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Edit cuppatea did some nice numbers about tournaments, watch it before looking at the graphic.
I used some numbers from (sc2ranks.com) to look at the Racial Distribution at high niveau. My visualisation of the numbers can be found here (a version from two days later):
![[image loading]](http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/9784/racediamond.png)
While it is known that Blizzard's Matchmaking Algorithm is functional (TL Thread), it was not clear how the same win percentage per race was computed. Some told that there is a racial divergence between diverse skill levels (Bronze League to Diamond League), because new player tend to stay at the campaign's race Terran and the Zerg mechanics may be harder to learn. An alternative to this hypothesis is that people tend to chose race's which let them easier win. If this would be true we should see a race more often if it makes winning simplier. This does not mean that if a race wins often this race would be more easy to play.
Some suggested to compare the racial distribution (RD) at high skill levels as indicator for imbalance or more likely as indicator for the lack of exploitable gamestyle. I think this indicator should be seen as a trend on higher skill levels - and more important as it's change, if either new strategies and tactics are discovered, or there are gameplay changes (patches, etc.) implemented.
The upcomming patch will change gameplay in special situations quite heavily and we should see a shift in the high level racial distribution over some time (player's Inertia) till an equilibrium is found again (I am not sure if there will be an equilibrium, but it could exist). The time of the shift and the endtime will be good situations to overlook some presumptions we can create right now.
I think it would be interesting to do estimations about the post patch use of various units, since it gives us a little time to figure out new concepts before they are established on all servers. This thread could be general discussion about those changes - if it gets more strategy biased it could be moved to the strategy directory.
*Edit: Added Sample Count*
*Edit: Good post, with things I would like to see happen*
*Edit: Data as CSV*
*Edit: Added the "plus" to the 1500 Intervall*
*Edit: Someone made a picture of the absolute numbers as you see the comparision is impossible without adjusting the scale*
*Edit mahnini did a nice post with a combined intervall 1100 to 1400*
*Edit Cotonou did a post in which he tries to motivate a null-distribution with the percentage of gold's league (P/T/Z/R 38%/32%/20%/10%) - if he is right, we should see no shift at all on the high level after the patch is released, but the same which happens on the gold level.*
*Edit: Good arguments:
The percentage will change fast in the top 20, my argument: we can look at the trend of the top 200. There is a racial bias in every league and we have to look at distribution's change to tell stuff. There is a temporal error in it which can be cleared with a second measurement right after the patch gets uploaded.
But still my question is: What are we able to tell with this data? What would we think will happen if the patch changes gameplay? Is there a distribution's equilibrium right now? This are the important questions I really would like to see answered.
*
*Edit: Added the version from today * + Show Spoiler +
*Edit: Toxigen made a nice comment and linked us back to the beta's history and the old racial distribution.*
*Edit: Scarmath crawled sc2ranks.com and grouped players into bins, before finally performing Individual Chi Square tests and shows us his findings.*
*Edit Scarmath and Sentinent have done some calculation I agree with and visualized them on this page ff.*
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am i reading this wrong... or is it a lot easier to be a low level diamond player as terran than any other race?
which i firmly believe... haha =/. A Zerg and Terran player of equal skill... the Terran will get more wins/points/easier division bump... ?
just my 2 cents... ya i guess im crying imba =/
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This is so LOOOL oh dear good please NERF all terran units
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On September 02 2010 07:43 mnofstl007 wrote:
am i reading this wrong... or is it a lot easier to be a low level diamond player as terran than any other race?
which i firmly believe... haha =/. A Zerg and Terran player of equal skill... the Terran will get more wins/points/easier division bump... ?
just my 2 cents... ya i guess im crying imba =/
You're reading it wrong. Protoss has the most from 600-1100, and then Terran takes over from there.
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it means absolutely nothing because the sample size is tiny at the right end of the graph
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I'm going to guess that around 1200 is when people are able to stop 4 gate pretty well.
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8751 Posts
On September 02 2010 07:46 cup of joe wrote:
it means absolutely nothing because the sample size is tiny at the right end of the graph
There is no sample size. This is a graph of the entire population.
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On September 02 2010 07:46 cup of joe wrote:
it means absolutely nothing because the sample size is tiny at the right end of the graph
It appears to be 28k players. That is rather large compared to the total population. Even if it was, assuming the distribution is normal within diamond, even 1000 players would be more than enough to make reasonable conclusions with a reasonable margin of error.
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Thats pretty convincing, sure the sample size is smaller at the top end of the graph but your talking about very refined players at that area as well. This means less inconsistency in the results of the game ( ie losing to dumb mistakes, off racing, or cheese loses/wins ). We're taking about basically the top 600 players in the world where it is extremely terran heavy ( I checked on sc2 rankings, the 600th ranked person is very close to the 1200 mark ).
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'high niveau'? Random French...
This is so LOOOL oh dear good please NERF all terran units
yeah let's not. I thought that this was what people mocked WoW players for.
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On September 02 2010 07:46 cup of joe wrote:
it means absolutely nothing because the sample size is tiny at the right end of the graph
I disagree that it means absolutely nothing. Because regardless of numbers, the right end of the graph represents the "top players", and it shows that amoung them, Terran is dominate.
However, it would be nice to see the sample size there to put it into context.
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On September 02 2010 07:45 Dionyseus wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 07:43 mnofstl007 wrote:
am i reading this wrong... or is it a lot easier to be a low level diamond player as terran than any other race?
which i firmly believe... haha =/. A Zerg and Terran player of equal skill... the Terran will get more wins/points/easier division bump... ?
just my 2 cents... ya i guess im crying imba =/ You're reading it wrong. Protoss has the most from 600-1100, and then Terran takes over from there.
ooooooo
i read it backwards.
its a lot easier for terran to be at the TOP of their diamond leagues... got it thx
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On September 02 2010 07:50 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 07:46 cup of joe wrote:
it means absolutely nothing because the sample size is tiny at the right end of the graph There is no sample size. This is a graph of the entire population.
Not quite. He means that there are so few players at the highest point levels that you can't use that information reliably.
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I guess something about Terran just naturally attracts all the really sick players, right? (/sarcasm)
But it's interesting how the % of Terran takes off like an exponential while zerg/protoss fall off. Random is perhaps the most interesting; it looks like some really sick players enjoy playing it (maybe for the challenge?), while not-as-sick players try it but cant succeed to the degree that they might if they picked a race and mastered it.
The random peak in zerg at 1300 suggests cup of joe could be correct in asserting that the sample size is too small at these higher point values. Otherwise the trends seem pretty clear.
EDIT: As of Wednesday night, 20 players are over 1500, 48 between 1400 and 1500, 92 from 1300 to 1400, and 205 between 1200 and 1300, for a total of 365 people in the range that shows terran dominance.
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8751 Posts
As far as I know, sc2ranks is pretty damn comprehensive of Diamond, especially high Diamond (where it seems some people have a problem with the "sample size"). Yeah, the number of people in the 1500+ group is small but that doesn't mean that there is a problem with the sample size. These numbers aren't extrapolated from a small population of the 1500+ Diamond group. These numbers directly represent that group.
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it means absolutely nothing because the sample size is tiny at the right end of the graph
Almost certainly a terran player who doesnt want your godmode race to be nerfed...
The sample size is significant enough to give good results and for whatever reason it is showing that terran players make up 60% of 1500+ players. It would be very interesting to see this in comparison to the amound on players overall.
For example if 60% of all players play terrain and 60% of players at 1500 diamond are terran its nothing unexpected. However if 33% of players are terrain and 60% of players at 1500 diamond are terran then there obviously is some cause for concern
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On September 02 2010 07:52 Sentenal wrote:
I disagree that it means absolutely nothing. Because regardless of numbers, the right end of the graph represents the "top players", and it shows that amoung them, Terran is dominate.
However, it would be nice to see the sample size there to put it into context.
You can't just say 'regardless of numbers'. If there was 1 player and he was Zerg there would be 100% Zerg.
~15 people isn't completely meaningless but it's not too huge either. It's hard to tell whether actual gameplay concerns or just perception are more influential. Either way, we shouldn't just go crazy on a kneejerk reaction. We need small steps, and also to factor in maps and such.
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@cup of joe even if the sample size is small on the right side it still means something... You just have to be more carefull about what you are telling. For example the 1500 entry got a total of 20 which is big enough for my opinion. If you go to 1400 you even got 36 and a little more down at 1000 you got 971 entries. If you watch some geographical studies you often ask 40 to 200 people, leading to a subset of a dozen people which is quite bad, but often enough to motivate further questioning.
In fact I think that the top 100 player are quite more important regarding the game's ultimate balance than the player below that. I guess that the top 100 player on the ladder aren't the top 100 player in the world, though.
We need small steps, and also to factor in maps and such.
@Redmark I absolutely agree, I think it is clear that minor gameplay changes can have huge impacts (nerfing the reaper speed down by 0,1 means one extra hit off creep). I think the map factor is quite important if we watch the distribution's change. Korean BW Pro-League maps are much more special than most of the SC2 maps, right now.
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Pretty eye-opening, it seems.
I'm glad that this graph pulls up an interesting point though, Terrans aren't really that overpowered except at high levels in the hands of 1000+ point diamond players.
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So, as long as you are not 1200+ diamond, imbalance is too small to have an effect? I can live with that, thought it is worse. What about win percentage, does it favor terran in top diamond that much as well? *is checking sc2ranks.com*
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/7462/racediamond2.png)
