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[D] Imbalance as a spectator. - Page 7

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Chill: This thread is about how the perception of balance is not in-line with hard statistics. If you don't have a comment about that fact, DO NOT post in this thread.
Backpack
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States1776 Posts
April 02 2011 01:08 GMT
#121
I think most perceived imbalance comes from the community. Spending your time on forums full of QQ and over-analysis really destroys the fun of watching the game from an outside perspective.
"You people need to just generally care a lot less about everything." -Zatic
catabowl
Profile Joined November 2009
United States815 Posts
April 02 2011 01:24 GMT
#122
Instead of screaming imbalance... maybe come up with some outside thinking on why you think.

My only complaint I see is the Forcefield. 12 seconds seems way too long. I've wanted forcefield to have less time (8 seconds maybe) or have Hit Points (100 is a good round number) but you would have to target them. (they would not be active like the scv repair)

One person also suggested that forcefields last less time on Creep only... I kinda of like that for ZvP.

I think once more strats come into play, the mechanics will even out. You don't see MnM vs toss in BW that much... it's purely mech play. Siege tanks, hellions, vikings might become the new build. It all comes on the evolution of playing!
Jung! Myung! Hoooooooooooooooooon! #TeamPolt
Disarm22
Profile Joined January 2011
United States151 Posts
April 02 2011 01:58 GMT
#123
Protoss can actually reinforce with a proxy pylon just a quickly as a zerg can remake units from their hatch. When a 4 gate comes they warp in volleys of 4 right outside your base (and FF your ramp). Ever seen any protoss not make a proxy pylon to continually reinforce? If a Zerg decides to attack early his roaches are going to be very slow getting across the map. Roaches and hydras are much slower than the protoss proxy pylon warp in. If a zerg chooses to be aggressive he usually gets his army split up by FF while his reinforcements are streaming from his base. Sure speedlings are fast but FF negates them. You need roaches. also sentry imba. dictating map terrain is a broken concept. why bother engaging in the open just to have your army size negated by a dozen FF that last 12 sec each. sure burrow is the answer but any mid game or late game protoss army will have an observer. You best snipe their observer before your army melts to voids and colossus.
Cliiiiiiide!
EtherealDeath
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
United States8366 Posts
April 02 2011 02:21 GMT
#124
That is interesting, although in line with my own experience on ladder (3828 masters P pre-set, having also played a lot of ZvP). I always felt that ZvP was actually not so bad, with the volatility mainly due to scouting difficulties, and that PvT was hilarious.
spacemonkeyy
Profile Joined August 2010
Australia477 Posts
April 02 2011 02:27 GMT
#125
Well Zerg have always been the most vocal (rightly or wrongly is another matter) QQ'ers, probably largely due to the fact that Artosis is a prominent and influential part of the SC2 community and also Idra also QQ's harder that most.

As a P I remember when P was considered to be weak and under powered, and protoss still is a race where you also live and die by small decisions, really powerful when you play perfectly easy to abuse with mistakes. A player like MC plays so well and makes P look more OP than it is, add community zerg QQ and its easy to see why..

Personally I think units shouldn't be tweaked any further, every patch leaves me feeling depressed. Wait for the metagame to change it takes more than 1-2 months.
Blacksoul87
Profile Joined December 2010
United States12 Posts
April 02 2011 02:33 GMT
#126
I think things will get better for zergs when heart of the swarm comes out if the Lurker gets added in as it will allow zergs to have area denial against protoss midgame strats it won't help against the 4 gate or the collossus death ball really but It should allow zerg to survive sentry heavy 6 gate pushes as the toss will now have to delay the push to get an observer and that alone would allow the zerg to be able to tech to something to deal with the death ball better I think.
Tianx
Profile Blog Joined October 2008
United States1196 Posts
April 02 2011 02:45 GMT
#127
People have a history of imagining slight advantages as overwhelming ones, and tiny favorites as sure winners after the fact. It certainly looks like Protoss is favored by a small amount at the very tip top, but way too often people jump from "oh he's 51% favorite" to "he's absolutely sure to win here because his race is imba and Blizzard has no idea how to design a game."

This has more to do with the way people look at things than just Starcraft alone. For one familiar example, anyone who has played poker has seen someone go insane when their Ace-King loses to undercards despite being not even a 65% favorite because 'the game is rigged' or whatnot. It's too difficult for the casual observer/player to distinguish between a large imbalance and a small one (and, if you look at Idra, possibly too difficult for many serious gamers as well). The end result is that everything ends up getting lumped into 'imba' in the brain which leads to the trashy 'unfair, this sucks, retarded protoss gayness' that clutters the LR threads.

The fact is we have a switch that goes between 'fair' and 'unfair,' and the numbers don't actually end up mattering whether you're a 99% favorite or a 51% favorite once you've decided everything is unfair.
Intrigue: "as i've said to many others your troubles in life may be directly correlated to your dirty protoss icon"
Sablar
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Sweden880 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-02 04:34:27
April 02 2011 03:56 GMT
#128
On April 02 2011 11:27 spacemonkeyy wrote:
Personally I think units shouldn't be tweaked any further, every patch leaves me feeling depressed. Wait for the metagame to change it takes more than 1-2 months.


I've been thinking that it might be good to start tweaking more, also because the meta-game is constantly evolving anyway.

I don't think large changes to the game would lead to the statistics going way off the 50/50 mark after the initial break-in period. People adapt their strategies and make up for it anyway. The statistics won't be way off because new strategies themselves will work towards evening things out, regardless of balance.

My thoughts of Z having a hard time is based a lot on how Z are playing and not winrate. There hasn't really been any remarkable change in the meta-game, apart from taking more risks. These risks are what happens when the options are starting to run out.

Regarding the poker example those odds 65/35 would be awful if they reflected balance. I think it would require extreme changes instead of large changes for such a variance to occur. For me the T/P total of 60/84 looks like a clear indication, since metagame would work in favor of a 50/50 rate. The numbers themselves would definetely be statistically significant.

Which of course doesn't mean that a significant difference is caused by imbalance. While meta-game will balance itself out it would do so over time, and at any one time it might look very grim for one race and then change. But what to do when strategies stop evolving like I am spectating in the games?

So to sum things up, I would expect statistics that don't go far off from 50/50 in a game that is driven by constant change in strategy and also some parts luck (or anything above 1-set would be unnecessary). This also makes it extremely hard to say what is balanced, but I think that risk-taking (and successrate), how static strategies are, plus even small variations in statistics can indicate that it exists. The big question might be how long such indications need to exist before being taken as proof of imbalance. Myself I would like bigger changes overall, because I don't think it would be necessarily be bad if one race was buffed or nerfed too much instead of too little.

edit.. T/P stats not added up right in OP.
Virid
Profile Joined November 2010
United States130 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-02 04:13:02
April 02 2011 04:11 GMT
#129
I'm legitimately curious because I am bad and want to know. Why don't people use more ultralisks? They're such a natural transition if you're going ling/bane on T1 and Infestor on T2. Ultras do insane +armored AoE damage against a death ball and with a couple of queens, they live for an extremely long time. They also take up a ton of space, so any colossus targeting them waste a good deal of the width of thermal lance.

Honestly, + Show Spoiler +
Dimaga versus San was miserably boring to watch. Dimaga kind of just got rolled against a 200/200
and it was seriously the first time I really, really felt like the protoss death ball was killing my enjoyment in watching pro games.
SilverPotato
Profile Joined July 2010
United States560 Posts
April 02 2011 04:23 GMT
#130
Jinro vs anypro was horrible, it was literally:

+ Show Spoiler +
Anypro makes deathball, and kills Jinro x 2

I admire Artosis and Tasteless for trying to give those games more depth but it just wasn't there. It seems most TvPs go that way, not saying that's all Protoss has to do or can do, but that currently it's all the most protoss are doing, and from a spectator's point of view that looks very very broken.
"The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage." ~Arie de Geus
Fiercegore
Profile Joined July 2010
United States294 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-02 04:42:51
April 02 2011 04:34 GMT
#131
I don't think may people read the OP in full, because I thought it was super well done, and not a whine thread at all. On my thoughts, protoss are a little too strong, but I don't think there's an imbalance in TvP which is odd because that's tje most imabalanced match up according to the statistics (which is the kind of thing people missed from the OP). The High Templar nerf made it very one dimensional, but its not particularly imbalanced. And something that would help Zerg a lot is to make that one tier 3 unit that's really expensive and takes forever to get to, the ultralisk? I think if the ultralisk was good then everyone would be happy. Maybe marines too good? idk. Balance is boring, some games kind of make me feel bad for playing protoss.

Good news though, blizzard is fixing the bug where terran players could lose with patch 1.4.11 =)
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/506893/1/Fiercegore/
manicshock
Profile Joined November 2010
Canada741 Posts
April 02 2011 04:41 GMT
#132
I'm not surprised terran's getting ripped, in general (imo) it takes a lot more effort by an equally skilled terran to beat a toss. But I don't think there's any real imbalance, I do think the HT nerf was good and I'm still seeing HTs used and they're still plenty effective. I usually hold the idea of being a better player and outplaying the "imbalance" if there is any. Like when zerg goes for aggression in ZvP when they realize they could be going for the VR Collo deathball (Mondragon definitely stands out in my mind destroying Zeerax while Cruncher goes for a very similar build and kills IdrA).
Never argue with an idiot. They will just drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Heavenly
Profile Joined January 2011
2172 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-02 04:43:49
April 02 2011 04:41 GMT
#133
On April 02 2011 10:24 catabowl wrote:
Instead of screaming imbalance... maybe come up with some outside thinking on why you think.

My only complaint I see is the Forcefield. 12 seconds seems way too long. I've wanted forcefield to have less time (8 seconds maybe) or have Hit Points (100 is a good round number) but you would have to target them. (they would not be active like the scv repair)

One person also suggested that forcefields last less time on Creep only... I kinda of like that for ZvP.

I think once more strats come into play, the mechanics will even out. You don't see MnM vs toss in BW that much... it's purely mech play. Siege tanks, hellions, vikings might become the new build. It all comes on the evolution of playing!


Good idea, then I die to every single all-in. Forcefield would be so good at protecting me, when it dies in 2 seconds because it has 100 health. It would be so worth it to get sentries, when in a late game scenario, you could box a group of units from your unit ball, select each forcefield, one-shot them, then forcefield will have done nothing but waste 100 gas on a unit that is horrible in an actual engagement.

Clearly the way to nerf forcefield is to make it worthless.

And plenty of games are won without a single forcefield in ZvP. Apparently every single P unit has become imba in the last couple months---voidray, colossus, blink stalker, sentry, phoenix, high templar, dark templar. Just give us zealots and plain stalkers, since everything else that has ever won a game for a protoss is imba.
"thx for all my fans i'm many lost but cheer for me .. i lost but so happy my power is fans i will good play this is promise my fans" - oGsMC
jazzbassmatt
Profile Joined August 2010
United States566 Posts
April 02 2011 04:41 GMT
#134
One thing I think that helps game "balance" is making things generally more micro intensive. This is why I like the infestor buff, because it adds a cool way to gain an advantage late game or harass, but one that requires good unit control. I don't think players have come even close to really exhausting the potential of their race (e.g. overlord drops are just starting to be used, DTs for harass are becoming more common). Terran seems like the race that people have consistently used to harass really well, but I think there's more potential for the other races, especially zerg, to find more creative ways to harass the mineral line.
`Forte
Profile Joined August 2010
United States128 Posts
April 02 2011 05:45 GMT
#135
People view the same thing differently based on their background knowledge. For example, take any ZvP where Z wins. I'll watch it and, as a Toss player trying to improve, see where Zerg got major advantages and note them so I can focus on that in my gameplay. A random bronze observer who hasn't heard about TL and watches a lot of Husky casts could watch it and think it's very entertaining. A random bronze observer trying to improve and spends a lot of time on the strategy forum instead of working on their macro could try to analyze why Zerg won and think it's the answer to ZvP. A random Zerg player who's hit a wall with their gameplay could watch it and think, "That should never happen, Toss only loses when they make mistakes," because it's easier to blame your losses on imbalances rather than getting better.

I agree with BackPack that a lot of perceived imbalance comes from the community. I could show my friend MC vs. July GSL5 finals and, because he has a neutral point of view, he'd probably just be shocked at how good MC is. If I could travel back in time, show him all the, "FF imbalance" and "MC vs. July Analysis" threads on TL, and then show him the set, he'd probably have a much different view and would be more focused on, "How do you stop that? Forcefield really could be imbalanced," rather than watching the entire game.
Rabiator
Profile Joined March 2010
Germany3948 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-02 07:09:05
April 02 2011 07:08 GMT
#136
The problem with the matter is that Zerg players have counted out several of their options from the beginning of beta while Protoss are actually using all of them. Especially commentators like Day[9] repeat the mantra of "Spine Crawlers which he didnt want to make" and thus influence the general opinion about them very negatively. That is partially BW thinking because Zergs static defenses arent as static anymore. Think of them as "Siege Tanks with longer siege time and shorter range but which COST NO FOOD". Especially against Protoss with their heavy reliance on armored Stalkers these can be efficient.

But lets look at a game where some Spine Crawlers were used: Moonglade vs. TT1 on Shakuras Plateau from the GSL world championships. TT1 was advancing through the middle of the map with a big clump of Stalkers and Sentries and whatever and moonglade was defending somewhat successfully with Roaches and Hydras. Sure people have commented that glade didnt have range upgraded for the Hydras, but that wasnt the only thing to improve. Moonglade had built a lousy TWO Spine Crawlers and advanced them into the middle, but what if he had built more of them? Zerg are always whining about Forcefields, but what if they built about 10 Spine Crawlers and brought them to the middle of the map a little back from the spot where you expect the fighting to be (maybe one Tumor away from the edge of the creep?)? Just having 1-2 Spine Crawlers helps you against the first push with maybe five Stalkers, but what happens when there are 20 of them later on? The Spine Crawlers just get one-shotted and deal zero damage due to regenerating shields. So the answer is to build LOTS of them - especially against someone without Colossi - and to use them to create a fallback position because Roaches and Hydras cant really escape when they try to retreat from Stalkers.

On very large maps it might be useful to use a Nydus worm to create a patch of Creep (which then gets expanded by a Queen) to grow a colony of Spine Crawlers close to the opponents base. If you contain the opponent early enough there might not be too much pressure coming from him to disrupt your own "master plan to win". Often enough the one who is dictating the game wins over the one who is passive and turtling and Zerg can easily do that if they started thinking outside the box of 1a2a3a and then some micro ftw. Start thinking strategically since this is a strategy game after all.
If you cant say what you're meaning, you can never mean what you're saying.
Sablar
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Sweden880 Posts
April 02 2011 07:11 GMT
#137
Totally agree with people being influenced a lot by what's going on in the community. Confirmation bias, finding what you're looking for and all that. Pretty strong effects and many outspoken people especially in the ZvP matchup. I expected that to be more skewed than TvP.

It's even worse if you start taking into the account that a percieved imbalance will result in worse results for people. Like when telling a classroom that a test will be easier for a certain group, the end results will favor that group. Something which doesn't happen when just saying nothing.

But I mean, it can't all be perceived either. And arguments and ideas aren't invalidated because something prompted them, simply because the same principle applies to everyone.

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