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Active: 1563 users

Metalopolis prone to close positions, why? - Page 4

Forum Index > SC2 General
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I apologize to everyone in this thread for taking the OP seriously. My mod senses are definitely off today.

-- Chill
Deadeight
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United Kingdom1629 Posts
February 15 2011 20:21 GMT
#61
Well in whatever case it's certainly good enough to at least suggest something is up.

I'm going to start looking through my replays and I'll post here my results.
MonsieurGrimm
Profile Joined August 2010
Canada2441 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-02-15 20:21:51
February 15 2011 20:21 GMT
#62
On February 16 2011 05:20 Chill wrote:
Interesting. Instead of arguing about the reasonable sample size, let's either:
a) Figure out how we're going to test it with a larger sample size; or, prefereably
b) Figure out why Metalopolis is prone to spawning clone positions.


We could make a new thread about it, and have people put their names in and have everyone do a sample of 10-20 then report back to the thread so nobody has to waste an hour on it...
"60% of the time, it works - every time" - Brian Fantana on Double Reactors All The Way // "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
Chill
Profile Blog Joined January 2005
Calgary25993 Posts
February 15 2011 20:21 GMT
#63
Bickering about sample size without suggestions for improvement is now warnable in this thread.
Moderator
MorroW
Profile Joined August 2008
Sweden3522 Posts
February 15 2011 20:21 GMT
#64
i spawn close on metal like 50% of my games. maybe im just being biased cause im zerg and only remember the bad luck but still

they should make it like shakuras
Progamerpls no copy pasterino
Wolf
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Korea (South)3290 Posts
February 15 2011 20:22 GMT
#65
Can't you look up the spawn location percentage chances in editor? Or, better yet, isn't it the same for all maps? 100%/number of spawn locations? We know Blizzard can eliminate spawns (see: Shakuras Plateau).
Commentatorhttp://twitter.com/proxywolf
TL+ Member
philcorp
Profile Joined August 2010
Canada32 Posts
February 15 2011 20:22 GMT
#66
This isn't too terribly surprising. In a population as large as that of the players of starcraft it would be more strange if one person didn't see a result like the OP. Best thing to do is to get 100 samples of 100 games (or something like this) and draw reasonable conclusions from there.
eLiE
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Canada1039 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-02-15 20:24:34
February 15 2011 20:22 GMT
#67
On February 16 2011 05:16 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 16 2011 05:12 Alpina wrote:
On February 16 2011 05:09 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
On February 16 2011 05:02 TBO wrote:
On February 16 2011 04:58 Frozenserpent wrote:
People are fucking retarded and need to learn some basic statistics before they say something like "not big enough sample size".

Even 50 can be sufficient to obtain a p-value < 5%.

In this case, p-value is definitely low enough to reject the assumption that it's 1/3rd.

Obviously if you want the exact ratios you'd want to expand on the larger sample size, but this is conclusive to determine that it's not 1/3rds.


The problem here is that you have millions of players who play 100 games on metalopolis and a few of them will get extreme results (and those will post in the forums), even if it is 1/3 chance.

If you have 100.000 people throwing a coin 15 times, you will get quite a few (6 in average) who will get a 15-0 or 0-15 result.

Only if lots of people get the same results as the topic creator, one could assume it is conclusive.



On February 16 2011 05:05 Soma.bokforlag wrote:
On February 16 2011 04:58 Frozenserpent wrote:
People are fucking retarded and need to learn some basic statistics before they say something like "not big enough sample size".

Even 50 can be sufficient to obtain a p-value < 5%.

In this case, p-value is definitely low enough to reject the assumption that it's 1/3rd.

Obviously if you want the exact ratios you'd want to expand on the larger sample size, but this is conclusive to determine that it's not 1/3rds.


you shouldnt call people retarded when you obviously doesnt understand statistics. if you make enough studdies some of them will turn out faulty results even if the method is correct 99.9% of the time.

in this example, it is possible that the author of the thread felt "damn, i get alot of close positions" and therefore examined his stats.. the rest 99.99% of players which have a more even distribution never gave it a thought and probably are closer to correct ratios

edit. TBO was quicker than me..

Ah, you guys aren't likely to get your PHD's when you can't even understand the OP's testing methods. He didn't examine the games that gave him the feeling that he got close positions. He got that feeling and ignored those games and loaded up 100 more games against the computer and recorded those results.


So he could still be wrong, 100 games cannot prove anything, can they? People are saying that even if the chance of getting close positions is 1/3 the statistics made from 100 games can still be wrong..

You are correct to say that it's wrong to utter the words proof and conclusion at this point, but the 100 game sample size shows that it's more likely than not (>50% chance) that close positions happen more than 1/3 of the time.

edit: And yeah, it's a lot higher than 50%, but since I haven't done the math I don't know what it is exactly and will leave that to someone else.


Tyler, it seems like you are taking a personal interest in figuring out whether there is increased close spawning? Is this something you're experiencing?

As for the results, you really can't draw anything from them because this is a sample of 100 out of freaking a shmajillion games (the population) played on metalopolis. You'd need access to blizz stats to really figure out how random the draw is.

EDIT: well with that edit, I suggest we infiltrate blizz, or get a hundred people to do a hundred games, then pool dem results.
How's the weather down there?
Chill
Profile Blog Joined January 2005
Calgary25993 Posts
February 15 2011 20:22 GMT
#68
On February 16 2011 05:22 Wolf wrote:
Can't you look up the spawn location percentage chances in editor? Or, better yet, isn't it the same for all maps? 100%/number of spawn locations? We know Blizzard can eliminate spawns (see: Shakuras Plateau).

I think the implication is that the programming says it should be random, but testing shows it isn't.
Moderator
Vei
Profile Joined March 2010
United States2845 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-02-15 20:25:02
February 15 2011 20:23 GMT
#69
On February 16 2011 05:21 MorroW wrote:
i spawn close on metal like 50% of my games. maybe im just being biased cause im zerg and only remember the bad luck but still

they should make it like shakuras

Sums up all my thoughts :>

Interesting. I wonder if metalop recently got changed, because I used to get more cross-spawn ^^


On February 16 2011 05:22 Chill wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 16 2011 05:22 Wolf wrote:
Can't you look up the spawn location percentage chances in editor? Or, better yet, isn't it the same for all maps? 100%/number of spawn locations? We know Blizzard can eliminate spawns (see: Shakuras Plateau).

I think the implication is that the programming says it should be random, but testing shows it isn't.

Perhaps they never intended for all maps to be equal spawns; in Shakuras it's obviously a (what I presume to be) 50-50-0 ratio for spawns; the could've stealth patched or something Metalop to make it 50-30-20 or something (close/air/cross). They haven't necessarily said they want spawns to be X, even in the case of shakuras... unless I'm mistaken which I may be, seeing as how I don't follow blue posts except what's reposted here.
www.justin.tv/veisc2 ~ 720p + commentary
JTouche
Profile Joined August 2010
United States239 Posts
February 15 2011 20:24 GMT
#70
Awesome, close position Z v (P or T) on this map is an instant loss against any decent opponent.

Thumbs up Blizz
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. ~Eric Fromm
Harmonious
Profile Joined December 2010
179 Posts
February 15 2011 20:24 GMT
#71
On February 16 2011 04:57 emythrel wrote:

The thing is that while there are 3 possibilities of positions, close ground, close air, cross. Each time you load up a game it has equal chance to roll any of them, completely independent of previous rolls, that means it will never go 33% under any sample size..... it could be 99% close ground positions in theory, thats the wonderful thing about randomness. While its not completely random, no RNG can be completely random, only as random as you can program it to be.


The funny thing about true randomness is that it doesn't look as random as it could be to people. If you ask someone to write down 100 random numbers between 1 and 10 you can probably tell that it is not random since there aren't enough sequences of stuff (avoid saying patterns since there aren't patterns in randomness). Sequences would be 5,5,5,5,5 or 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and so on.

A true random sequence would have quite a few of those. Just a funny fact.

In this case I think we can say with a pretty high confidence that something is up. Maybe between 60 and 80 percent (look up confidence intervals etc. if you want more details). I would certainly not bet my life on the fact that something is amiss.

If TL is up for an experiment we could always flip two coins 100 times and compare results. I can pretty much guarantee that some very "skewed" results would appear.
SiguR
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Canada2039 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-02-15 20:24:47
February 15 2011 20:24 GMT
#72
On February 16 2011 05:21 MorroW wrote:
i spawn close on metal like 50% of my games. maybe im just being biased cause im zerg and only remember the bad luck but still

they should make it like shakuras



I actually have had similar experiences. Before this thread was made I always felt like there were many more close position spawns occurring than otherwise. I previously would ignore the notion and put it down to the odds just working out that way.
Twistacles
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
Canada1327 Posts
February 15 2011 20:24 GMT
#73
Do replay files have, hard-coded into them, some variable that stores spawn location? Because if it did, it wouldn't be too hard to code an application to go through a bunch of replay files.
"If you don't give a shit which gum you buy, get stride" - Tyler
thrawn2112
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States6918 Posts
February 15 2011 20:24 GMT
#74
On February 16 2011 05:20 Chill wrote:
Interesting. Instead of arguing about the reasonable sample size, let's either:
a) Figure out how we're going to test it with a larger sample size; or, prefereably
b) Figure out why Metalopolis is prone to spawning clone positions.


Maybe it would be useful to bring the argument to a conclusion, just so teamliquid can set some standards for posting statistical analysis. Of course internet + arguments = fail, especially when the majority of people on here have never taken a college level stats class.

If I were to ever open a thread about sc2 related statistics and see words like null hypothesis, p value, etc with values assigned and work shown.......who am I kidding lol.
"People think they know all these things about other people, and if you ask them why they think they know that, it'd be hard for them to be convincing." ES
DueSs
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States765 Posts
February 15 2011 20:26 GMT
#75
Ah, I enjoy the banter--but really this is just measuring statistics-dick sizes. The OP just tried something as a hunch and posted his results. It's interesting and perhaps more valuable as something that might be a real thing. It instigates discussion and intrigue. It's a good thing.
Centorian
Profile Joined March 2010
United States95 Posts
February 15 2011 20:26 GMT
#76
A poll could work to get a lot of information very quickly.

Play metalopolis against the computer for one game. Answer poll according to your result.

However, it would be easy enough for people to lie, or use the poll based on their feelings and not actually doe the test.
Insert witty statement here.
Draconicfire
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada2562 Posts
February 15 2011 20:28 GMT
#77
On February 16 2011 05:26 Centorian wrote:
A poll could work to get a lot of information very quickly.

Play metalopolis against the computer for one game. Answer poll according to your result.

However, it would be easy enough for people to lie, or use the poll based on their feelings and not actually doe the test.


What if we started a research thread where people can post their replays on Metal and then tally it from there?

The only issue I see is if the same two people post the same replay, so it would count twice.
@Drayxs | Drayxs.221 | Drayxs#1802
italiangymnast
Profile Joined December 2009
United States246 Posts
February 15 2011 20:29 GMT
#78
OK guys i have an idea. Everyone Start up ONE game against the computer! then vote in this pole with which spawn you got. This could increase the sample size by alot.


Poll: What spawn position did you get?

Close Ground (53)
 
54%

Close Air (23)
 
23%

Far (23)
 
23%

99 total votes

Your vote: What spawn position did you get?

(Vote): Close Ground
(Vote): Close Air
(Vote): Far


SCII ID: Sanctuary LoL ID: erzin
sikyon
Profile Joined June 2010
Canada1045 Posts
February 15 2011 20:29 GMT
#79
On February 16 2011 05:24 Twistacles wrote:
Do replay files have, hard-coded into them, some variable that stores spawn location? Because if it did, it wouldn't be too hard to code an application to go through a bunch of replay files.


This is what I was thinking. SC2replayed can parse your replay by race and even BO, so can we not create some program that can parse replays by spawn position? I don't have the time to look into it but that would be pretty neat, and we could download a bunch of replays off replay sites to analyze the sample.

hypercube
Profile Joined April 2010
Hungary2735 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-02-15 20:32:35
February 15 2011 20:30 GMT
#80
On February 16 2011 05:09 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

Ah, you guys aren't likely to get your PHD's when you can't even understand the OP's testing methods. He didn't examine the games that gave him the feeling that he got close positions. He got that feeling and ignored those games and loaded up 100 more games against the computer and recorded those results.


That's not the whole story. It's possible that thousands of people are bothered enough by the observed frequencies to run tests. Of these only one leads to exceptional result and it's the only one that gets reported. OPs testing method is correct from his point of view, but underlying "drawer effect" should change how we interpret his result.

Anyway, to add some math to the discussion, taking a binomial distribution with p=1/3 the expected number of successes is 33.3 (duh) with a standard deviation of sqrt[np(1-p)]=4.7

So OPs result deviates from the expected by 8 standard deviations, pretty much killing any discussion about publication bias or sample size.
"Sending people in rockets to other planets is a waste of money better spent on sending rockets into people on this planet."
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