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Although I think everybody agrees by now that SC2 is suffering from small maps and other factors which are detrimental to the spectating experience I felt like looking at some numbers. So I looked for some replay packs from the good old times and also from more recent events and went through the painstaking process of manually copying all the games' length in order to analyze them. I chose random events from different years with total replay numbers between 78 and 192, namely the WCG Grand Final 2004, the Team Areola Nipple League of 2005, WCG 2006 and TSL#2 2010 for Broodwar and Blizzcon2010 and the Kaspersky Invitational for Starcraft 2.
Here are the results in one picture, ordered chronologically:
Starcraft 2 games are both significantly shorter than BW games and their game length also has a much lower variation, which might be a nice thing for tv channel's programming staff (oh, wait, there are no SC2 tv channels) but sucks for me.
I'd loved to have statistics for pro gaming matches, but since there are never replays, I didn't know a comfortable way to get data.
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It will deviate as people get better and less people all-in off 1 base
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You need more samples from multiple regions. You can't conclude anything from this sampling.
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I don't know if there is a convenient way to get the length of a flash video from the file, but if so, perhaps you could parse the links in TLPD, and then assume that because there is some padding in some games (maybe some intro or something, which hopefully over the long run is mostly averaged out), the mean might be say, 30 seconds lower than it looks, although the variance I suppose would be harder to examine. Maybe you could then individually look at the longer games and ensure there is not a lot of padding?
Definitely not as convenient as replays though..
edit - how about using the www.sc2rep.com database of replays? Use those for further sc2 data. And then maybe use the ygosu replays for bw data.
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I remember once when I was watching Sc2 and BW simultaniously, and the entire Bo7 (4-0, might've been Jinro vs MC) in SC2 took roughtly as long time as one single TvT in BW. True story.
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Your sample size is tiny. There's enough data out there to have a bigger size. Really strange to start a topic, have an opening discussion but terrible data set.
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4 BW tournaments and 1 SC2 tournament, not a large enough sample size.
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On January 16 2011 04:59 Holgerius wrote:I remember once when I was watching Sc2 and BW simultaniously, and the entire Bo7 (4-0, might've been Jinro vs MC) in SC2 took roughtly as long time as one single TvT in BW. True story.
Sometimes happens in BW too when it was bo5 format. + Show Spoiler +holy shit that guy has 3.3k posts in 6 months.
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Blizzcon is pretty old. You should look at GSL4, if anything, for your sc2 data.
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You should take some proleague/osl/msl stats and compare it with GSL stats. It's much more accurate.
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On January 16 2011 04:55 EtherealDeath wrote:I don't know if there is a convenient way to get the length of a flash video from the file, but if so, perhaps you could parse the links in TLPD, and then assume that because there is some padding in some games (maybe some intro or something, which hopefully over the long run is mostly averaged out), the mean might be say, 30 seconds lower than it looks, although the variance I suppose would be harder to examine. Maybe you could then individually look at the longer games and ensure there is not a lot of padding? Definitely not as convenient as replays though.. edit - how about using the www.sc2rep.com database of replays? Use those for further sc2 data. And then maybe use the ygosu replays for bw data.
Yeah, I didn't want to use video file length's because I thought that the overhead would depend on what event the videos were from. But also I don't know how to automatically retrieve the links from TLPD and I suspect that you need to load the whole video to find out the length, unless the host has already done that and provides the time somehow. Maybe somebody with more knowledge and more time could do that if they are interested.
I consciously chose to pick specific events for the analysis because it makes sure that the players are of high caliber and more importantly of similar skill level. Random games might either involve short games when one player is too strong or very long games because those are always favored by replay collectors.
And to the guy who claimed the sample size was too small: I don't think so.
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I'm not as disappointed by the average game length. I think that is more or less dictated by the maps. But as much as I love SC2 (I don't play BW anymore) I still prefer to watch BW pro games. There's constantly action taking place all over the map whereas SC2 is almost always one big control group vs another.
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After GSL4 was split in Code A and Code S matches, I think you can see that the Code S matches are longer and the Code A matches shorter. In other words, the more even the competitors are, the longer the games will be.
GSL4's Code S is probably the first properly seeded tournament so far in SC2 history and already we are seeing longer and better games. In the above data, not a single SC2 game was over 30 minutes, while we have already had two TvT that are longer than that in GSL4. + Show Spoiler +Slayers_Boxer vs oGsHyperdub that lasted 32:38 and LiquidJinro vs oGsEnsnare lasted 50:27, and it only ended because oGsEnsnare had mined out his half of the map. I believe about 50 minutes is the maximum length SC2 will currently have for games, due to map size and mining out.
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On January 16 2011 04:59 Holgerius wrote:I remember once when I was watching Sc2 and BW simultaniously, and the entire Bo7 (4-0, might've been Jinro vs MC) in SC2 took roughtly as long time as one single TvT in BW. True story.
Not a very fair comparison... empires rise and fall during a Canata TvT.
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I'm sure SC2 games will be longer when it's been out for 5+ years aswell.
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Not only is your sample size bad, but look at the tournament dates. Brood war also had more time to evolve, SC2 hasn't even been out for a year yet..
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Interesting stats but they don't really say anything conclusive
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On January 16 2011 05:26 Trap wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2011 04:59 Holgerius wrote:I remember once when I was watching Sc2 and BW simultaniously, and the entire Bo7 (4-0, might've been Jinro vs MC) in SC2 took roughtly as long time as one single TvT in BW. True story. Not a very fair comparison... empires rise and fall during a Canata TvT. Ya, it wasn't a serious argument regarding the issue. I just found it sort of amusing.
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You're not using the in-game time for SC2, right? It's different.
By the way, early SCBW had mostly 1base allins and cheese as well and the skill levels were so lopsided that the players beat each other very quickly.
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On January 16 2011 05:43 Shikyo wrote: You're not using the in-game time for SC2, right? It's different.
By the way, early SCBW had mostly 1base allins and cheese as well and the skill levels were so lopsided that the players beat each other very quickly. The importance of macro is already well-known now though, through BW. Sc2 shouldn't need to go through the same evolution.
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I cannot understand these graphs. which is bw which is sc2?
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Really interesting stuff here, thank you.
Maybe people are right here, we don't have enough data and play time since SC2 came out, games could be shorter in the future
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Also, small size sample (which is not a bad thing if the same is well chosen) aside. Your numbers are loaded, you took numbers from 2004 6 years after BroodWar was released. The game was much more figured out by then,SC2 has been out less than a year.
While I do think the maps are kinda bad(but not terrible as many people seem to think) we should all remembers that programers are human too, and thus they take time to learn a game.
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On January 16 2011 05:49 Holgerius wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2011 05:43 Shikyo wrote: You're not using the in-game time for SC2, right? It's different.
By the way, early SCBW had mostly 1base allins and cheese as well and the skill levels were so lopsided that the players beat each other very quickly. The importance of macro is already well-known now though, through BW. Sc2 shouldn't need to go through the same evolution.
Disagree. 1-basing and all-ins are strong not because people don't "know" about macro games, but because it takes people time to learn to beat all the various 1-basing styles. You only get past that once players can comfortably beat those, at least the majority of the time. Otherwise people will use rushes and win with them, whether or not players know about macro.
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First of all, not everyone thinks big maps and long games are necessarily more fun than shorter games. Second of all, you can't directly compare the length of two different games. Maybe more things happen in ten minutes in SC2 compared to SC1. Third of all, yes, too small sample size.
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I have the game times for every match in GSL 2, 3 and 4 in Excel sheets if you want them;)
To sum it up quickly:
GSL 2
164 games played, average duration 11:12 minutes
GSL 3
162 games played, average duration 11:23 minutes
GSL 4
64 games played, average duration 12:08 minutes.
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Want to explain your analysis? Because from just looking at it,and doing some mental math the difference of the means doesn't seem to be significant. Try averaging the bw means, using pooled variances and doing a difference of two means test.
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should improve with evolution of strategies + different maps.
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Team Areola Nipple League of 2005, WCG 2006 and TSL#2 2010 for Broodwar and Blizzcon2010 and the Kaspersky Invitational for Starcraft 2 Not really representative, why not use GSL and Starleagues?
By the way Team Areola Nipple League wtf?
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On January 16 2011 06:02 Treadmill wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2011 05:49 Holgerius wrote:On January 16 2011 05:43 Shikyo wrote: You're not using the in-game time for SC2, right? It's different.
By the way, early SCBW had mostly 1base allins and cheese as well and the skill levels were so lopsided that the players beat each other very quickly. The importance of macro is already well-known now though, through BW. Sc2 shouldn't need to go through the same evolution. Disagree. 1-basing and all-ins are strong not because people don't "know" about macro games, but because it takes people time to learn to beat all the various 1-basing styles. You only get past that once players can comfortably beat those, at least the majority of the time. Otherwise people will use rushes and win with them, whether or not players know about macro. Disagree, in 2004, timings were still not known, but macro was. BTW there are a number of early very long 1-basing TvZ. For instance I have a 2001 Boxer vs Yellow game, were Boxer expands only when he runs out of minerals, 30min. Wich shows : 2 games have a different dynamics, and in 2001 people just did not seem to want to expand (in TvZ at least). But hey, don't worry, your game is perfect, it will come with time.
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Well I don't really have anything specific to base this on, but I always get the feeling when going back to watch BW games that their early game lasts a lot longer then the one in SC2, you always had a good 5 minutes down time it seemed like in BW before you saw any confrontations happen.
It seems like the early game is accelerated in SC2 which is a good thing, so even if the games are shorter they might be in similiar lenghts as far as entertainment goes?
Anyways, this is always just a feeling I have, I could be 100% wrong.
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On January 16 2011 06:17 Odoakar wrote: I have the game times for every match in GSL 2, 3 and 4 in Excel sheets if you want them;)
To sum it up quickly:
GSL 2
164 games played, average duration 11:12 minutes
GSL 3
162 games played, average duration 11:23 minutes
GSL 4
64 games played, average duration 12:08 minutes.
Could you give us the average duration for GSL4 games without Jinro's and Idra's matches?
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These are all foreigner events, hardly shows the topmost skill level.
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On January 16 2011 06:31 legaton wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2011 06:17 Odoakar wrote: I have the game times for every match in GSL 2, 3 and 4 in Excel sheets if you want them;)
To sum it up quickly:
GSL 2
164 games played, average duration 11:12 minutes
GSL 3
162 games played, average duration 11:23 minutes
GSL 4
64 games played, average duration 12:08 minutes. Could you give us the average duration for GSL4 games without Jinro's and Idra's matches?
Sure, if I don't take into consideration any of their matches, the average duration is 11:10 for 53 matches played.
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On January 16 2011 06:37 Odoakar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2011 06:31 legaton wrote:On January 16 2011 06:17 Odoakar wrote: I have the game times for every match in GSL 2, 3 and 4 in Excel sheets if you want them;)
To sum it up quickly:
GSL 2
164 games played, average duration 11:12 minutes
GSL 3
162 games played, average duration 11:23 minutes
GSL 4
64 games played, average duration 12:08 minutes. Could you give us the average duration for GSL4 games without Jinro's and Idra's matches? Sure, if I don't take into consideration any of their matches, the average duration is 11:10 for 53 matches played.
is that game time or real time?
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Your data starts 6 years after SC1 released, yet only 6-7 months after SC2 released. Don't you think that's kinda a bad way to give data on?
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That is some tiny sample size yet drawing some really big conclusions when in fact no conclusion what so ever can be drawn from this. 4 bw tournies and 2 sc2 tournies played back in october/november and with how the latest rounds of the gsl has been played out those tournies sampled are irrelevant. You really wanna know the length of sc2 games watch screddit, tsl quals or just any craft cup/zotac once it gets bo3. I was really pleased to read the topic title since I'm interested in these numbers but after having read through the op it could have been so much more.
I do welcome with open arms sampling using more recent tournies both from bw and sc2. Now that would be discussion worthy.
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Well obviously since the game is young games tend to be shorter. Broodwar was the same back then too. The macro era hasn't really hit sc2 yet.
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On January 16 2011 07:04 G3nXsiS wrote: Well obviously since the game is young games tend to be shorter.
Could you develop that concept?
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10387 Posts
Blizzard wanted SC2 to have shorter games, so they designed it to be so
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