EPTRace balance last 6 months. - Page 20
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FighterHayabusa
United States90 Posts
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JustPlay
United States211 Posts
ZvP is volatile because if Z can gain an advantage they can win. The problem is P has all the tools in the world, including higher than 50% odds blind techs, to not only prevent the zerg from gaining an advantage but to actively put him at a disadvantage. As time goes it will develop to be somewhat p favored unless zerg finds a consistent way to lower protoss probe count and/or a safe way to open without blindly guessing whether you are about to get phoenixed, dtd, warp gate all-inned, fast robod, or what. The ZvP graph spikes based on when P has a "safe" greedy opener and when Z finds a way to tear that opener apart. The more recent graph is because infestors really punish stalker heavy or ball play that isn't controlled exceptionally and there is an all-in stops the greedy expands we are seeing. I'm curious to see where the overlord-spine strat takes ZvP, because it will open up attack windows that zerg desperately needs in that matchup. ZvT is consistently T favored in the korean graph despite being a match that most zergs enjoy because T simply has more comeback tools. The MULE is powerful as heck, and terran has "critical mass" armies with marines/tanks/maybe a few thors that no number of zerg units (before BL tech) are going to directly break. It requires the zerg to hit elsewhere or catch them in transit. Combine that with T having powerful early aggression and just flat out more forceful play and you have the reason ZvT is terran skewed in the graph despite not being imbalanced to actually play. ZvT is going to continue developing because ghosts rip on mutalisks/infestors/broods and we aren't even seeing them used anywhere near their potential yet. This next patch has me a bit worried for TvZ because the ghost change is clearly aimed at other matchups but will potentially wreck TvZ in the korean professional scene. "Balance" is a complicated beast that can be broken in to many sections. If SC2 were 100% balanced right now we wouldn't be seeing 50-50 distributions in either of these graphs. There are too many times where players have to guess in some matchups, and certain races have mechanics that soften harassment/army loss blows at certain points in the game. | ||
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Uhh Negative
United States1090 Posts
This implies nothing conclusive or usable about race balance | ||
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Phanekim
United States777 Posts
however, there is something that is more an issue of game design and that is RELATIVE BALANCE. relative balance means optimal options throughout game. high range of strategical options as well as styles. etc etc. i'm not sure how to accurately define it but you can theoretically make a game that is absolutely balanced however it wouldn't be relatively balanced. good example is that coli is too dominant of a strategy and zerg compared to the other races is just more difficult. it may seem like i'm a sc2 hater i'm not. i'm actually quite a big supporter. blizz needs to work out a lot of kinks. i agree with most of the moves but they just seem to move too damn slow. | ||
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Onlinejaguar
Australia2823 Posts
On May 06 2011 09:02 Phanekim wrote: racial balance is something that should be aspired to. however, there is something that is more an issue of game design and that is RELATIVE BALANCE. relative balance means optimal options throughout game. high range of strategical options as well as styles. etc etc. i'm not sure how to accurately define it but you can theoretically make a game that is absolutely balanced however it wouldn't be relatively balanced. good example is that coli is too dominant of a strategy and zerg compared to the other races is just more difficult. it may seem like i'm a sc2 hater i'm not. i'm actually quite a big supporter. blizz needs to work out a lot of kinks. i agree with most of the moves but they just seem to move too damn slow. Since SC2 is such a competitive game with high prize tournaments revolving around it i don't think it would be wise for blizzard to be making heaps of changes without extensive testing. | ||
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Jayrod
1820 Posts
On May 06 2011 09:02 Phanekim wrote: good example is that coli is too dominant of a strategy and zerg compared to the other races is just more difficult. Ya, but see you cant quantify those things either. Having played both at high levels I can say I find using zerg much easier than using protoss, which to me, is much easier than using terran. | ||
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Offhand
United States1869 Posts
On May 06 2011 08:56 Uhh Negative wrote: "Race balance" in the thread title should be replaced by "Win rate by race" This implies nothing conclusive or usable about race balance What magic criteria do in that case? | ||
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natehhggh
United States33 Posts
based on this graph alone we dont know what caused the win/lose | ||
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terr13
United States298 Posts
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Zedders
Canada450 Posts
It'd be interesting to see what the average game length is over time as well. Since cheeses have changed a lot since the game started (5rax reaper and whatnot), people have a) learned to deal with cheeses all-ins more adequately and b) developed more late game strategies, the games are probably as a result, longer. It isn't surprising to see that terran was so dominant at the beginning because of the number of people that started out playing terran. If i recall...the first GSL was vastly Terran populated. Not to mention vastly cheese populated too Terran of course having the strongest tier one unit, the marine, had (has? i'm not sure anymore) the strongest early game. We all of course remember the BitByBit strategy (essentially all-inning...and if that all in doesnt work...all in again....and if that doesnt work...all in again...rinse and repeat). Since terran had the strongest early game...the game ended fast because cheeses were so powerful/prevalent. Therefore Terran won a lot. The games are getting longer now.... this of course results in more and more mistakes made by each player. Balance, in my opinion, should be weighted on how many mistakes the player can make in proportion to the other player's mistakes. What I mean by this is if one player makes less mistakes in his game decisions, he should ultimately win in a long game. Why you ask? Because Starcraft 2 is a game of decisions. And the longer the game goes on, the more decisions must be made. The more decisions that are made, the more mistakes there are, which should result in the degree of separation that makes one player better than the other. In context...let's say X race gets supply blocked 2 times (common macro mistake) but Y race never gets supply blocked. Y race then as a result has a larger army, larger economy etc. X race still wins simply because the units he made counter the units Y race made. Ok...this isn't imbalance...this is strategy right? Y makes a larger mistake by not scouting X and as a result his units crumble to X's. So we've established that theres different TYPEs of mistakes one can make. And some mistakes are weighed less than others. But at what point do these mistakes balance. What if X can get supply blocked twice, not scout opponent's army (+more mistakes) and still win. The severity of one race's total mistakes should not be much larger than another's. Ultimately I'd like to see X -not- win and I hope you agree with me, because X is clearly not the better player, his race is. --------------back to the graphs..... Ok so these graphs are representations of both races making an equal amount of mistakes since they are pros, and we are assuming that most pros compete at the same skill level regardless of race. So the degree of seperation of skill because of the mistakes that are made should be negligible. To sum up a little....... The average game length has increased (I'm pretty sure of this considering map size, cheese prevalance, spawn points). More game length means more potential for mistakes. Ultimately as e-sports fans, we want to see the better player win. This means the player that made the right call at the right time, with the right micro, while maintaining the right macro. Now it's super important to note...these graphs don't display anything about HOW the games were won. Looking at T v P... you might think "oh look it's balanced now because it's 50%/50% wins now" November2010 to jan 2011....Terran cheese prevails until protoss finally learns how to stop it (or they patched whatever). The game was balanced in january 2011 because Protoss learned how to stop strong terran all-ins? (the emergence of a 'safe build' to gain eco lead was developed) this isn't balance, this is metagame development, meaning half the people that are trying the old strategies that used to work 60% of the time, failed a lot. And the other half that realized this, tried new strategies (and not as developed and therefore not as good) won because it was something their opponent hadn't seen before. yay for meta game development! | ||
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Offhand
United States1869 Posts
On May 06 2011 09:52 natehhggh wrote: based on this graph alone we dont know what caused the win/lose That doesn't answer the question. | ||
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Cloak
United States816 Posts
On May 06 2011 09:52 natehhggh wrote: based on this graph alone we dont know what caused the win/lose Starcraft and cheeseburgers caused the win/lose. There, we can continue discussion. | ||
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Ihpares
United States40 Posts
On May 06 2011 10:28 Zedders wrote: + Show Spoiler + alright I've had enough of these graphs popping up everywhere and people statingthat the game is 'balanced now' because it's like 50/50/50.... It'd be interesting to see what the average game length is over time as well. Since cheeses have changed a lot since the game started (5rax reaper and whatnot), people have a) learned to deal with cheeses all-ins more adequately and b) developed more late game strategies, the games are probably as a result, longer. It isn't surprising to see that terran was so dominant at the beginning because of the number of people that started out playing terran. If i recall...the first GSL was vastly Terran populated. Not to mention vastly cheese populated too Terran of course having the strongest tier one unit, the marine, had (has? i'm not sure anymore) the strongest early game. We all of course remember the BitByBit strategy (essentially all-inning...and if that all in doesnt work...all in again....and if that doesnt work...all in again...rinse and repeat). Since terran had the strongest early game...the game ended fast because cheeses were so powerful/prevalent. Therefore Terran won a lot. The games are getting longer now.... this of course results in more and more mistakes made by each player. Balance, in my opinion, should be weighted on how many mistakes the player can make in proportion to the other player's mistakes. What I mean by this is if one player makes less mistakes in his game decisions, he should ultimately win in a long game. Why you ask? Because Starcraft 2 is a game of decisions. And the longer the game goes on, the more decisions must be made. The more decisions that are made, the more mistakes there are, which should result in the degree of separation that makes one player better than the other. In context...let's say X race gets supply blocked 2 times (common macro mistake) but Y race never gets supply blocked. Y race then as a result has a larger army, larger economy etc. X race still wins simply because the units he made counter the units Y race made. Ok...this isn't imbalance...this is strategy right? Y makes a larger mistake by not scouting X and as a result his units crumble to X's. So we've established that theres different TYPEs of mistakes one can make. And some mistakes are weighed less than others. But at what point do these mistakes balance. What if X can get supply blocked twice, not scout opponent's army (+more mistakes) and still win. The severity of one race's total mistakes should not be much larger than another's. Ultimately I'd like to see X -not- win and I hope you agree with me, because X is clearly not the better player, his race is. --------------back to the graphs..... Ok so these graphs are representations of both races making an equal amount of mistakes since they are pros, and we are assuming that most pros compete at the same skill level regardless of race. So the degree of seperation of skill because of the mistakes that are made should be negligible. To sum up a little....... The average game length has increased (I'm pretty sure of this considering map size, cheese prevalance, spawn points). More game length means more potential for mistakes. Ultimately as e-sports fans, we want to see the better player win. This means the player that made the right call at the right time, with the right micro, while maintaining the right macro. Now it's super important to note...these graphs don't display anything about HOW the games were won. Looking at T v P... you might think "oh look it's balanced now because it's 50%/50% wins now" November2010 to jan 2011....Terran cheese prevails until protoss finally learns how to stop it (or they patched whatever). The game was balanced in january 2011 because Protoss learned how to stop strong terran all-ins? (the emergence of a 'safe build' to gain eco lead was developed) this isn't balance, this is metagame development, meaning half the people that are trying the old strategies that used to work 60% of the time, failed a lot. And the other half that realized this, tried new strategies (and not as developed and therefore not as good) won because it was something their opponent hadn't seen before. yay for meta game development! I'm not attempting to derail the topic, but I want to make a note on part of this particular post. It seems like (Seems), given the current state of the Protoss 'Deatball', they don't have to scout at all late game. It's an army composition that can take on any comp relatively effectively, given good micro. Now, purely in reference to your post, assuming the Protoss play doesn't scout, is this a mistake? Or is scouting truly not necessary, because of the current metagame? | ||
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l3iRdMaN
United States72 Posts
On May 06 2011 02:42 War Horse wrote: 8000 games is a pretty good sample size bro User was warned for this post was referring to the 1k korean sample size... brooooooo anything <3-4k is subject to variance. perfect example is the apparent inferiority that is protoss on the korean ladder. however when we look at the international graph everything's pretttttyyyy, pretty even. | ||
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Cloak
United States816 Posts
On May 06 2011 14:29 l3iRdMaN wrote: was referring to the 1k korean sample size... brooooooo anything <3-4k is subject to variance. perfect example is the apparent inferiority that is protoss on the korean ladder. however when we look at the international graph everything's pretttttyyyy, pretty even. Actually all samples are subject to variance, which is why we do significance tests. A chi square will tell you how confident you can be that the lopsided ratios are nonrandom. | ||
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MrCon
France29748 Posts
On May 06 2011 08:56 Uhh Negative wrote: "Race balance" in the thread title should be replaced by "Win rate by race" This implies nothing conclusive or usable about race balance So you must have an explanation to why, wth a big sample size, better maps on the right of the graph than on left, better patches on the right of the graph than on left, more advanced metagame on the right of the graph than on left, the winrates are stabilizing as equal for everyone ? What else could it show ? Also, people who are saying that the international graph means nothing because *insert exemple like what if zergs are more skilled on average, or what if example X* must inform themselves about why large samples are needed. And it's because with a large enough sample, all the *example to "show" the graph could be wrong" are not significant enough to influence the graph. (the "examples" I talk about are on like 50% in the posts in this thread) | ||
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Squirrel
United States1102 Posts
For all we know, every Zerg 6 pooled while every Protoss Nexus'd first at 50 supply. It IS interesting, however, and it can be used in a grand scheme of talking about balance. But we can't use it alone. | ||
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l3iRdMaN
United States72 Posts
On May 06 2011 15:44 Cloak wrote: Actually all samples are subject to variance, which is why we do significance tests. A chi square will tell you how confident you can be that the lopsided ratios are nonrandom. the confidence level of a 1k sample size is somewhere between 40-60% (nowhere near enough to make an accurate assessment of 1's EV), where anything over 4k is probably above 85%. these numbers are just off the top of my head but if you could enlighten us with your fancy chi square math maybe we could get some specific numbers? everyone making a huge fuss about protoss inferiority is jumping the gun imo. (i play protoss as well) | ||
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Cloak
United States816 Posts
On May 07 2011 01:09 l3iRdMaN wrote: the confidence level of a 1k sample size is somewhere between 40-60% (nowhere near enough to make an accurate assessment of 1's EV), where anything over 4k is probably above 85%. these numbers are just off the top of my head but if you could enlighten us with your fancy chi square math maybe we could get some specific numbers? everyone making a huge fuss about protoss inferiority is jumping the gun imo. (i play protoss as well) I'm not saying either/or, just saying that there is a legit way to determine the statistic's validity. I'm just shutting down the notion that we have any idea what's a sufficient sample size without involving math. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson's_chi-square_test Point is that the null hypothesis (null= itz balanced guis, itz just randum) gets far less likely when the outcomes get far beyond the standard deviation. I'm too lazy to crunch though. Other people are more inclined. | ||
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randplaty
205 Posts
On May 06 2011 09:26 Jayrod wrote: Ya, but see you cant quantify those things either. Having played both at high levels I can say I find using zerg much easier than using protoss, which to me, is much easier than using terran. Really? So Zerg is the easiest and Terran is the hardest? Is that why there are very few terrans at Diamond and low masters but there's a jump in Terrans at high masters? | ||
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