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Blizzard's SC2 race stats - Page 2

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Teddyman
Profile Joined October 2008
Finland362 Posts
October 07 2010 22:59 GMT
#21
They could assume that by skill, players are evenly distributed across the races. Then they look at matches between say a zerg that's more skilled than 95% of zergs vs a terran that's more skilled than 95% of terrans. Throw in more data points and interpolation and you might be on to something.
"Chess is a dead game" -Bobby Fischer 2004
GrazerRinge
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
999 Posts
October 07 2010 23:00 GMT
#22
On October 08 2010 07:52 Varth wrote:
My problem with terran isnt much at a high lvl, its that any idiot can MMM and get to diamond and its much much harder to counter skill wise as protoss. I can just assume every game they are going MMM, be correct in that assumption, and still not have more than a 60% chance at winning, meanwhile if anyone else knows EXACTLY what a protoss and zerg is going from second 1, they have a very very very good shot at stopping it.

These are of course my experiences at my skill level (low level diamond)

My biggest complaint really is that as protoss, you CANT rush a terran period if they have half a brain, this doesn't mean i want to be able to GG them every time in the first 5 minutes, but there needs to be a THREAT of it so they cant just sim city away and not have to worry about it for 10 minutes.... Meanwhile i need to scout constantly to check for cheese and if they are doing certain timing pushs.

I still enjoy protoss of course because i enjoy FF micro and all the various builds i have open to me, but it's fairly irritating that i can go from playing just protoss for 100 games into diamond, and then be able to play terran for the 3rd time ever and be able to move up in ranks in diamond, while i have been stuck with protoss for a week


Learn to use force field properly. Then lets talk about this issue again.
"Successful people don't talk much. They listen and take action."
snakeyes
Profile Joined September 2010
25 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-07 23:01:31
October 07 2010 23:01 GMT
#23
On the Blizzard forums this is what the response to player skill was.

Show nested quote +
"Doesn't race played throw it off though? You could never compare the skill of a terran and a protoss if the races weren't balanced. Say marines did 10 damage a shot, thus you would argue the terran has more skill?"


"The system does account for this to an extent. After analyzing thousands of games and compiling trends based on player skill and race balance, our metrics will attempt to predict who the winner in a given match should be based on player skill and what it thinks is the favored race. These calculations will "correct" themselves over time as trends change.

We do welcome feedback about the announced changes, but there are a considerable number of people outright disregarding the win/loss percentages we provided. Saying we conjured up these numbers to support our own ends, or that our numbers must be incredibly flawed, doesn't really add much to the discussion. The math was developed to disregard the way in which the matchmaking system attempts to keep players as close to a 50% win/loss ratio as possible. As stated in the blog, it's certainly not the only way we analyze balance, but it's very useful to us.


It does not really answer the question, but it adds alittle more to this conversation. They seem to already be on the defensive about the numbers.
Meatloaf
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Spain664 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-07 23:05:29
October 07 2010 23:04 GMT
#24
really want to see that roach range.

it can be a nice addition for zergs to play with , or the thing that negates terran any chance to harrass with hellion or reaper depending on what they do.




TitleRug
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States651 Posts
October 07 2010 23:04 GMT
#25
On October 08 2010 08:01 snakeyes wrote:
On the Blizzard forums this is what the response to player skill was.

Show nested quote +
"Doesn't race played throw it off though? You could never compare the skill of a terran and a protoss if the races weren't balanced. Say marines did 10 damage a shot, thus you would argue the terran has more skill?"


"The system does account for this to an extent. After analyzing thousands of games and compiling trends based on player skill and race balance, our metrics will attempt to predict who the winner in a given match should be based on player skill and what it thinks is the favored race. These calculations will "correct" themselves over time as trends change.

We do welcome feedback about the announced changes, but there are a considerable number of people outright disregarding the win/loss percentages we provided. Saying we conjured up these numbers to support our own ends, or that our numbers must be incredibly flawed, doesn't really add much to the discussion. The math was developed to disregard the way in which the matchmaking system attempts to keep players as close to a 50% win/loss ratio as possible. As stated in the blog, it's certainly not the only way we analyze balance, but it's very useful to us.


It does not really answer the question, but it adds alittle more to this conversation. They seem to already be on the defensive about the numbers.

interesting, I have faith that these numbers are accurate enough to have some impact but not enough to determine balance.
coLCruncher fighting!
EnderCN
Profile Joined May 2010
United States499 Posts
October 07 2010 23:05 GMT
#26
I'd question these stats but the pretty much agree with what my opinion of the race matchups are.

Now looking at all of Diamond vs just the top few percentiles of Diamond will give very different results I'm sure. I would fully expect Protoss to look the strongest when looking at all of Diamond though.
DoubleRainbow
Profile Joined July 2010
Canada85 Posts
October 07 2010 23:06 GMT
#27
i bet if zerg and toss had a win rate of 48% against terran, everyone would be jumping on the OP bandwagon.
"WOW, THAT IS SO INTENSE"
Klive5ive
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
United Kingdom6056 Posts
October 07 2010 23:09 GMT
#28
On October 08 2010 07:59 Teddyman wrote:
They could assume that by skill, players are evenly distributed across the races. Then they look at matches between say a zerg that's more skilled than 95% of zergs vs a terran that's more skilled than 95% of terrans. Throw in more data points and interpolation and you might be on to something.

Well that would certainly be a very interesting statistic to view but I don't think that is what we are seeing.
Show nested quote +
"Doesn't race played throw it off though? You could never compare the skill of a terran and a protoss if the races weren't balanced. Say marines did 10 damage a shot, thus you would argue the terran has more skill?"


"The system does account for this to an extent. After analyzing thousands of games and compiling trends based on player skill and race balance, our metrics will attempt to predict who the winner in a given match should be based on player skill and what it thinks is the favored race. These calculations will "correct" themselves over time as trends change.

We do welcome feedback about the announced changes, but there are a considerable number of people outright disregarding the win/loss percentages we provided. Saying we conjured up these numbers to support our own ends, or that our numbers must be incredibly flawed, doesn't really add much to the discussion. The math was developed to disregard the way in which the matchmaking system attempts to keep players as close to a 50% win/loss ratio as possible. As stated in the blog, it's certainly not the only way we analyze balance, but it's very useful to us.

Instead of all that nonsense, why don't they just tell us exactly what the stats are meant to mean?
Don't hate the player - Hate the game
Jermstuddog
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States2231 Posts
October 07 2010 23:11 GMT
#29
On October 08 2010 08:01 snakeyes wrote:
On the Blizzard forums this is what the response to player skill was.

Show nested quote +
"Doesn't race played throw it off though? You could never compare the skill of a terran and a protoss if the races weren't balanced. Say marines did 10 damage a shot, thus you would argue the terran has more skill?"


"The system does account for this to an extent. After analyzing thousands of games and compiling trends based on player skill and race balance, our metrics will attempt to predict who the winner in a given match should be based on player skill and what it thinks is the favored race. These calculations will "correct" themselves over time as trends change.

We do welcome feedback about the announced changes, but there are a considerable number of people outright disregarding the win/loss percentages we provided. Saying we conjured up these numbers to support our own ends, or that our numbers must be incredibly flawed, doesn't really add much to the discussion. The math was developed to disregard the way in which the matchmaking system attempts to keep players as close to a 50% win/loss ratio as possible. As stated in the blog, it's certainly not the only way we analyze balance, but it's very useful to us.


It does not really answer the question, but it adds alittle more to this conversation. They seem to already be on the defensive about the numbers.


The thing is they're trying to point to these numbers for balance.

These numbers only prove that the game is "mostly balanced" which most reasonable people would agree on.

There are still huge glaring issues that cause dramatic differences like 1300 diamond terrans who build missile turrets vs zerg (I played this guy) and 1700 protoss players who have a devastating 4-gate, but don't know how to do anything else.

These will not be reflected in win/loss rates because their elementary strategies have them playing well above their real skill level due to singular, OP elements of the game.
As it turns out, marines don't actually cost any money -Jinro
Mutarisk
Profile Joined July 2010
United States153 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-07 23:16:04
October 07 2010 23:14 GMT
#30
3% is a lot. Think about how many millions of games have been played.

Edit:

Also agreed with above. Someone of less technical skill could perhaps be playing one race and because of the races potential imbalances would be tricking the system into thinking players are of equal skill.... right?
Jerubaal
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States7684 Posts
October 07 2010 23:14 GMT
#31
It's somewhat telling that out of all the numbers they could look at, they chose this.

While I am happy that they are trying to balance the game at all levels, and not just at the very top, it makes much more sense to me to try to create a level of parity at the top and then smooth out as you go down than to try to make piecemeal balance changes at the various levels then try to smash the final balance into shape at the top.

With so many possible factors at play it seems impossible to make generalizations based on a single metric and it's disappointing that they've disregarded so many and choose only a few as valid, especially when one like this seems to show a different picture than many others.
I'm not stupid, a marauder just shot my brain.
gatotsu312
Profile Joined October 2010
United States1 Post
October 07 2010 23:16 GMT
#32
I would throw out that the big hits are the items that Blizz posted after the data:

I don't get the reaper change. Nitro boost requiring factory seems like a nerf to put itself into needlessness. Morrow's 5rax all in seems hurt, and at that timing woudln't it make more economical sense to just add Starport and drop?

Here are a few of the changes we currently have planned: •

We're increasing roach range. This will allow roaches to be more effective in large groups, giving the zerg more options in the mid to end game. •

Fungal Growth will now prevent Blink, which will give zerg a way to stop endlessly Blinking stalkers which can be very challenging to deal with in large numbers.

• The Barracks are going to require a Supply Depot, which will impact a lot of early terran reaper pushes.

• The reaper speed upgrade will require the Factory, which is meant to weaken a lot of the early terran reaper attacks that dominate so many matches, especially in team games.

• We're making a number of increases to the health of zerg buildings, which will make the very vulnerable zerg technology structures more resistant to raids. We don't expect these hit point changes to have a super significant impact on the game, but the current numbers felt way too low.

Klive5ive
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
United Kingdom6056 Posts
October 07 2010 23:17 GMT
#33
On October 08 2010 08:14 Jerubaal wrote:
With so many possible factors at play it seems impossible to make generalizations based on a single metric and it's disappointing that they've disregarded so many and choose only a few as valid, especially when one like this seems to show a different picture than many others.

The cynic in me says they published these stats because they wanted to make the game look really balanced to the uninformed.
Don't hate the player - Hate the game
Anzat
Profile Joined February 2009
United States90 Posts
October 07 2010 23:26 GMT
#34
On October 08 2010 07:34 SubtleArt wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 08 2010 07:31 Fa1nT wrote:
+/- 3% means matchmaking is doing its job and that these statistics are pointless?



Exactly. I can't believe people still don't realize this.

The matchmaking is designed so that when you lose, you play people that are worse, and when you win, you play people that are better....every game. This basically makes your record pan out to 50% no matter what race and matchup you're playing. Add to that the extreme range of skill found in diamond league (from "remind me wat a build order is again?" to top players in the country) and you get a completely meaningless set of statistics


What's worse is that BLIZZARD doesn't seem to fully realize this yet. They say they're "accounting for player skill" but they're measuring player skill based on the same ranking system they're using it to judge. They've mentioned they're aware of this pitfall and are secretly avoiding it, but I haven't seen any evidence that they're doing that correctly, and plenty of in-game experience to the contrary.

I constantly run into toss and terran players around 1k diamond who could never make it out of gold as zerg. It's these little experiences that show the imbalance. One guy didn't know what roaches are called -- they're "those vomity things." Another forgot brood lords existed. A great many of them have no idea what targets to focus on with their attacks... they'll go for the evo chamber or something and let my drones happily mine away right next to them. They'll banshee rush, get killed by mutas, and keep on building banshees because they don't know what to do when the rush fails. They almost never expand when they should. It's just so easy for P/T to get to this level by learning one extremely deadly unit composition per match-up (stalkers+colossus, etc) and a-moving their way to victory... they don't have to learn much about the game at all. Zerg can't get away with that.
darmousseh
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States3437 Posts
October 07 2010 23:26 GMT
#35
I would have to agree, there is absolutely no way to determine an actual win-loss ratio that is meaningful because

1. There are 3 different races
2. The races are not the same

In most games where a rating system is in place, conditions are identical for both players (except for chess, which is why white wins 55% of the time). In starcraft, positions are not identical and therefore, player skill cannot be accurately determined. In chess, players play 50% of games as white, and 50% as black, so even though short term conditions are not the same, a rating is a calculation of both. Now unless there are players that can play all three races equally, a rating does not mean anything....however!

However, it is possible to determine matchup specific ratings.

For example, take the top 100 players from each race, and compare the average skill. Assuming that the talent is spread evenly amongst the groups, then it's possible to sorta extrapolate a little data, but with how little information there is, it's not likely to be very accurate.
Developer for http://mtgfiddle.com
aLt)nirvana
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
Singapore846 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-07 23:31:10
October 07 2010 23:28 GMT
#36
imo blizzard should be aiming to balance the matchups only at the top levels rather then trying to balance the matchups at all levels sigh

because once its balanced at the top, other/casual players will naturally gravitate towards the perceived easier races and it will balance itself out. i.e if zerg needs more skill to play than protoss, the zerg players who are less skilled are just gonna switch to protoss which will balance out the %.
sc2sea.com - The SEA / ANZ community
sushiman
Profile Joined September 2003
Sweden2691 Posts
October 07 2010 23:31 GMT
#37
Interesting that the racial stats are basically the same as in BW but completely reversed.
1000 at least.
Waxangel
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
United States33388 Posts
October 07 2010 23:31 GMT
#38
Why is anyone talking about variance when blizzard has THE ENTIRE FUCKING SAMPLE OF EVERY GAME PLAYED?
AdministratorHey HP can you redo everything youve ever done because i have a small complaint?
fantomex
Profile Joined June 2009
United States313 Posts
October 07 2010 23:35 GMT
#39
I want to see the %'s for players who are exclusively Random.

Replay or GTFO
mutantmagnet
Profile Joined June 2009
United States3789 Posts
October 07 2010 23:35 GMT
#40
On October 08 2010 07:57 Adeny wrote:

Yeah these stats are largely useless. It's like if i went to sc2ranks, grabbed the top 10, then stated the following facts:

None of the above is incorrect, but completely useless and misleading if you don't know the context of how the stats were generated.



The conceit of all of you who complain Blizzard can't make judgments without knowing how the stats are generated even though they are the ones who designed them are ridiculous.

Get over it. Blizzard knows the numbers better than you do. Whether or not they are making a good decisions on those numbers is open to debate.


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