EPTIs balance an impossible goal? - Page 7
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NoobSkills
United States1603 Posts
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SpaceYeti
United States723 Posts
 Good post. Excellent points. I think all we can do is hope that Blizzard knows what they are doing and has some collection of metrics that we are not aware of that controls for these confounding aspects of the matchmaking system. They seem to be doing a pretty good job, overall, so I'm willing to assume they have something(s) that we don't hear about in terms of their balance metrics. | ||
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Skyze
Canada2324 Posts
You should be able to win EVERY matchup on EVERY position of EVERY map in this early stage of SC2.. this isnt friggin BW, where theres 10 years of experimentation/metagame shifts.. This game is fresh, and if you think "you lose 90% if you are close position on metalopis as terran" or anything like that, like some people has mentioned, then make a new strat that totally counters why you are losing. Simple as that. Basically; the more people complain rather than trying to figure out a new way to play, is just a waste of time. In beta, everyone thought Terran was weak right? then TLO brought that 1/1/1 and look where we are now. Then zerg was super weak, but Fruitdealer won the GSL and suddenly hundreds of zergs rise up. Stop complaining, and learn how to play better. Complaining about balance wont help you, and if you think the balance is so bad, switch races so you can see how "easy" the other races are. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On January 21 2011 00:53 Skyze wrote: Everyone complaining about map imbalance, is just complaining. So you are saying there is no map imbalance and that no map favours any race? Dont you think there is enough evidence to suggest otherwise? | ||
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h-a-r-v
Poland30 Posts
Some things indeed are really hard to determine and need complex science to be perfected, but some are clearly imba, like the recently patched repairing SCVs threat priority or blocking the ramp with two 2x2 buildings for example. Sure, you could deal with both if you played it out well enough (which often.. too often meant: got lucky), but it doesn't mean it wasn't OP. The ultimate purpose of balancing the game is not to cause 100% draw matches between players of the same level of skill, but to keep the game free of cheap tricks / catches / methods / features / units very hard to stop and / or almost always leading to victory (either in a battle or the war), no matter how good the other player's response is. I'm a law grad among other things and my analogy to what imba is would be just bad regulations. Just because something's legal (is in the game) doesn't mean it's fair. Some things come out by very rare occasions, some are common, but controversial due to variety of reasons and some are so obvious our dear legislators not only fix them relatively quick, but there's common agreement in the parliament that it's the right thing to do. Simple as it is. I'd like to learn 'bout what the most experienced and pro players honestly think is OP, especially 'bout their own races. In case they talk of another, look for the points they agree with each other the most. Just my few cents. | ||
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seodoth
Netherlands318 Posts
You do not take into account that some people have a very high understanding of the game. People can judge what is possible to do for a race at any given time. We can identify the limitations and weaknesses for each race. We can compare these and discover any abnormalities. Last, matchup inbalance and racial inbalance is the same. Any change to a race can affect any match up. | ||
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CounterOrder
Canada457 Posts
I imagine some people would be more affected by this than others. No doubt about it that not everyone gets the same matchups. Some Terran play more Toss than other Terran etc etc. Just gets more complicated. lol I didnt read all the apparent whining about map imbalance so im not saying this to add to that but i think everyone wants to see different maps. Maps are just far to important to ignore. | ||
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RoarMan
Canada745 Posts
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terence158
Australia64 Posts
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CidO
United States695 Posts
SC2 for the most part is balanced AT THE MOMENT, something could be discovered this evening as "broken" and thus imbalanced, but nothing is, otherwise you might see the guys playing for $60000 taking advantage of it. Some play is strong, and could be borderline imbalanced, but most of the time it's the person not being prepared for it, scouting, or doing both of those and still herpderping doing the same thing and not swapping. Throwing the word balance around is like throwing "Tier units" this again, is not WoW armor sets or raids. You have low gas units and high gas units. Low tech and high tech. Bunker rush, spine crawler rush, 2rax scv+rine all in, 6 pool 8 pool, cannon rush, 4 gate - it's all cheese. It's not broken or unbalanced. You can counter every single one of those with scouting as any of the 3 races. | ||
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NewbieOne
Poland560 Posts
On January 21 2011 01:19 terence158 wrote: i have often wondered, why dont they have separate MMRs for each of your matchups, like maybe im really good at ZvZ, but not at ZvT, so im facing terrans that just rofl stomp me, but zergs that i continually roflstomp After reading your post, I thought, well, some players adopt strategies or tactics atypical of their respective races, that might be why some vs Zerg openings work against Terran players, for instance. | ||
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hmsrenown
Canada1263 Posts
On January 21 2011 00:37 SpaceYeti wrote: Switching between Pubmed and TL.net is getting stranger now that threads on this site may, in fact, begin with an abstract. Good post. Excellent points. I think all we can do is hope that Blizzard knows what they are doing and has some collection of metrics that we are not aware of that controls for these confounding aspects of the matchmaking system. They seem to be doing a pretty good job, overall, so I'm willing to assume they have something(s) that we don't hear about in terms of their balance metrics. Cheers, we're having the same feelings. I think balance is intangible, and should be treated with a social science approach rather than natural science approach. I can't form a conclusion on whether balance can be achieved or not, there can always be balance if we go to the early C&C style, but that wouldn't be a lot of fun, would it? | ||
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RyanRushia
United States2748 Posts
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PiousMartyr
Canada176 Posts
On January 21 2011 00:53 Skyze wrote: Everyone complaining about map imbalance, is just complaining. You should be able to win EVERY matchup on EVERY position of EVERY map in this early stage of SC2.. this isnt friggin BW, where theres 10 years of experimentation/metagame shifts.. This game is fresh, and if you think "you lose 90% if you are close position on metalopis as terran" or anything like that, like some people has mentioned, then make a new strat that totally counters why you are losing. Simple as that. Basically; the more people complain rather than trying to figure out a new way to play, is just a waste of time. In beta, everyone thought Terran was weak right? then TLO brought that 1/1/1 and look where we are now. Then zerg was super weak, but Fruitdealer won the GSL and suddenly hundreds of zergs rise up. Stop complaining, and learn how to play better. Complaining about balance wont help you, and if you think the balance is so bad, switch races so you can see how "easy" the other races are. Do you not think that since SC2 is so new that the maps very may well be very imbalanced, but there just isn't enough data to show that yet? There is no data to prove that the maps are balanced OR imbalanced. Nobody has done the large number crunching to show which spawn positions favor which race on different maps. Terran could very well be winning like 70% of their games on Steppes of War, but we don't have the data to show it yet. It sure feels like they do but I can't back it up with cold hard data, making my opinion just an opinion. A lot of people share it, but I guess that doesn't make it true. Not until someone checks like 1000 games and determines the win/loss ratio. If one race has is favored on a map it doesn't mean that the other can't win, they're just at a disadvantage. Not every build has been discovered, not by a long shot, If Steppes wasn't terran favoured in TvZ, why has pretty much every single zerg in the GSL vetoed it against T? Why do the best zergs in the world refuse to play on it vs terran? Maybe because it's freaking hard to beat a terran player on it. The close positions make it hard to stop a 2rax bunker rush or an all in, and the double high ground makes it very tough to break in later. Making a strat to counter what you lose to is not as simple as that. If T gets 2 barracks out early Steppes, you need to get a fast army out. When T scouts and sees the fast army, they'll wall in, make a factory and then seige tanks and bunkers and seal you out of their base. Now what? Your army can't break in, you've sacrificed your economy to defend against the 2rax push that isn't coming. The two barracks they made are now just walls keeping you out. So, whats the "simple as that" counter to defending against the threat of both a 2rax and turtle. A few marines out will stop you from scouting so it's up to you to do a strat that can beat very fast pressure and a later timing push. I guess I haven't played enough, and I'm certainly not pro, but I've never figured out how to reliably play against T on Steppes with a 50% win/loss ratio. If there is someone out there who does know how, I'd sure love to know too. | ||
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Shadrak
United States490 Posts
On January 20 2011 11:39 Rodeo wrote: Did you predict that? Liar! As a fellow scientist, I totally want to sneak that line into the conclusions of my next paper  Anyway, extremely well-written post. You make a good point about not being able to make balance claims based on personal experience if we can't even do it with large data sets. On January 21 2011 00:37 SpaceYeti wrote: Switching between Pubmed and TL.net is getting stranger now that threads on this site may, in fact, begin with an abstract. Ha! Doing the same exact thing! | ||
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SichuanPanda
Canada1542 Posts
The imbalance comes from the MULE, the MULE in Terran vs Zerg allows Terran rushes to ALWAYS contain a larger troop count, in a shorter period of time than Zerg can produce. Zerg needs to be up one base or if the Terran has 3 Orbitals dropping MULEs, 2 bases ahead, in order to match the income of the Terran. This is also seen to some extent in Terran vs Protoss as well where even with an ultra aggressive 4, or the Choya style 5 Warpgate and Stargate rush the Terran is still matching troop counts, and once Stim hits simply steam-rolls the Protoss attack. This is not an imbalance as a result of Stim, but rather the MULE. (These are sample numbers, just a ball park idea) Adjusting the MULE to cast twice as often, at 60% less resources brought in than the current level would reduce the income overall by roughly 15-25%, and furthermore with it only costing 25 energy over 50, it would require a Terran to be much more involved in their macro mechanics. This brings me to the final issue with the MULE - the amount of APM and focus required to properly execute Terran macro mechanics is quite simply non existent. You have energy? You don't need scans? Drop a mule, go back to your rush/push/all-in/tech/turtle or whatever you happen to be doing. By increasing the amount of effort that Terrans have to put into their macro mechanics (bringing it on par with having to come back to your base and spawn units from Warpgates, and send them to your army, and also on par with injecting and spreading creep with multiple Queens) it will in turn further reduce the potency of their early game timing attacks because the Terran will not be able to dedicate the full level of their APM to their army with little to no sacrifice to macro (as they can now). With the MULE change suggested here Terrans would have to make the same decision that Zerg and Protoss have to make: Should I all-in, strong timing (and so on) and sacrifice my economy or should I not? Zerg and Protoss have to make a firm choice when they all-in or do a very specific timing attack, and that is to do the attack and throw away any chance of a late game, or not. Unless a Terran brings all of its SCVs to the attack, the MULE will allow a one-base Terran to match production with a 2-base Zerg or Protoss until such time that the Terran is mined out. Obviously this can only work with low tier units because a player on 2-base will have far more gas than the Terran. This is the key problem with ANY of the perceived MU imbalances in T v Z, P - a Terran with little to no effort can execute its macro mechanic perfectly, at the highest level. Meanwhile Zerg and Protoss in order to use their mechanics at the highest level actually require the highest level APM and timing. Terran macro mechanics do not. If Terrans couldn't simply ignore macro entirely during an all-in or timing attack, drop two MULEs, and catch up in under a minute, the imbalances we are seeing would melt away. | ||
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avilo
United States4100 Posts
On January 20 2011 15:13 iEchoic wrote: Speaking of random, I don't think dayvie is bad at late game even though he plays R. He kicks my ass every time he gets Z and I win every time he doesn't so far. Maybe my TvZ is just terrible, but that'd be a bummer because I've practiced it more than any of my other matchups. From what i've seen he doesn't understand the game as well as people think he does. I don't think i've ever lost to him, because his game just doesn't seem crisp or knowledgeable or refined in any way whatsoever. He's rolled Z against me twice or three times now, and I win in 5 minutes or less with bunkers...he's prob writing on the blizz drawing board "bunkers imba" when really he's just bad lol. I always make sure to type in chat "fix tanks tvp, you broke them" b4 the game starts too when I get him in automatch. As for the balance of this game imo, it's very balanced so far, except now PvT is completely broken. I don't know if people have seen phoenix builds, or phoenix collosus builds now, but they are pretty lol. There's even a build out now, where you can go 1 stargate phoenix directly into high templar amulet. ... yeah...I don't really get the OP of this thread though, the game is pretty well balanced for an RTS. If this were another company balancing the game, or another group of devs, we'd still have 1 supply roaches and there'd be massive flame wars on the forums. So be happy with balance so far | ||
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Skyze
Canada2324 Posts
On January 21 2011 01:04 Rabiator wrote: So you are saying there is no map imbalance and that no map favours any race? Dont you think there is enough evidence to suggest otherwise? The amount of "map imbalance" is very VERY small right now, when the game is so new that no one has possibly figured the 100% perfect buildorder/timing like it is in BW. I think map imbalance really only takes place after 5+ years, when the game is exhausted of its timings/strats/etc like BW is.. Right now, the game is so new that you should be able to defend anything on any map, or alternately find different ways to take advantage of the map for your race. I played random over 200 games at 2800+ diamond level right before masters came out, and I never felt anything was impossible on any map. No matchup ever felt "impossible" on certain maps, any loss/win was solely the fact of the player, not the map. Now there may be SMALL map issues, like the thor being able to hit a hatch on one cliff on LT where it wouldnt on the other bases.. but until things like that are being abused/used every single game and proving to largely influence the games (which I dont see anything like that happening right now), these maps are fine right now. the only reason maps make such a difference in BW is because the races/buildorders/timings are 99.9% perfected. SC2 is at least 5 years away from that being the case, with 2 more expansions coming out. | ||
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Sbrubbles
Brazil5776 Posts
On January 20 2011 12:00 ReketSomething wrote: even international chess isnt balanced the greatest thing about sc balance is maps. maps affect balance and therefore the game can be perfect, they just need better maps. just look at sc1...maps are soooo important and you can control which race is strong So true! White IMBA! | ||
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iSTime
1579 Posts
On January 21 2011 04:21 Skyze wrote: The amount of "map imbalance" is very VERY small right now, when the game is so new that no one has possibly figured the 100% perfect buildorder/timing like it is in BW. I think map imbalance really only takes place after 5+ years, when the game is exhausted of its timings/strats/etc like BW is.. Right now, the game is so new that you should be able to defend anything on any map, or alternately find different ways to take advantage of the map for your race. I played random over 200 games at 2800+ diamond level right before masters came out, and I never felt anything was impossible on any map. No matchup ever felt "impossible" on certain maps, any loss/win was solely the fact of the player, not the map. Now there may be SMALL map issues, like the thor being able to hit a hatch on one cliff on LT where it wouldnt on the other bases.. but until things like that are being abused/used every single game and proving to largely influence the games (which I dont see anything like that happening right now), these maps are fine right now. the only reason maps make such a difference in BW is because the races/buildorders/timings are 99.9% perfected. SC2 is at least 5 years away from that being the case, with 2 more expansions coming out. Steppes of War PvZ is massively imbalanced. It's not "very VERY small." I've beaten moonglade on SoW despite getting raped on any other map, and my win rate against other good zerg players (rigid, titan, vibe, catz (if you want to count beating a wacky 7 pool), etc.) is much higher on that map than versus the same people on other maps. There's a reason most of the good zergs just do a 2 base hydra/spine crawler push and GG when the opponent has colossi in time. | ||
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