On February 05 2011 00:11 maahes wrote:Hiding all this in a spoiler because it feels like the thread has gone to a better place. Keep testing shit out, Blacklizard. You are awesome. Can you share with me your methods? Like, did you use a custom map or whatnot? + Show Spoiler +On February 04 2011 14:54 Saechiis wrote:
What Saechiis said because this is getting huge. If your post was succinct enough to address all at once, I would have done so. You said a lot and it would have been shortsighted not to break up such a robust post and point out examples as they showed up. I disagree about there being an issue with doing so, however - suggesting that people can't take what you say and analyze it on a point-by-point basis and instead must appreciate it as a whole means that there is an excess of things which should be left out. I participate in other communities where doing exactly this is a bannable offense (elitistjerks). What could have been removed is what I addressed, broken up, in my original post, and I definitely got your point - I highlighted where I thought you stated it, and responded to it on its own. That being said, the bulk of your 'thoughts' don't make sense or follow the pattern of a snide comment and then repeating what you said in the first place, neither of which address anything I said. I'm going to bury another point-by-point in a spoiler. + Show Spoiler +On February 04 2011 14:54 Saechiis wrote:
First of all, I never questioned IdrA and Artosis' credentials; I questioned their ability to objectively judge balance. I've even commented on their talent as Zerg players, which gets lost in your selectiveness of quoting. It's frankly a baseless accusation aimed at damaging my credibility, "violating many rules of debate and offering little in the way of legitimate criticism" along the way.
As for the dramatic claims of ad-hominem; questioning someone's ability to be objective in the subjectiveness that surrounds balance, is a completely valid concern. Especially when it comes to two iconic community figures discussing (im)balance on a public stage. I'm willing to bet that an overwhelming amount of people would testify that Artosis and IdrA, over the last decade, have had a tendency of being overly vocal and extreme in their claims of imbalance; most notably the overpoweredness of the other races in relation to their own. As such, it isn't exactly a stretch to question their objectiveness in judging imbalance while it IS a stretch to expect viewers to believe there not being a hidden agenda. They're grown men and they're completely responsible for their own public image. If they're not judging balance they should say so, because several thousands of people "somehow" got the idea that that's what their show "IMBALANCE" is all about.
Calling into question objectivity is an attack on source instead of an attack upon argument - a source's objectivity counts as a credential. Ad hominem circumstantial constitutes an attack on the bias of a source. This is fallacious because a disposition to make a certain argument does not make the argument false. Idra and Artosis being balance whiners do not affect the absolute truth of their analysis. Another thing that your arguments fixate upon is 'judgment'. Artosis and Idra hold no absolute judgment over Starcraft 2, and the show is actually painfully devoid of judgment, even from Idra, the most inflammatory personality in all of esports. I agree that bias is definitely questionable when someone is trying to convince you of something, but my critical thinking didn't sound that alarm for IMBALANCED. Both the content of the video and the method of presentation are not of a persuasive effort, but instead an exchange of opinions with reasoning. Within the first minute and a half, Artosis explains that, "We want to inform people, show you, the professional player perspective." A few minutes later, he goes on to open the distinct colossus talk with, "... talking about something that, y'know, may or may not be imbalanced." If they opened with an explicit, 'This is why the Colossus is game-breakingly imba in PvP/Z,' and closed with 'And so you should go +1 this thread on the Blizzard forums until there's a patch!' then everything changes, and it moves from a discussion to something that -is- detrimental. As it is, no matter what they say, anyone can rebut with 'Well, that doesn't make sense, and I have an argument to the contrary.' On February 04 2011 14:54 Saechiis wrote:
You realize that stating something as if it's a fact doesn't make it true right? Because making unfounded conclusions would "violate many rules of debate" and would "offer little in the way of legitimate criticism".
Additionally, the race preference of the hosts is completely relevant since, in regards to balance, there isn't any hard truths in a complex game like Starcraft. There's only a collection of anecdotal arguments and subjective judgements on how hard it is to do something.
For instance: IdrA states it's relatively too hard to balance corrupter count with Colossi in comparison to what Toss has to do. I think results show that when it comes to competence of play, Artosis is a perfectly valid Protoss source given his recent almost-qualification for Code A. A lot of the other things you say here don't really make sense. There are no hard truths in a complex game? There are a handful of things cited in this episode - original warpgate research timing, 'alpha roaches' - were these not distinctly excessively strong? Idra actually states the opposite of what you refer to: "It feels like it's much, much easier for Protoss to deal with that situation than Zerg." This is an important distinction - far less incriminating than something being 'too hard'. On February 04 2011 14:54 Saechiis wrote:
Saying that it "was actually already assumed" is just another way of admitting that the show lacked a non-Zerg perspective on the case, which is what I pointed out in the first place. I never implied they were saying the Colossus is "fundamentally broken", nor did I imply that they were saying the Colossus should be removed, nor that it doesn't need the damage it provides ... seems a bit pointless to point out things they've never said when I never implied they did.
I did imply their show is, unsurprisingly, Zerg-focused and that it might be useful to clearly point out that Colossi balance out the relative weakness of gateway units. As to not give people the idea that balance is as one dimensional as "unit A has dual ranged laz0rz WITH splash, this game is ridiculous". The need to have ranged splash damage during midgame and the fact that Colossi are cheaper, faster and safer to tech to than Storm was my reasoning behind the popularity of Colossi, as to not imply they're built much because they're too strong. At your first sentence, and the bulk of this, just... no. Not at all. The context of the discussion was Colossus and its effects, and the buildup to this decision point in the metagame is discussed. Protoss had vulnerability to mass Mutalisk and a set of timings until Toss players developed safe expansion builds. -Then- the ball was thrown back into the Zerg court, wherein Idra, Artosis and Ret had substantial success with 3 Base Broodlord builds, throwing the decision back into Toss play, and they responded with Blink Stalkers. I think this is an awesome way of outlining the metagame shift, and it also highlights the strength of the Colossus by example instead of just hearsay. That said, this is some high-level shit - they don't need to explain that the warpgate units need support (even though Idra does explain that once the colossus are taken care of, the resulting warpgate army is "weak"). This show isn't meant for the bitter, six-pooling bronze leaguer, and it's evident. Additionally, your unprovoked insistence that colossus are needed by the protoss suggested that you thought it was insisted otherwise. I assumed we were at the same point in the discussion - how Zerg can best respond to Colossi. I don't really see the point of extra details like this, and if a dedicated Toss would have had that to say, I would have been pretty disappointed. If that's all that they can bring, that's solid evidence to the contrary of a United Nations of hosts. On February 04 2011 14:54 Saechiis wrote:
That's right, you don't know whether he's right, in fact, no-one can say with certainty that they're right. Which brings us back to the questioning of the objectivity of the show. For the rest, I've never touched upons IdrA's conclusion, so summing it up doesn't really serve a purpose. We know that IdrA knows how to play Zerg.
Actually, since the purpose (and content, somehow) of the show is discussion, it brings us to discussion, not judging the people who provided an initial opinion. Bringing up Idra's conclusion serves a very important purpose - 'The Colossus gives favor at the moment to P in PvZ, but there are two distinct routes (unit comp, heavy harassment styles) that should be explored in order to throw the ball back into 'Toss court.' This is pretty much the opposite of 'judgment', something you continually question and state Idra and Artosis have no right to do. This is Idra trying to predict the next shift in the metagame. This is actually extremely proactive and the community you claim will misuse this media would do very well to begin thinking in such a way, as some in this thread have already begun testing. On February 04 2011 14:54 Saechiis wrote:
Being a community celebrity has already given IdrA and Artosis significant amounts of leniency and attention. It should, however, not be a carte blanche to do whatever they please in the community. For instance, offensive, childish and flamebaiting posts are still unwanted on the forums, regardless of who does it. Doing a show on IMBALANCE knowing full well how it's going to affect SC communities, could also be described as such. I've got little more than surprise at this, honestly. Reread what I had to say about the SC community in my first response. Also, in Artosis's own words, he is the most legit motherfucker around when it comes to SC, and in the words of those much more qualified than myself, anyone thinking that they love starcraft more than Artosis is completely and totally incorrect. Not implying you ever claimed that - I only mean you'll have to do better to convince me any malicious intent went into this, and the fact that you accuse these guys of having some ulterior motive totally stuns me. As I wrote this out, I started to discern more and more where we diverge. I would agree with you totally if this were two gamedevs talking about the future of balance, casually talking about the judgment they had passed and the changes destined to be made, people with some serious swing - it would be very reminiscent of any video interviews with Riot about League of Legends, for example. I'm not - as is no one that actually winds up using this media constructively - listening to this video going 'oh fuck yeah, colossi are totally imba.' I watched a video of a conversation between two guys essentially shooting the breeze, being totally reasonable and making sure not to drop strong opinions without a basis, discussing a single unit in depth and in both terms of 'imbalance' - being too strong for a matchup, and being so strong in mirror there is no alternative strategy. To me, and many others, that is awesome. Those that were looking for ammunition to cry are going to find it - but I promise you, none of them needed it. Rereading your first post, I see someone that is convinced the hosts are using an inflammatory topic to rake in Youtube views or something. Where you see Artosis eager to utter 'imbalance', I see the same excitable dork that gets geek chills all day erry day while casting GSL. To each their own, I guess, but I can't help but point out the views you harbor are so much worse than the bitter ignorance of someone new to the game complaining about issues they don't understand. Anyway, hypocrisy isn't so bad. I didn't want to refer to your post towards beetlelisk because it was so disgusting that I couldn't respond to it without going ad hominem. Nazgul posted something that might have been funny as a friendly jab at Artosis & Idra, but it set a terrible precedent for moderation in a thread already covered in shit wall to wall. Beetle was right to criticize, really, and what he asked for was actually a good jump for insight in terms of how Ret was doing. Your response, wherein you jumped down his throat with no provocation and spewed hate for the subjects of the original post in addition to revealing a crusade against 'zerg whiners', was just repulsive to me and your insults/rebuttals of his frustration were so poorly formed I was once again taken aback. This was an interesting exercise in critical thinking, but there is nothing else to be gleaned from picking apart your logic. Thanks for your time.
I'm getting a bit annoyed at responding to your posts as they're full of false assumptions, ad-hominem, refutations of arguments I never made and overall presentation of your opinion as a factual source.
As such I'm going to adress your post in the most basic fashion:
Calling into question objectivity is an attack on source instead of an attack upon argument - a source's objectivity counts as a credential. Ad hominem circumstantial constitutes an attack on the bias of a source. This is fallacious because a disposition to make a certain argument does not make the argument false. Idra and Artosis being balance whiners do not affect the absolute truth of their analysis.
Since your posts hinge 90% on the notion that "ad-hominem" voids my argumentation, I'll adress that concern first. I see you copy pasted a snippet from wikipedia regarding ad-hominem. I'm a bit disappointed, but not surprised, that you would leave out the section that disproves your point completely. Allow me to quote said section of wikipedia:
"Circumstantial
Ad hominem circumstantial points out that someone is in circumstances such that he is disposed to take a particular position. Ad hominem circumstantial constitutes an attack on the bias of a source. This is fallacious because a disposition to make a certain argument does not make the argument false; this overlaps with the genetic fallacy (an argument that a claim is incorrect due to its source).[citation needed]
The circumstantial fallacy only applies where the source taking a position is only making a logical argument from premises that are generally accepted. Where the source seeks to convince an audience of the truth of a premise by a claim of authority or by personal observation, observation of their circumstances may reduce the evidentiary weight of the claims, sometimes to zero.[4]"
In other, basic, words: IMBALANCED! is a show where the source seeks to convince an audience of the truth of a premise by a claim of authority or by personal observation. As such the "ad-hominem" questioning their objectivity in regards to balance, is completely valid. In fact, your false accusations of "fallacious ad-hominem" constitute as an ad-hominem themselves, not to mention your classy tattle tail at the end. But then again, you already admitted to being hypocritical.
Secondly:
+ Show Spoiler +Another thing that your arguments fixate upon is 'judgment'. Artosis and Idra hold no absolute judgment over Starcraft 2, and the show is actually painfully devoid of judgment, even from Idra, the most inflammatory personality in all of esports. I agree that bias is definitely questionable when someone is trying to convince you of something, but my critical thinking didn't sound that alarm for IMBALANCED. Both the content of the video and the method of presentation are not of a persuasive effort, but instead an exchange of opinions with reasoning. Within the first minute and a half, Artosis explains that, "We want to inform people, show you, the professional player perspective." A few minutes later, he goes on to open the distinct colossus talk with, "... talking about something that, y'know, may or may not be imbalanced."
I brought up the notion that IdrA and Artosis have a decade long history of vocally judging balance in both BW and Starcraft 2. As well as the history of people taking their opinion and throwing them around on the forum as proof of imbalance. I never implied they weren't smart enough to walk the line between obvious bias and passable objectivity. An exchange of opinions is useless if the only participants already agree with eachother, which is why I adress the concern of the show being too Zerg-centered.
I think results show that when it comes to competence of play, Artosis is a perfectly valid Protoss source given his recent almost-qualification for Code A.
First off, it's kind of hard to judge the credibility of an "almost-qualification". Secondly, Artosis plays Protoss because he thinks Zerg is underpowered. If Protoss got nerfed, he wouldn't have any regrets whatsoever to revisit his main race.
A lot of the other things you say here don't really make sense. There are no hard truths in a complex game? There are a handful of things cited in this episode - original warpgate research timing, 'alpha roaches' - were these not distinctly excessively strong?
If you read my complete sentence instead of selectively quoting a part, it would read:
"Additionally, the race preference of the hosts is completely relevant since, in regards to balance, there isn't any hard truths in a complex game like Starcraft. "
The notion that original warpgate research was too fast and alpha roaches too strong is still opiniative, so it's your post that doesn't really make sense. 99% of balance talk revolves around subjective measurements of how much skill certain tasks require. Balance isn't factual by any means.
Idra actually states the opposite of what you refer to: "It feels like it's much, much easier for Protoss to deal with that situation than Zerg." This is an important distinction - far less incriminating than something being 'too hard'.
First of all, do you want to testify that this IdrA quote is a pure objectiv "hard-truth" assesment of the situation? And not, in fact, a subjective measurement of skill requirements that is very much reliant on IdrA's credibility as an objective source?
Secondly, how is saying "It's harder for Zerg" different from "It's easier for Protoss" -_-'
At your first sentence, and the bulk of this, just... no. Not at all. The context of the discussion was Colossus and its effects, and the buildup to this decision point in the metagame is discussed. Protoss had vulnerability to mass Mutalisk and a set of timings until Toss players developed safe expansion builds. -Then- the ball was thrown back into the Zerg court, wherein Idra, Artosis and Ret had substantial success with 3 Base Broodlord builds, throwing the decision back into Toss play, and they responded with Blink Stalkers. I think this is an awesome way of outlining the metagame shift, and it also highlights the strength of the Colossus by example instead of just hearsay. That said, this is some high-level shit - they don't need to explain that the warpgate units need support (even though Idra does explain that once the colossus are taken care of, the resulting warpgate army is "weak"). This show isn't meant for the bitter, six-pooling bronze leaguer, and it's evident.
What's with the "just no. Not at all" followed by a slab of text that has no relation to what I said in at all? It gives people the idea that you're making a point even though it's not even a response to the quoted text.
I make the argument that the show is too much focused on the Zerg point of view, you respond by enumerating unit compositions and timings they mentioned as being relevant for a Zerg going up against Colossus. Yeah ... that's my point, they purely discuss the trouble Zerg has with Colossi and how this could be remedied. There's never any discussion on why Protoss are using Colossi, how they use them, the troubles they'd face without a strong ranged AoE DPS unit, the relative skill it requires to manage Colossi and forcefields.
And since you're so insistent in claiming there's not a heavily Zerg-sided view in this show, I'm going to be very childish and literally count the amount of time spent discussing the differing MU's so there's no dodging the argument:
0:00 - 8:20 Introduction
PvT: 8:20 - 9:30 1 minute 10 seconds.
ZvP: 9:30 - 23:30 14 minutes (not to be confused with the PvZ matchup)
PvP: 23:30 - 27:00 3 minutes 30 seconds
27:00 - 29:27 Epilogue
They brush aside PvT Colossi saying it's just balanced there since Bio counters Gateway, Colossi counters Bio, Vikings counter Colossi and Gateway counters Vikings. And yeah, that's it, it's balanced guys so we're moving on.
I could say that the same counters exist in Roach/ Hydra counters Gateway, Colossi counters Roach/ Hydra, Corrupters counter Colossi, Gateway counters Corrupters. But since Artosis and IdrA have a much deeper understanding of that MU, they can talk about the intricacies of the Zerg's unit compositions, map dependancy, economical requirements to effectively counter Colossi and the difficulty of creating " just enough" Corrupters.
It's not like these intricacies only exist in ZvP; their knowledge of the TvP and PvP MU's is just too limited to make definite statements about it, plus they're not interested in those MU's in the first place. Which all leads back to my point that the show is too Zerg-centered and that you can't approach balance from 1 side. Let's not pretend that most of the viewers are going to be high-level Master League players, they're going to be mostly lower levels of players that only know 1 side of the MU and might see ZvP as "the Protoss just makes Colossi and roflstomps me". This thread already exploded with rage and people claiming that Colossi are "indeed overpowered", doesn't that prove the show is having a negative effect on the community?
Additionally, your unprovoked insistence that colossus are needed by the protoss suggested that you thought it was insisted otherwise. I assumed we were at the same point in the discussion - how Zerg can best respond to Colossi. I don't really see the point of extra details like this, and if a dedicated Toss would have had that to say, I would have been pretty disappointed. If that's all that they can bring, that's solid evidence to the contrary of a United Nations of hosts.
No, it insisted that they didn't bring it up, as in, they didn't bring up the Protoss side of ZvP at all. That they're revolving the show around " how Zerg can best respond to Colossi" is kinda the point.
Actually, since the purpose (and content, somehow) of the show is discussion, it brings us to discussion, not judging the people who provided an initial opinion. Bringing up Idra's conclusion serves a very important purpose - 'The Colossus gives favor at the moment to P in PvZ, but there are two distinct routes (unit comp, heavy harassment styles) that should be explored in order to throw the ball back into 'Toss court.' This is pretty much the opposite of 'judgment', something you continually question and state Idra and Artosis have no right to do. This is Idra trying to predict the next shift in the metagame. This is actually extremely proactive and the community you claim will misuse this media would do very well to begin thinking in such a way, as some in this thread have already begun testing.
Agian, a one-sided nod-fest isn't a discussion, discussions happen when there's people with different backgrounds and opinions. Bringing up IdrA's conclusion wasn't relevant since I never talked about his conclusion and it doesn't relate in any way to my claims. Hence I told you it wasn't relevant to my post. And now you respond to that by saying "Yeah, actually it serves a very important purpose" and then you summarize his quote again? IdrA's conclusions don't relate to my points!
I've got little more than surprise at this, honestly. Reread what I had to say about the SC community in my first response. Also, in Artosis's own words, he is the most legit motherfucker around when it comes to SC, and in the words of those much more qualified than myself, anyone thinking that they love starcraft more than Artosis is completely and totally incorrect. Not implying you ever claimed that - I only mean you'll have to do better to convince me any malicious intent went into this, and the fact that you accuse these guys of having some ulterior motive totally stuns me.
Ugh, what does this prove? So Artosis sees himself as the most legit motherfucker around when it comes to SC ... so what?
"and in the words of those more qualified than myself, anyone thinking that they love starcraft more than Artosis is completely and totally incorrect."
You mean Artosis saying no-one loves Starcraft more than him proves that everyone who disagrees is completely and totally incorrect? That's some solid argumentation right there.
As the 50 pages of crap in this thread might indicate, there were more people sceptical about two of the most notorious balance "whiners" in the Starcaft community starting a show on IMBALANCE! Pretending that it's far-fetched doesn't help your point at all.
Anyway, hypocrisy isn't so bad.
Maybe not on elitistjerks, but on TL it isn't applauded. (Mods, please note he says he's part of that community ^^)
I didn't want to refer to your post towards beetlelisk because it was so disgusting that I couldn't respond to it without going ad hominem. Nazgul posted something that might have been funny as a friendly jab at Artosis & Idra, but it set a terrible precedent for moderation in a thread already covered in shit wall to wall. Beetle was right to criticize, really, and what he asked for was actually a good jump for insight in terms of how Ret was doing. Your response, wherein you jumped down his throat with no provocation and spewed hate for the subjects of the original post in addition to revealing a crusade against 'zerg whiners', was just repulsive to me and your insults/rebuttals of his frustration were so poorly formed I was once again taken aback. This was an interesting exercise in critical thinking, but there is nothing else to be gleaned from picking apart your logic. Thanks for your time.
Nazgul posted what everyone was thinking, and it wasn't an unfair note at all. Since you're still refusing to quote said posts whilst continuing to exaggerate the "dsgustingness" of my reaction, I'll do it myself:
+ Show Spoiler +On February 03 2011 14:21 Saechiis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2011 13:12 beetlelisk wrote:On February 03 2011 10:13 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
players get flamed for balance complaints because they all whine subjectively about the race they play themselves, therefor it's hard to take it serious. maybe if artosis and idra started saying zerg is overpowered that would be cool. There is a huge difference between telling someone why is he wrong and basically telling someone it's hard not ridicule him because of bias and I don't mean their bias, I mean your views about them. You completely disregarded their points, you completely disregarded the work that was put into this video. - The work that can be heard by the way they form their sentences,
- put stress on their points and preemptively try to disarm accusations of whine,
- elaborate on and completely deplete all of the arguments for their views
- but also the work that can be literally seen by noticing on what they are looking at - they gave me incredibly strong impression of having notes, some sort of a "what to say" list and they look at it a lot to, by what they are saying, give the best impression of proffesionalism they can.
You could tell us about Ret's results of his experiments with Infestors in PvZ, Ret's ideas and theory about how Infestors should be used AS YOU ARE HIS MANAGER AND YOU ARE THE NUMBER ONE PERSON RESPOSNIBLE FOR EXPOSING YOUR PLAYERS and your sponsor because of that to fans and community as a whole. Instead you gave a green light to every single retarded faggot who wants to derail this thread, you directly caused the moderation to have unnecessary work to do here - and SC2 forums aren't the prime example of users following the rules to say at least. You are promoting the way of posting that is against the rules of the site you own and you are putting down people who want to contribute for free. After showing how you handle the LR threads and not only them, you did this? I am extremely dissapointed in you as an admin. You should be ashamed of yourself Nazgul. You realize you're the iconic mindless Zerg follower that people are talking about right? Your post defending IdrA and Artosis is ironic in so many ways. 1. You're telling Nazgul; the founder of the team and the website you're currently surfing on that you're dissapointed in him and that he should be ashamed of himself? Not only does this insult break the same "rules of posting" which you're criticizing him for breaking. It also takes an enormous amount of blind IdrA worship to not even see the irony in accusing Nazgul of bad posting while IdrA himself is the most offensive poster to ever to have roamed TL, breaking a minimum of 1 rule for every post he makes. 2. It's funny that you put Artosis and IdrA on a high pedestal for creating content for "free" whilst kicking down Nazgul who founded TeamLiquid and has been upkeeping and expanding both the site and the team for free during the last decade. 3. Neither Nazgul, nor any other critical poster had anything negative to say about the effort or the production value of the show. Just the complaint that Artosis and IdrA, as known balance "whiners" since the early days of Starcraft, aren't exactly the most objective source for balance discussion. You, and some other whiners for that matter, have managed to totally fulfill the biggest fear that people had in regards to this show; namely an increase in irrational Zerg whine posts. In this case, totally taking posts out of context because you can't handle the critical tone and verbally assaulting the rational posters that are already so scarce on this website. Thanks for proving my point.
In other words, Nazgul comments on the fact that IdrA and Artosis never seem to see OP'ness in their own race of play. Beetlelisk replies to that by flying of the handle and commenting that Nazgul is biased himself; quotes:
"AS YOU ARE HIS MANAGER AND YOU ARE THE NUMBER ONE PERSON RESPOSNIBLE FOR EXPOSING YOUR PLAYERS"
"you gave a green light to every single retarded faggot who wants to derail this thread"
"After showing how you handle the LR threads and not only them, you did this?"
"I am extremely dissapointed in you as an admin. You should be ashamed of yourself Nazgul."
Which is frankly not an acceptable way to talk to anyone on these forums, let alone Nazgul. Hence I asked him whether "he realized that he was the iconic mindless Zerg follower that people were talking about" and that his posts were "ironic". Saying that my words are disgusting whilst portraying Beetlelisks post as fair and constructive kinda shows how objective you are in your posting. As I said before, if there's problems with my posting the mods are perfectly capable of identifying them and confronting me. Yet Beetlelisk is the one that got banned.
Kudos to people that have read all this 
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EPT
