to them because they deserved it"

"The race being hidden balances this out just a little to alleviate the difficulty."

"You suggest random to be removed as it currently functions, i.e. remove the hidden race mechanic; the only thing that makes random remotely advantageous"

"All of your complaints bring up the advantages of playing random when the disadvantages massively overwhelm them."

"The advantage they gain from this balances (not really) the fact that random is ridiculously difficult and unviable."

These are all things quoted directly from you in the past page of this thread. If you don't think the problem exist, I play terran but iirc there are some problems with ZvR and PvR openings that have talked about plenty of times before, probably even in this thread. If you do think it exist, then welcome back to the conversation. There's an advantage, also acting as an incentive, to the race option Random in the form of hiding the Random players race. The advantage isn't enough to matter at the highest skill levels, but it's still enough to alter how matches are played and their outcomes just about every where else.

From the player perspective, it creates trolls who play random to abuse the lack of information a non-Random opponent suffers from and introduces an element of chance into an otherwise very skill driven game. By the way, I'm not saying that every person playing random is doing so to abuse it, but that there are players who purposely opt to not reveal their race, abuse their opponents lack of information, and bm opponents for the advantage that was given to them by the game hiding their race. From the match making perspective, It gives random players the option to inflate their mmr by winning games, with the help of the advantage given to them, against opponents that they may not have been capable of beating if both players had had the the same information of each others race at the very beginning of the game. So why does it exist?
The only answer that makes any sense is that it's suppose to be an incentive to players to play mulitplayer in a more challenging way than picking their own race, but even in that case why do you need an incentive attched to playing random and, if it's really necessary incentivise playing random, why would make that incentive something as game altering as hiding one players race? More or better portriats, decals, just about anything cosmetic really, getting more ladder point for wins, etc. would have made for fine incentives without messing with other players experience of the multiplayer. I just don't understand why they would make this decision.

On January 05 2013 19:55 rd wrote:


You're mixing up three separate ideas. Let me summarize my statements: Even rating =/= even skill level. Random's MMR gets slightly inflated by the fact the race is hidden, so a random player is on average worse at an even rating, but has an equal chance to win. At an even skill level they're likely favored just a little in rating. This interaction only exists in the lower leagues because everyone has the capacity to have such hugely varying skill differences -- this is infinitely more impactful than ANY advantage one particular race can offer. When you get to high levels the random player can no longer outplay opponents to the extent he did before; the advantage of the hidden race is made all but irrelevant. Ladder inflation isn't a problem as much as it's a simple fact of life on ladder. It's not an issue of random, it's just the nature of how the ladder attempts to gauge skill. If theres a problem at all it's with the ladder system itself, and you'll probably never get a system more accurate with multiple races (keyword: multiple races cause inflation not random).

You're also taking a bunch of issues that are general to the ladder and the playerbase and associating it with random, and then presumptuously touting random as the problem behind it. ALL races have trolls; ALL races have advantages that incentivize playing them; ALL races have portraits and decals; ALL races are capable of being played for fun -- and given how few random players there are, random represents the least trolls of any race. Baseless complaints amount to evidence only of an issue with a player who can't deal with random and not random itself. Stop acknowledging them, lol. Seriously. Should EVERY complaint be acknowledged as an issue of the game? You have yet to prove anything other than random is irrelevant -- but certainly not an issue.

Random's MMR gets slightly inflated by the fact the race is hidden, so a random player is on average worse at an even rating

On January 05 2013 23:47 kill619 wrote:




Saying it's inflated because of hidden race(HR) assumes that a Random player is benefiting from their advantage and saying that a random player of even rating is, on average, worse than their opponent(ie. not a 50% chance of winning) assumes that that same player would decide to stop using their advantage, despite it still being available to them. The first assumption can be made, but the second can't, at the very least not simultaneously. Unless I'm misinterpreting you and your referring to the players whose mmr will be inflated to the threshold of mmr's where players' skill negates the advantage, which I would predict is still well above the majority of the 1v1 population on any server, and thus worth looking into if not to make any changes to random at least understand why it exists with HR.

That aside, I did and still do agree with you that there is a problem with the match making system, but would go further to say that random, HR or not, exacerbates the problem. Hypothesizing that if the problem exist because of how much variance in skill one account can have in 3(4) match ups as a race picker, then the option of random having 9(12) allows for more variance in skill that one's rank has to attempt to account for. It creates a larger uncertainty(Standard deviation) for your mmr than what already exist if the player were only playing one race, resulting in less evenly skilled matches and a less effective match making system. HR, however, doesn't have much to do the topic,as interesting a topic it is. When HR is thrown in to the equation, as you said, it inflates the average rank of random players up until an unspecified "high level of play". A sort of icing on the cake that is a match making system that still has room for improvement. The match making probably could have been designed in such a way that an account is given an mmr for every specific match up in the game(Random not included) and use that mmr, for race pickers and random players,to be used for match making.

I suppose my troll argument is based on the fact that HR gives you the opportunity to win games vs players you wouldn't be able to beat without it and the assumption, imo a safe one but still one that doesn't have any proof, that most players are more annoyed and flustered by bm during or after losing than they are by listening to whine after beating a bm'er. I'll concede that point.

I'm not out to prove anything or bash anyone, just interested in why HR exist. If it's there to be a fun and different way to play the game, why introduce the mechanic to ranked match-making and force people who are, can be somewhat assumed if there playing ranked making, looking to play the most competitive and skill based mode multiplayer has to offer to deal with HR? It's not like random suddenly becomes pointless to play if the races where revealed, there are plenty of random players who already willingly reveal their race. There are so many reasons that exist outside of the HR advantage for wanting to play random, so if it's suppose to be purely an incentive to play as random I don't really understand that either. Like I said a few post ago, there are so many other incentives that could have been used that wouldn't alter how the game functions. What's the need for an incentive to play random anyway? Even if they went about it in such a way that didn't affect game play or the ranking system, what to be gained from doing exactly? What's to be gained by trying to get more people to play random? I don't see the motive behind all of it.