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On August 10 2010 15:34 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Zerg units are just not cost efficient since Protoss and Terran all have hard counters to Zerg units. The whole point of Zerg was to have weak, cost efficient units that can overwhelm the opponent, but now you have the same number of units, except your units die 10x as fast as his.
And you can replace your whole army 7x as fast as they can
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On August 10 2010 22:38 ooni wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 22:35 floor exercise wrote:
I feel like I'm getting dumber talking to you. Yep. Thx for the insult once again. However, the data still stands sorry to say. You would have to prove to me there are large proportion of mixed race, non-random players to change the data significantly for me to believe the data is wrong. It is you who is looking at this wrongly. Sorry to say.
But floor exercise is right, you are misinterpreting the data. Just the fact that a match making algorithm tries to match you against equal foes means that no simple "intuitive" statistical analysis is going to cut it, in the end it might just mean that zerg is beating on noobs in low diamond while terran and toss are playing PvT and mirrors in the upper echelon. My own experience is that I met a lot more zergs at high plat/low diamond than I am now in mid diamond (500-600), but the difference is that there's an actual point to be made about sample sizes in this case.
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On August 10 2010 21:06 cuppatea wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 21:01 ooni wrote:My Opinion Why Zerg isn't the weakest Race using statistics Just look at the statistics http://sc2ranks.com/stats56.17% (212,622) 56.50% (880,884) 56.82% (705,525) 56.32% (595,742) Look zerg win ratio is 0.2% lower than Protoss. I mean it must be the weakest. Whole 0.2%! 0.2%! I can definately tell the difference win and losing when it's 0.2%! That's the statistics for Zergs in Diamond league, top 1000 in fact. I reckon -+1% error give or take. Wait maybe Zerg is weaker at lower level of play. At Silver level: 49.74% (254,037) 49.38% (1,257,351) 49.41% (1,056,340) 49.44% (719,253) Okay... Nope just nope. I will believe Zerg is the weakest race when the statistics says so. Not just Zerg players' subjective view. You do realise the whole idea of the AMM is to give people evenly matched games, thus ensuring all but the very best have a win ratio hovering around the 50% mark, right? If they nerfed Terran into oblivion next patch, the Terran guy with a 50% win ratio in gold would just be winning 50% of his games in silver instead. The above stats say nothing about the balance of the game.
@ Ooni. You can argue all you want about your statistics and confidence intervals and data relevance, but I love how you completely ignore the several other posters who brought up this completely valid argument that invalidates the conclusion you have reached. Is it because you know you are wrong, but just want to keep arguing about something to save face? Or are you just a troll?
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On August 10 2010 23:30 Boona wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 22:38 ooni wrote:On August 10 2010 22:35 floor exercise wrote:
I feel like I'm getting dumber talking to you. Yep. Thx for the insult once again. However, the data still stands sorry to say. You would have to prove to me there are large proportion of mixed race, non-random players to change the data significantly for me to believe the data is wrong. It is you who is looking at this wrongly. Sorry to say. But floor exercise is right, you are misinterpreting the data. Just the fact that a match making algorithm tries to match you against equal foes means that no simple "intuitive" statistical analysis is going to cut it, in the end it might just mean that zerg is beating on noobs in low diamond while terran and toss are playing PvT and mirrors in the upper echelon. My own experience is that I met a lot more zergs at high plat/low diamond than I am now in mid diamond (500-600), but the difference is that there's an actual point to be made about sample sizes in this case.
And yet zergs are EXACTLY as well-represented at all levels of diamond as you would expect from the overall population distribution.
So the match-making works, diamond zergs win 56.32% of the time, and they are always 20% of the distribution. There is no evidence of a balance problem.
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1 supply roach ruins ZvZ (not that its not kinda bad right now, but it was straight up terrible before)
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On August 10 2010 23:30 PanzerDragoon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 15:34 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Zerg units are just not cost efficient since Protoss and Terran all have hard counters to Zerg units. The whole point of Zerg was to have weak, cost efficient units that can overwhelm the opponent, but now you have the same number of units, except your units die 10x as fast as his. And you can replace your whole army 7x as fast as they can
This doesn't really matter when you are losing far far far far more than they are. It's rather pointless to use 200 supply to only kill 20 supply. So no matter what you still losing the battle because he only has to resupply that 20 instead of your 100 odd. I don't see how this argument of faster replacing of army is a valid one.
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On August 10 2010 15:18 McCain wrote:
Zerg are on slightly lower footing with the other races on one base, but by far exceed the other races' macro ability when the base numbers start going up. No other race can make 14 workers simultaneously. Zerg may be weak (to Terran) but macro strength isn't the reason.
*agree*
The reason zerg is good at high level play is because of it's macro power. Once tier 3 on multiple bases, zerg is nearly impossible to put down.
That being said, i still really think that zerg needs another unit to fill the ranks (something at 1 food, anything at 1 food really)
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On August 10 2010 23:23 kajeus wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 21:36 Jameser wrote:also On August 10 2010 21:06 cuppatea wrote:On August 10 2010 21:01 ooni wrote:My Opinion Why Zerg isn't the weakest Race using statistics Just look at the statistics http://sc2ranks.com/stats56.17% (212,622) 56.50% (880,884) 56.82% (705,525) 56.32% (595,742) Look zerg win ratio is 0.2% lower than Protoss. I mean it must be the weakest. Whole 0.2%! 0.2%! I can definately tell the difference win and losing when it's 0.2%! That's the statistics for Zergs in Diamond league, top 1000 in fact. I reckon -+1% error give or take. Wait maybe Zerg is weaker at lower level of play. At Silver level: 49.74% (254,037) 49.38% (1,257,351) 49.41% (1,056,340) 49.44% (719,253) Okay... Nope just nope. I will believe Zerg is the weakest race when the statistics says so. Not just Zerg players' subjective view. You do realise the whole idea of the AMM is to give people evenly matched games, thus ensuring all but the very best have a win ratio hovering around the 50% mark, right? If they nerfed Terran into oblivion next patch, the Terran guy with a 50% win ratio in gold would just be winning 50% of his games in silver instead. The above stats say nothing about the balance of the game. this, league win% says nothing besides whether the match making system is working, and as pointed out by mr.terran, it does. Ok, whatever. But combine some of what he says -- zerg players in diamond have identical win ratios to protoss and terran players in diamond -- with the fact that zergs are as well represented in diamond, at all levels, as they are in the general population. This is true even AFTER you adjust for the unexpectedly high rate (by 1.15%) at which zergs make it to diamond. Now, if zergs are getting identical win rates in diamond AND are as well-represented at all levels of diamond as you would expect them to be going by their overall proportion of the overall population, there is STRONG EVIDENCE that there is no balance problem. Some have suggested that the overall distribution data is useless because people can race-switch a lot and still say labelled as one or the other. Yeah, maybe tons of people do that. Maybe they don't. Diamond players probably don't. Everything lines up so well with prediction that it seems like a minor issue, but no data set is ever perfect. The more important thing is that there is exactly ZERO statistical evidence for an underpowered zerg.
My point is that no conclusions on balance can be drawn on the limited, flawed, second hand data available to us.
I am not trying to prove, based on those stat sites, that zerg is underpowered. Under represented, sure. Draw from that what you will.
On the other hand, just about every thread has people citing these numbers like they actually mean something to the contrary. They don't work either way. Interpretation of this data is an exercise is futility, there is nothing to be learned from it.
Any conclusions made from these stat sites can be debunked very easily, because they all rely on very convenient assumptions. We have secondary data mined from profile pages and interpreted in whatever manner suits the person looking at it. To put it bluntly, anyone who thinks its reliable data is stupid, on either side of the balance arguments.
Blizzard are the only ones with the real statistics, it doesn't matter which way you look at what we have, it's not what they have and only by pure happenstance could it reflect what they have. Why people want to continue formulating these opinions on incomplete data is beyond me. Conjecture with random numbers is still just conjecture.
On the other hand, we are more than capable, with a little leg work, of compiling the outcome of every tournament and show match game which could act as a fairly reliable snapshot of high level balance. From the first round to the finals, of every zotac since phase 2, every craft cup, every IEM, every Wolf cup, etc. There's real data from at least 1000 games right there, not incomplete secondary data gleaned from a ladder designed to keep people at 50% win rate.
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On August 10 2010 23:37 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 23:30 PanzerDragoon wrote:On August 10 2010 15:34 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Zerg units are just not cost efficient since Protoss and Terran all have hard counters to Zerg units. The whole point of Zerg was to have weak, cost efficient units that can overwhelm the opponent, but now you have the same number of units, except your units die 10x as fast as his. And you can replace your whole army 7x as fast as they can This doesn't really matter when you are losing far far far far more than they are. It's rather pointless to use 200 supply to only kill 20 supply. So no matter what you still losing the battle because he only has to resupply that 20 instead of your 100 odd. I don't see how this argument of faster replacing of army is a valid one.
sweet silver level hyperbole dude
my god, this is one giant circle jerk for crappy zerg players. Notice how it's all complaining and nothing about finding new strats, improving shitty mechanics or stuff like that?
I think I may have found out why you're all posting here!
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Well the players who do not play Zerg have made an excellent case as to why Zerg is fine.
I also do not play Zerg, therefore i consider my opinion about Zerg balance to be slightly more credible than someone who plays Zerg.
My verdict:
Zerg is fine, L2P.
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On August 10 2010 23:42 Opinion wrote:
Well the players who do not play Zerg have made an excellent case as to why Zerg is fine.
I also do not play Zerg, therefore i consider my opinion about Zerg balance to be slightly more credible than someone who plays Zerg.
My verdict:
Zerg is fine, L2P.
lol.
alternate reading: I enjoy stomping on your face with my tanks and licking your tears.
you are implying that those who play zerg are biased about zerg related balance decisions, but terran and protoss players are completely unbiased. Do you realize how retarded an argument that is? It is the flip side of the coin.
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New players are more likely to gravitate towards Terran and Protoss because those are the races you play as in the campaign. New players, however, are not the ones hitting the top of the ladder at this point in time.
Zerg was previously well represented at the top of the ladders and now they're not. In April there were 67 Zergs in the top 200 of the European ladder; now there are 48. In April there were 68 Zergs in the top 200 of the Korean ladder; now there are 50. I don't have the stats for the US ladder in April but I'm going to guess there were a lot more than the paltry 37 Zergs that sit in the top 200 now.
Why have Zerg numbers at the top of the ladder dwindled?
Why have Zerg results in tournament play nosedived?
Why is just about every Zerg out there convinced that the ZvT matchup is stacked in Terran's favour?
Why are top Terrans like Morrow and Demuslim agreeing with the above assessment?
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On August 10 2010 23:41 floor exercise wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 23:23 kajeus wrote:On August 10 2010 21:36 Jameser wrote:also On August 10 2010 21:06 cuppatea wrote:On August 10 2010 21:01 ooni wrote:My Opinion Why Zerg isn't the weakest Race using statistics Just look at the statistics http://sc2ranks.com/stats56.17% (212,622) 56.50% (880,884) 56.82% (705,525) 56.32% (595,742) Look zerg win ratio is 0.2% lower than Protoss. I mean it must be the weakest. Whole 0.2%! 0.2%! I can definately tell the difference win and losing when it's 0.2%! That's the statistics for Zergs in Diamond league, top 1000 in fact. I reckon -+1% error give or take. Wait maybe Zerg is weaker at lower level of play. At Silver level: 49.74% (254,037) 49.38% (1,257,351) 49.41% (1,056,340) 49.44% (719,253) Okay... Nope just nope. I will believe Zerg is the weakest race when the statistics says so. Not just Zerg players' subjective view. You do realise the whole idea of the AMM is to give people evenly matched games, thus ensuring all but the very best have a win ratio hovering around the 50% mark, right? If they nerfed Terran into oblivion next patch, the Terran guy with a 50% win ratio in gold would just be winning 50% of his games in silver instead. The above stats say nothing about the balance of the game. this, league win% says nothing besides whether the match making system is working, and as pointed out by mr.terran, it does. Ok, whatever. But combine some of what he says -- zerg players in diamond have identical win ratios to protoss and terran players in diamond -- with the fact that zergs are as well represented in diamond, at all levels, as they are in the general population. This is true even AFTER you adjust for the unexpectedly high rate (by 1.15%) at which zergs make it to diamond. Now, if zergs are getting identical win rates in diamond AND are as well-represented at all levels of diamond as you would expect them to be going by their overall proportion of the overall population, there is STRONG EVIDENCE that there is no balance problem. Some have suggested that the overall distribution data is useless because people can race-switch a lot and still say labelled as one or the other. Yeah, maybe tons of people do that. Maybe they don't. Diamond players probably don't. Everything lines up so well with prediction that it seems like a minor issue, but no data set is ever perfect. The more important thing is that there is exactly ZERO statistical evidence for an underpowered zerg. My point is that no conclusions on balance can be drawn on the limited, flawed, second hand data available to us. I am not trying to prove, based on those stat sites, that zerg is underpowered. Under represented, sure. Draw from that what you will. On the other hand, just about every thread has people citing these numbers like they actually mean something to the contrary. They don't work either way. Interpretation of this data is an exercise is futility, there is nothing to be learned from it. Any conclusions made from these stat sites can be debunked very easily, because they all rely on very convenient assumptions. We have secondary data mined from profile pages and interpreted in whatever manner suits the person looking at it. To put it bluntly, anyone who thinks its reliable data is stupid, on either side of the balance arguments. Blizzard are the only ones with the real statistics, it doesn't matter which way you look at what we have, it's not what they have and only by pure happenstance could it reflect what they have. Why people want to continue formulating these opinions on incomplete data is beyond me. Conjecture with random numbers is still just conjecture.
Well, for data that can be "interpreted in whatever manner suits the person looking at it," it sure is robust in its support of the argument that zergs are not underpowered. I have yet to see anyone use the data to argue that zerg is underpowered.
Would you please debunk my conclusions?
Any discussion of any data set will frequently come down to the imperfections of the data set. This is not a perfect data set -- none is -- but it's VERY convincing in its support of exactly one conclusion: that zerg is not underpowered.
Alternatively, if you would like to prove that this data set is genuinely worthless, feel free to do that. Simply saying that some people might raceswitch is a valid concern, but not enough to justify ignoring how well these numbers line up with what we would expect.
On the other hand, we are more than capable, with a little leg work, of compiling the outcome of every tournament and show match game which could act as a fairly reliable snapshot of high level balance. From the first round to the finals, of every zotac since phase 2, every craft cup, every IEM, every Wolf cup, etc. There's real data from at least 1000 games right there, not incomplete secondary data gleaned from a ladder designed to keep people at 50% win rate.
That sounds great -- even if I don't feel too good about using tournament data. If you or someone else puts together that data and finds a strong bias away from zerg -- taking into consideration the distribution of the entrants in each tournament -- everyone will be convinced that zerg is underpowered.
Remember that, in general, we would expect zerg to win about 20 - 24% of tournaments. (But, obviously, there would be a much smaller chance if few to no zergs actually entered the tournament.)
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I think the biggest contributing factor to "zerg being the weakest race" is that Zerg spend all their time complaining about balance instead of trying to come up with new builds and strats. All zerg are so stuck in the mind set of trying to be Idra, and just expanding and macroing up that they never try 1 base play, or delay queens, which are two things that I have been trying out recently.
Fast expanding and delaying the queen to get a roach den up faster for early defense has been working pretty well for me, and roach/speedling play is very effective until they start getting units with AOE damage, and then a late switch to heavy muta can take them by surprise kill their AOE units and then let the lings and roaches run everything over
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On August 10 2010 23:42 Opinion wrote:
Well the players who do not play Zerg have made an excellent case as to why Zerg is fine.
I also do not play Zerg, therefore i consider my opinion about Zerg balance to be slightly more credible than someone who plays Zerg.
My verdict:
Zerg is fine, L2P.
history teaches you shit, namely in this case, that the people complaining are babiess who haven't adapted yet.
seach all the fun pvz imbalance threads from 2006. Those tears went away as soon as someone with talent and a little creativity conjured up the bisu build and changed gameplay forever with the exact same game build as the year before....
this happens all the time with every little 'imbalance'. It happened in BW. It will happen in SC2.
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Also, I can't help but lol at all the suggestions about undiscovered zerg strategies. This is something that may be possible for other races who have more unit diversity and synergy, but it is clear that there is not much more that can be done with Zerg that hasn't already been done. Only two strats come to mind in this regard, utilizing overlord drops and nydus more effectively. Good players already do the former and the latter is very expensive and very easily deterred/countered by good players. What exactly do you imagine us zerg players "figuring out" somewhere down the line? It is just silly and a fall back argument for T, P players who otherwise admit to an imbalance to kick the can down the road so they can enjoy a longer period of dominance.
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On August 10 2010 23:50 cuppatea wrote:
New players are more likely to gravitate towards Terran and Protoss because those are the races you play as in the campaign. New players, however, are not the ones hitting the top of the ladder at this point in time.
Zerg was previously well represented at the top of the ladders and now they're not. In April there were 67 Zergs in the top 200 of the European ladder; now there are 48. In April there were 68 Zergs in the top 200 of the Korean ladder; now there are 50. I don't have the stats for the US ladder in April but I'm going to guess there were a lot more than the paltry 37 Zergs that sit in the top 200 now.
Why have Zerg numbers at the top of the ladder dwindled?
Why have Zerg results in tournament play nosedived?
Why is just about every Zerg out there convinced that the ZvT matchup is stacked in Terran's favour?
Why are top Terrans like Morrow and Demuslim agreeing with the above assessment?
There are 48 zergs, give or take a couple, in the top 200 of the US ladder. That 24%, which is exactly the percentage of diamond that is zerg.
April is a long time ago. A lot of people hated the roach food nerf, and it certainly started a psychological domino-effect.
As for your other questions, check it out: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=140724¤tpage=53#1048
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On August 10 2010 23:53 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 23:42 Opinion wrote:
Well the players who do not play Zerg have made an excellent case as to why Zerg is fine.
I also do not play Zerg, therefore i consider my opinion about Zerg balance to be slightly more credible than someone who plays Zerg.
My verdict:
Zerg is fine, L2P. history teaches you shit, namely in this case, that the people complaining are babiess who haven't adapted yet. seach all the fun pvz imbalance threads from 2006. Those tears went away as soon as someone with talent and a little creativity conjured up the bisu build and changed gameplay forever with the exact same game build as the year before.... this happens all the time with every little 'imbalance'. It happened in BW. It will happen in SC2.
There were mountains of terran tears a few months ago when toss was stomping their heads in. Those tears went away when blizzard *gasp* changed the balance!
What's your point?
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On August 11 2010 00:00 RxN wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 23:53 Hawk wrote:On August 10 2010 23:42 Opinion wrote:
Well the players who do not play Zerg have made an excellent case as to why Zerg is fine.
I also do not play Zerg, therefore i consider my opinion about Zerg balance to be slightly more credible than someone who plays Zerg.
My verdict:
Zerg is fine, L2P. history teaches you shit, namely in this case, that the people complaining are babiess who haven't adapted yet. seach all the fun pvz imbalance threads from 2006. Those tears went away as soon as someone with talent and a little creativity conjured up the bisu build and changed gameplay forever with the exact same game build as the year before.... this happens all the time with every little 'imbalance'. It happened in BW. It will happen in SC2. There were mountains of terran tears a few months ago when toss was stomping their heads in. Those tears went away when blizzard *gasp* changed the balance! What's your point?
So you mean to tell me that in just three months, people have figured out everything about SC2? When Broodwar is still evolving to this very day??
Or perhaps it's a new game filled with a bunch of people who have an inflated sense of skill. And those people just sit and copy pro strats without having the slightest clue why. Innovation is only happening at the tippy top of diamond and it's just a few months in.
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lets be real here- there WILL be a zerg buff / terran nerf in the first retail balance patch- i bet so much money on this.
I think its pretty silly but after trying my hand as zerg- they are just harder to play than terran. I don't think they are particularly imbalanced- but a small buff here and there would do alot to shut up all the whiners.
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EPT
