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On September 02 2010 08:13 Cade wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 08:01 Backpack wrote:
Popularity does not equal strength.
The fact that people have this *idea* that terran might be OP and that zerg might suck will make them play terran more. You see terran all the time at high levels simply because there are more terran than zerg. The more people cry "terran OP," the more people will switch over to it.
The top players are there because they are the best players. Not because of their race. The reason there are so many terrans at the top is because there are so many terrans overall. Your post is completely misinformed, and while this logic might hold true for the lower ranges (where terran is actually NOT overly popular, protoss is the most popular. Your logic is actually very flawed when concerning top level players
Did you and everyone else who quoted me saying similar things miss the part where i said people switch?
When Dimaga says "well, guess i'll play terran" it causes tons of other players to think that they should too. Top level players are the most likely to think that they need to switch races so they can move up to the next level (tournaments and what not.)
I know P is the most popular race on the whole diamond ladder but i'm talking about even higher level than that. At MLG there were 3 zergs out of 64 players. Without even taking skill into account the chances of seeing a zerg in the finals are terrible. Whenever a player switches from Z to T, you have one less zerg player at the top and one more terran.
Doesn't anyone find it odd that the zerg race keeps getting progressively worse overtime when there haven't even been any balance changes? When we look at players like IdrA, we see that if you stick to Zerg and keep on practicing, you will still be able to compete with the best. You don't see IdrA switching to T.
Which leads back into the mentality people have that switching from Z to T will make them better and that confidence will quite possibly make them perform better. All the Z who are left just whine and complain and don't put their heart into it anymore while the newly recruited T players are excited to go beat noobs with the "OP" race.
***I'm not saying this is what's going on, since nobody can say for sure, but i just want to show people that balance isn't as bad as they think it is. This could be (and i think it is) just a social problem.
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On September 02 2010 08:52 Pekkz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 08:41 Flipluck wrote:
Hmmm really makes you think. I wonder whats going to happen after patch 1.1, will the reaper and tank nerf really make a difference?
Hopefully more zerg throughout the diamond league by the end of September. Only in TvT  I really dont think that the patch will make a huge difference. The bio ball will be unchanged, and a 5 sec later zealot will ruin the ZvP matchup, and maby even TvP. How will they defend a zergling rush on two player maps that are really hard to defend now. It will be standard to go 10 gate i suppose..
agreed. Their PF with turret walls and their Terran Ball are being unchanged so the ZvT matchup isnt changing at all imo.
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On September 02 2010 08:59 Grummler wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 08:48 StarDrive wrote:On September 02 2010 08:46 Grummler wrote:On September 02 2010 08:21 MamiyaOtaru wrote:
I don't know how anyone can read this as anything but evidence that Terran is OP. Automatic match making keeps everyone at around %50 win ratio everywhere but the very top. Mhm, i read that thread about why everyone HAS to be around 50% win ratio because of match making, but no one could explain me, why all races also have nearly the same average points. Maybe you can, i would like to hear your reasoning. Also i want to point out, that the op coincidentally forgot to include the 1600+ column: Protoss: 40% Terran: 40% Zerg: 20% Oh, and there are 52 players between 1400 and 1600 (someone asked). And everyone talking about chi square and stuff is wrong, you cant do this kind of calculations for pure statistics like this, because we only have one measurement. You need more than one. What we could do is compare the different regions and calculate a chi square, standard derivation or whatever you want, but then you would have an answer to a different question (are the regions equal or not). What we would need are those statistics for different point of times. Then we were at least able to say if terran has a significant dominance over time. Actually we have 52 measurements for players between 1400 and 1600. It is sound to do a chi-squared test of goodness of fit to assess the fit of the observed distribution to a theoretical distribution. What did you measure then? Because if you measure the race distribution, its only one measurement. Sure its 52 players, but only one race distribution. Sure you could count them several times, but then you would have answers to different questions, like i already said. I mean, srsly ( i made those numbers up): Terran: 55% Protoss: 25% Zerg: 20% whats the standard deriviation? chi sqare? If anyone can tell me, i would be pretty surprised (cause you cant) Just in case: if someone calculates the average and its variance, i will ignore him.
I'm not really sure how to address all the issues here but the misunderstandings you're having are fairly subtle and many people who don't have a super strong statistics background have them so this isn't a simple case of someone completely misunderstanding statistics.
The first thing is in your interpretation of one sample, then if we measured the height of all males in the US to compute the average height, by your argument, that would also be one sample since there is only one US. To see more samples we would have to measure another instance of the universe. You can think of this loosely as a parallel universe, although this is not rigorous by any means.
You ask for the standard deviation which is a fair question. That is an important measure of a distribution and is important to assess the normal approximation of the binomial as I did in an earlier post. However, you did not specify which distribution you want the standard deviation of.
I will not go through all the theory and methodology of performing a chi-square goodness of fit test on a distribution here. But it suffices to say that it is sound and accepted practice. You can find more information here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson's_chi-square_test
I think if you gave your object of there being only one trend a bit more thought, you'd see that it doesn't really make sense to require multiple samples of distributions (not samples from a distribution) to perform this test. In that case, what would you be doing your fit on?
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I would be more interesting in win/loss statisics in each match for players in diamond. All this shows are general trends in race popularity at various points.
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On September 02 2010 08:58 EliteAzn wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 08:52 Pekkz wrote:On September 02 2010 08:41 Flipluck wrote:
Hmmm really makes you think. I wonder whats going to happen after patch 1.1, will the reaper and tank nerf really make a difference?
Hopefully more zerg throughout the diamond league by the end of September. Only in TvT I really dont think that the patch will make a huge difference. The bio ball will be unchanged, and a 5 sec later zealot will ruin the ZvP matchup, and maby even TvP. How will they defend a zergling rush on two player maps that are really hard to defend now. It will be standard to go 10 gate i suppose.. I'm kinda annoyed by this "omg I can't stop 6 pool anymore b/c of the 5 seconds" (sorry if you were refering to that, but there has been so many people QQ'ing about it). If you see a 6 pool, you WILL chrono your gate....so omg, your zealot will come out a second later...Really? (I want someone to elaborate more on this...)
I'm not really a protoss player so I'm not sure exactly on the issue so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is that p has to cut probes to defend against early pool because of the zealot nerf, so they have to cut probes all the time because of the threat of an early pool but if the opponent went standard they would be economically behind.
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On September 02 2010 09:11 Antisocialmunky wrote:
I would be more interesting in win/loss statisics in each match for players in diamond. All this shows are general trends in race popularity at various points.
Players in diamond will by definition have similar win loss statistics. But the trend is clear: strong players prefer Terran.
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On September 02 2010 09:06 blacktoss wrote:
Grummler, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Also I like how you ninja edited your previous post. At first, you actually had measurements, and now you have only percentages, which are meaningless. Yes, good job. You still have no idea what you're talking about.
This data is exactly analagous to the following experiment:
I have a coin, I want to see if it is fair or not. I flip the coin 50 times and record the results. I get:
Heads : 35
Tails : 15
Can I make any inference about the fairness of the coin?
You say I can't. But obviously I can. I can test the hypothesis that the coin is fair. You are full of it. The exacty same reasoning tools can be applied to the data about racial distribution at the top level. Can I ask and get a statistical answer to the question "Are the racial disparities solely due to random chance?", yes.
No, you cant. Cause you totaly ignore the amount of ppl playing that race. And i "ninja edited" my post, cause the op gives us no absolut numbers like i did in my example. Just because you understood that high school math example doesnt prove anything.
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@EliteAzn the raw data can be found in the link I gave in my first post. It is clear how I did the numbers (except for one little thing, the 1500 is in fact 1500+ because there are only 9 above 1600). Anyhow here is the data.
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Alternative explanation: Racial differential in skill scaling:
Terran has the most mechanics that have higher skill caps, i.e., to master (get full potential) out of the Terran, it requires more skill than the other races. (Followed by toss, then zerg.)
This means that since 99.99% of people don't have the skill to reach that level, Blizzard balancing for most people leaves mostly Terrans at the top.
Solution: Make the other races more interesting by adding skill-differentiating abilities - don't just nerf and buff units. E.g., make roaches interesting again by increasing their regen and lowering their hp; Add an early game spell to zerg like toss has with sentry; make sentries do 8 dmg again.
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On September 02 2010 09:12 Grummler wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 09:06 blacktoss wrote:
Grummler, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Also I like how you ninja edited your previous post. At first, you actually had measurements, and now you have only percentages, which are meaningless. Yes, good job. You still have no idea what you're talking about.
This data is exactly analagous to the following experiment:
I have a coin, I want to see if it is fair or not. I flip the coin 50 times and record the results. I get:
Heads : 35
Tails : 15
Can I make any inference about the fairness of the coin?
You say I can't. But obviously I can. I can test the hypothesis that the coin is fair. You are full of it. The exacty same reasoning tools can be applied to the data about racial distribution at the top level. Can I ask and get a statistical answer to the question "Are the racial disparities solely due to random chance?", yes. No, you cant. Cause you totaly ignore the amount of ppl playing that race. And i "ninja edited" my post, cause the op gives us no absolut numbers like i did in my example. Just because you understood that high school math example doesnt prove anything.
Grummler, we can deduce the actual numbers by looking at the site ourselves, so we can perform statistical tests. I do agree that it requires more than just percentages, but it is possible as I have shown in a previous post. No need to attack other posters. Just respond to their arguments logically.
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On September 02 2010 09:12 Grummler wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 09:06 blacktoss wrote:
Grummler, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Also I like how you ninja edited your previous post. At first, you actually had measurements, and now you have only percentages, which are meaningless. Yes, good job. You still have no idea what you're talking about.
This data is exactly analagous to the following experiment:
I have a coin, I want to see if it is fair or not. I flip the coin 50 times and record the results. I get:
Heads : 35
Tails : 15
Can I make any inference about the fairness of the coin?
You say I can't. But obviously I can. I can test the hypothesis that the coin is fair. You are full of it. The exacty same reasoning tools can be applied to the data about racial distribution at the top level. Can I ask and get a statistical answer to the question "Are the racial disparities solely due to random chance?", yes. No, you cant. Cause you totaly ignore the amount of ppl playing that race. And i "ninja edited" my post, cause the op gives us no absolut numbers like i did in my example. Just because you understood that high school math example doesnt prove anything.
http://sc2ranks.com/stats/race/all/1
Right on the original post. Yes, yes they did.
And, once again. Yes you can. There are two possibilities here. Either you did not click on the most important link in this thread (the one with the actual data on it), or you do not understand statistics at all. Or both. Which is it?
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On September 02 2010 09:07 Backpack wrote:
***I'm not saying this is what's going on, since nobody can say for sure, but i just want to show people that balance isn't as bad as they think it is. This could be (and i think it is) just a social problem.
I'm not gonna quote the whole thing as I'm afraid it might be blown out of context, but this tidbit here is quite interesting.
It could be just a social aspect of the Sc2 community right now for players to switch from Z to T. I'm not saying that I'm a pro or anything but to me the balances are as severe as people are making them out to be, I'm having a ton of trouble with Reapers yeah but beyond that I feel I can compete with the Terran, albeit even if it feels like I'm putting more effort into my part.
What am I trying to get at? Nothing really, but it might be interesting to see wether or not players switch out of T soon after the patch JUST because of the fact that they are getting nerfed, not the fact that the nerf is effecting the race so heavily.
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@TitleRug I did not include the 1600 intervall because I thought it would be to small since it would contain five entries. I thought about calling the last intervall 1500+ but thought it would be to much for the a post in the internet.
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On September 02 2010 09:18 ReplayArk wrote:
@TitleRug I did not include the 1600 intervall because I thought it would be to small since it would contain five entries. I thought about calling the last intervall 1500+ but thought it would be to much for the a post in the internet.
Fair enough
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LOLOL hahaha
Everybody likes the terran 
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Only a basic understanding of statistics and logic is required to understand this information, and yet so many people fail. (Pretty much everyone but the "pill" guy)
1. Popularity is not identical to "overpoweredness". This is a BIG assumption. More top players prefer terran, that's true, but knowing why they do so is infinitely more informative than just the population data. If they all say "I play terran because I do better" (and we have reliable confidence they have no reason to deceive us) then sure, get up on your soapbox. But it won't be because of this graph, it will be because of the top players' reasoning. For all you know, they might say "I like challenge" (to play devil's advocate).
2. To settle the sample size debate once and for all: The top players cannot be their own population if you are trying to make a generalization about the GAME. You can make a generalization about top players or top end play, if you like. That's what samples do, they generalize. So it completely depends on what exactly you are trying to generalize. It will be too small for some generalizations, and plenty large enough for others. It's not one or the other, it depends what you are trying to argue.
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On September 02 2010 09:21 ToxNub wrote:
Only a basic understanding of statistics and logic is required to understand this information, and yet so many people fail. (Pretty much everyone but the "pill" guy)
1. Popularity is not identical to "overpoweredness". This is a BIG assumption. More top players prefer terran, that's true, but knowing why they do so is infinitely more informative than just the population data. If they all say "I play terran because I do better" (and we have reliable confidence they have no reason to deceive us) then sure, get up on your soapbox. But it won't be because of this graph, it will be because of the top players' reasoning. For all you know, they might say "I like challenge" (to play devil's advocate).
2. To settle the sample size debate once and for all: The top players cannot be their own population if you are trying to make a generalization about the GAME. You can make a generalization about top players or top end play, if you like. That's what samples do, they generalize. So it completely depends on what exactly you are trying to generalize. It will be too small for some generalizations, and plenty large enough for others. It's not one or the other, it depends what you are trying to argue.
Yes it could be that they play Terran since they like a challenge and they are so much more talented than everyone else that they can dominate even with the additional challenge. However, this explanation seems unlikely.
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On September 02 2010 09:21 ToxNub wrote:
Only a basic understanding of statistics and logic is required to understand this information, and yet so many people fail. (Pretty much everyone but the "pill" guy)
2. To settle the sample size debate once and for all: The top players cannot be their own population if you are trying to make a generalization about the GAME. You can make a generalization about top players or top end play, if you like. That's what samples do, they generalize. So it completely depends on what exactly you are trying to generalize. It will be too small for some generalizations, and plenty large enough for others. It's not one or the other, it depends what you are trying to argue.
I'm only going to respond to #2.
Um, the GAME [sic] is not a population. The GAME is what it is. The players of the GAME form a population. The data discussed in this thread is not talking about the population of all players. If it were, then it would be useless, because it is not a random sample. It is all diamond players. If you want to make inferences about a population from a subset of that population, you want to use random sampling.
But that is not the reasoning used here. The first line of reasoning is to ask whether there is any racial bias in the distribution of players in higher level diamond league that is not due to random chance. The answer is, without a shadow of reasonable doubt, yes. There is such a bias. The next question is "What causes this bias?"
And in this case, there can be many claims trying to explain the bias. Why is racial imbalance a good one? The claim is not that one is trying to generalize from a 'sample' (diamond population) to a 'population' (the GAME), it is one of measuring one variable with another.
The variable we have to work with is racial distribution in upper diamond league. The variable we are interested in is racial balance. When you try to infer one variable from another, the one you measure is called a proxy. This is not the same as an inference about a population from a sample. Please do not conflate the two.
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On September 02 2010 09:24 StarDrive wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 09:21 ToxNub wrote:
Only a basic understanding of statistics and logic is required to understand this information, and yet so many people fail. (Pretty much everyone but the "pill" guy)
1. Popularity is not identical to "overpoweredness". This is a BIG assumption. More top players prefer terran, that's true, but knowing why they do so is infinitely more informative than just the population data. If they all say "I play terran because I do better" (and we have reliable confidence they have no reason to deceive us) then sure, get up on your soapbox. But it won't be because of this graph, it will be because of the top players' reasoning. For all you know, they might say "I like challenge" (to play devil's advocate).
2. To settle the sample size debate once and for all: The top players cannot be their own population if you are trying to make a generalization about the GAME. You can make a generalization about top players or top end play, if you like. That's what samples do, they generalize. So it completely depends on what exactly you are trying to generalize. It will be too small for some generalizations, and plenty large enough for others. It's not one or the other, it depends what you are trying to argue.
Yes it could be that they play Terran since they like a challenge and they are so much more talented than everyone else that they can dominate even with the additional challenge. However, this explanation seems unlikely.
Sure, but this data doesn't say that. That's your opinion. That's all i'm saying.
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This data is not saying that terrans are winning more games than zerg or protoss. This data says there are just more terran players in the highest diamond leagues. Also its not that drastic of a difference then it looks like. Terran doubled while Protoss and Zerg dropped half.
This can have many reasons:
1. People switching from P/Z to T because they think they can have an advantage because terran is said to be op
2. More super high level players play T instead of P/Z because terran is said to be the most creative race
3. At the top level are mostly players with years experience of Starcraft Brood War who transitioned easily into high level Starcraft2. Now the mostly dominant race in Brood War for the last year was Terran because of Flash. People saw that and choosed mostly Terran (even if they weren't terran in Brood War) because they wanted to learn terran. What is there a better point of time to switch to terran than the start of a new game.
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EPT
