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I think these stats show a lot to prove that map changes and race development are making the real changes to the "balance" of the game than actual balance changes (mostly looking at the international scene).
I would imagine that the decline in overall Terran win percentages is mostly due to the introduction of bigger maps and the removal of small maps (i.e. Steppes).
Protoss had a pretty big jump in win percentage with the big Patch 1.2, but I think that's a case of correlation vs. causation. Around that time, Protosses began getting upgrades a lot faster (double forge, etc.), which really proved to be hugely effective in the PvT matchup. Also around that time began the development of the 3 gate expansion and the Void Ray/Colossus deathball in PvZ. As Protoss strategy became more fleshed out, they began winning more despite relatively small changes.
It's also nice to note how these days Zerg is getting much better in the ZvP matchup. Indeed, the infestor buff helped Zerg out a lot, but Zergs also began developing new strategies such as fast burrow, more ling/baneling styles, and more effective use of their "tier 3" units, so much so that in fact the win rates slightly favor Zerg. It was just a few months ago that Zergs everywhere were complaining about ZvP imbalance, and nowadays seem to be doing fine in the matchup.
TvZ really surprised me, although if I were to guess at why the matchup favors Terran so much, I'd probably attribute it to the massive Terran presence in Europe. European Terrans are quite strong, whereas there just aren't that many European Zergs. That's just my guess, I really don't know for sure.
Overall, this just kind of proves that the game needs time to develop and grow before we should really be calling for massive balance changes.
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On May 03 2011 01:15 DarkShadowz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2011 01:07 Jakkerr wrote:On May 03 2011 01:06 DarkShadowz wrote:
Zerg is UP they never win anything really. Maybe early on in tournaments but as you could see in the tournament roundup they won one small cup? and got hardly any medal places. Terran and Protoss seem fine however I certainly think Blizzard is getting close to good balance. nope Idra only just won the IGN/IPL. Stop crying PLEASE -.- Ok they have one player. I never whine about balance anywhere else but I tihnk this is the thread to bring forward such thoughts. I just think it's really close to balanced but Zerg is doing worse then the other races in terms of actual tournament wins. They do have fewer players at high masters/GM so naturally they have less players pushing their development. But it's getting closer and closer to well balanced.
They WERE doing worse, but now they are starting to do better with the same game, that only means they are starting too learn how to counter the terran/protoss builds they face.
Sorry if I overreacted on ur post but I thought it was one of those omgwtf zerg is UP posts that have absolutely no worth again.
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edit: too dumb to read. sry. continue.
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I think that those graphs show pretty much one thing concerning PvZ: Zergs have really stepped up their game recently, especially against Toss, but Toss didn't. I don't know whether this is an accurate reflection of Balance, it's IMHO more or less Zerg figuring out new styles of play and Toss having a hard time adapting.
Personally, not really considering the recent results out of Korea, PvZ is still in heavy favour of Toss, or have you heard a single Protoss saying anything like: Zerg is too strong against Toss? I didn't and it's IMHo cuz the Toss know that they are just not performing well.
I personally don't hate PvZ right now, but then again, if you look at my Multitasking/APM and decisions (after seeing my own replays), If I win against Toss, it's every time cuz I completely outplayed them, but the same cannot be said if a Protoss just turtles up on 3 bases and crushes me with one simple attack.
Just like Tyler said on SotG - Toss has so many more stuff they can do to get ahead against Zerg with heavy Blinkstalker/Phoenix-harrass and now that Zergs really begin to pressure all over the Toss' face with Drops, All-in's etc. Toss maybe just has to step up their game and use the many tools they have to get ahead against Zerg.
And srsly: If sm1 really feels like PvZ is Zerg-favoured now just because of these small samples from Korea, you really need to think a bit longer about that one. ^^'
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On May 03 2011 01:19 Jayjay54 wrote:
hmm. this is highly MMR affected isn't it? The system balances everything. So even if everything was 50% that doesn't mean the game is balanced. Better [your racehere] play worse [your antirace here] and the illusion of balance is artifically while the races may be imba as shit.
OP specifically says it is tournament games, zero ladder games. And you can discern imbalance on ladder as well, but anywho.
I personally prefer looking at tourney results to see how the race balance progresses.
Read the OP before posting please.
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To me, this shows somewhat the development of the metagame, as well as the effect of Blizz constantly patching the game. To be honest, I don't like this constant meddling in the game, especially when most of their "fixes" are to take options away from each race, and when they have expansions coming. People seem overjoyed to see win ratios in the international scene reaching 50%, but to me this doesn't imply much besides everyone wins in the same proportion. I don't like how people are saying balance is achieved when every race reaches 50%. Does that mean that all meta-game developments that later skew those percentages need to be patched out? That's it in a nutshell for me, that strategy is still evolving, but as soon as there are new developments there is a knee-jerk reaction amongst the community and Blizzard to "fix" things, and bring us back to this 50%. When the percentages are stable, people will say "balance achieved", but for me, all this seems to do is stifle development.
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On May 03 2011 01:20 kickinhead wrote:
Personally, not really considering the recent results out of Korea, PvZ is still in heavy favour of Toss, or have you heard a single Protoss saying anything like: Zerg is too strong against Toss? I didn't and it's IMHo cuz the Toss know that they are just not performing well.
What results indicate it is heavily Toss favored?
I personally don't hate PvZ right now, but then again, if you look at my Multitasking/APM and decisions (after seeing my own replays), If I win against Toss, it's every time cuz I completely outplayed them, but the same cannot be said if a Protoss just turtles up on 3 bases and crushes me with one simple attack.
That's not a balance issue...
And srsly: If sm1 really feels like PvZ is Zerg-favoured now just because of these small samples from Korea, you really need to think a bit longer about that one. ^^'
What these results show is how in flux the matchup is. Saying it's Zerg favored OR Protoss favored is daft.
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On May 03 2011 01:19 Jayjay54 wrote:
hmm. this is highly MMR affected isn't it? The system balances everything. So even if everything was 50% that doesn't mean the game is balanced. Better [your racehere] play worse [your antirace here] and the illusion of balance is artifically while the races may be imba as shit.
and when a race is buffed / nerfed this balanced is altered. e.g. imo the infestor buff highly affected pvz in korea. many protosses (who might have been rated a little too high) were dropping in ladder which explains the low percentage. However, I feel like this does not automatically cry IMBALANCE as maybe the system needs just some time to readjust itself after a huge patch.
I personally prefer looking at tourney results to see how the race balance progresses.
He looked ONLY at tournament and leagues if you read carefully.
By the way I think that all those whine abous zerg being UP and protoss being OP have no sense.
Keep in mind that the metagame is still changing. From what I'm seeing protoss and zergs are evolving pretty fast while terran are remaning a little behind. So yeah, just be patient and let the metagame evolve.
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On May 03 2011 00:30 garlicface wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2011 00:26 fant0m wrote:
The issue with Korean Toss is that they got complacent. So many lose games early due to over-teching or over-expanding. The balance is too close for you to do that when your opponent is about to hit with a timing attack and still win.
That skews the results so much because there are so few Korean Toss. So 2 of them do bad for 4 games total (San, MC)... and the whole representation gets thrown off massively.
Toss just isn't strong enough any more to ignore what the other race is doing and still win. I don't even understand why they would get complacent in the first place. PvT was never that strong for them, was it? Sure, it looked like they were dominating everything with MC leading the charge, but I can't believe how they all just seem so unprepared now. Almost all of the Ps in GSL have been knocked out in PvT. I just can't wrap my head around it.
It's simple really. Terrans went back to what was working for them a few months ago against protoss, winning by unit efficiency and eliminating expansions.
I think the HT nerf is often understated with concern to the matchup and sometimes its hard to notice the effect that it has. What we are seeing now is protoss defending drops by warping in chargelots and stuff, which is great... it gets the units off the ground, BUT it doesn't get the medivac out of the air so they can keep you pinned all game. If you leave the units there to defend further drops, your mid-size army at the front is too weak to take on a mid-size bio force.
I'm not saying its imba or anything, I'm just saying the HT nerf had a bigger impact than people think since they aren't seen all that often. The impact is in mid-late game drop defense. Protoss has the worst drop defense of all the races not because the units can't defend the drop, but because of the impact it has on your main army to break off chunks of it. Cannons are actually terrible against terran drops and though some people might argue that cannons are very strong, the protoss doesn't have abilities that give them mineral surges like the MULE for instance. MULEing makes getting the money for turrets alot less painful. Basically, cannons cost alot in opportunity cost for the protoss in an evenly matched game.
Enough of my digression. Basically, protoss' very weak base defense is being taken advantage of by these races in recent games. I think protoss users will need to come up with some creative uses of air (not deathball air, i mean map control style air) in the near future.
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On May 03 2011 01:19 Jayjay54 wrote:
hmm. this is highly MMR affected isn't it? The system balances everything. So even if everything was 50% that doesn't mean the game is balanced. Better [your racehere] play worse [your antirace here] and the illusion of balance is artifically while the races may be imba as shit.
and when a race is buffed / nerfed this balanced is altered. e.g. imo the infestor buff highly affected pvz in korea. many protosses (who might have been rated a little too high) were dropping in ladder which explains the low percentage. However, I feel like this does not automatically cry IMBALANCE as maybe the system needs just some time to readjust itself after a huge patch.
I personally prefer looking at tourney results to see how the race balance progresses.
These are based off of tournament results and leagues from the TLPD
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Nice analysis. Zerg does seem quite good right now.
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On May 03 2011 01:25 Jayrod wrote:
Enough of my digression. Basically, protoss' very weak base defense is being taken advantage of by these races in recent games. I think protoss users will need to come up with some creative uses of air (not deathball air, i mean map control style air) in the near future.
I don't think you can say our base defence is bad. Templar + phoenixs + warpins is very, very strong. But yes, I agree, the threat of medivacs is not well accounted for with current playstyles, and that's being abused (templar in the ball and stalkers are pretty much the only AA). Incontrol is right - phoenixs will see increasing usage.
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These charts support a lot of my suspicions ><
too bad I can't blame my losses on balance at my lowly noob level
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Visual proof that Zerg WAS the shittest race yay ^^.
It's improving though, which is pretty interesting.
I don't know how much to make of the recent Korean statistics though. For one reason or another every protoss in Code A completely bombed this year oO
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On May 02 2011 23:57 hmunkey wrote:
I posted on the Reddit post but I thought I'd post here too: even though these charts indicate balance (or lack thereof) in certain ways, they're taken only for certain time periods which basically means certain events or specific players have disproportionately larger impact on the data.
For example, Naniwa's MLG run (I know it wasn't charted but it's a good example) or recent Losira domination in GSL would both skew results and make it seem like P is OP or Z is OP when really, neither can be conclusively decided as true.
Basically, players who make deep runs play more games and skew it. So what we sometimes see are only the best of the best represented their races. For example, the GSL currently has 4 zergs in the RO16. These zergs are the absolute best when it comes to their race, as opposed to mediocre protosses and terrans who made it in. This makes it look like Zv* is insane when it may not truly be, because the fewer number of zergs and their comparative skill means they'll obviously win more games.
Similarly, I imagine if IdrA continues his streak into NASL further and in other tournaments, he will single-handedly make zerg look OP in NA even if he's the only zerg playing major tournaments and getting far.
Nice move maneuvering yourself into QQ position, but if Idra continues his NASL dominance, then it won't skew the NASL stats by an undue amount. The beauty of the NASL stats is that they are derived from a league, where the outcome of one event does not influence the next event. If a player loses, he can lose again.
KO tourneys make the race with the highest skill variance (around the same mean) look better, because the exceptional performing players contribute more games to an event.
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Incontrol is right - phoenixs will see increasing usage.
He said that for PvP, you don't really have the army to toe-toe with other races with a Phoenix army. But in PvP Phoenixes do a hell of a lot considering:
a) Stalkers have such poor anti-air and super expensive compared to Hydra/Roaches/Marauders/Marines,
b) Protoss expansions take the longest to pay off in the game (Terran Expo brings in like 800 minerals by the time a Toss expo has just paid it self off) and thus economic harass to Protoss is more devastating than vs other races
c) Large amounts of thier DPS come from a 9range range unit which can be attacked by air. In PvP, without Phoenixes, trying to attack those Colossus will get you murdered, you usually have to kill all the gateway to do that or be creative with blink Stalkers, but since Stalkers have such shitty anti-air you can just go for the enemy Colossus directly with Phoenix in an engagement and there isn't much the other Protoss can do about it
Though there is the small problem of them just killing you the moment they see the first few Phoenix, might change come warpgate nerf
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Could you add markers for the patches?
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Are there any stats for the races that make in into the last 8 of each tournament, because I seem to see an awful lot of mirror match up from the quarter finals onwards and they are mainly TvT or PvP?
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On May 02 2011 23:57 hmunkey wrote:
I posted on the Reddit post but I thought I'd post here too: even though these charts indicate balance (or lack thereof) in certain ways, they're taken only for certain time periods which basically means certain events or specific players have disproportionately larger impact on the data.
For example, Naniwa's MLG run (I know it wasn't charted but it's a good example) or recent Losira domination in GSL would both skew results and make it seem like P is OP or Z is OP when really, neither can be conclusively decided as true.
Basically, players who make deep runs play more games and skew it. So what we sometimes see are only the best of the best represented their races. For example, the GSL currently has 4 zergs in the RO16. These zergs are the absolute best when it comes to their race, as opposed to mediocre protosses and terrans who made it in. This makes it look like Zv* is insane when it may not truly be, because the fewer number of zergs and their comparative skill means they'll obviously win more games.
Similarly, I imagine if IdrA continues his streak into NASL further and in other tournaments, he will single-handedly make zerg look OP in NA even if he's the only zerg playing major tournaments and getting far.
More people need to read this.
It's tempting to read something out of this, but imagine how few major tournaments are played in a month - particularly in Korea - and think if could really be representative of the current metagame.
Perhaps you should include smaller size cups and tournaments, like weekly and monthly ones, as well?
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On May 03 2011 01:36 Thobrik wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2011 23:57 hmunkey wrote:
I posted on the Reddit post but I thought I'd post here too: even though these charts indicate balance (or lack thereof) in certain ways, they're taken only for certain time periods which basically means certain events or specific players have disproportionately larger impact on the data.
For example, Naniwa's MLG run (I know it wasn't charted but it's a good example) or recent Losira domination in GSL would both skew results and make it seem like P is OP or Z is OP when really, neither can be conclusively decided as true.
Basically, players who make deep runs play more games and skew it. So what we sometimes see are only the best of the best represented their races. For example, the GSL currently has 4 zergs in the RO16. These zergs are the absolute best when it comes to their race, as opposed to mediocre protosses and terrans who made it in. This makes it look like Zv* is insane when it may not truly be, because the fewer number of zergs and their comparative skill means they'll obviously win more games.
Similarly, I imagine if IdrA continues his streak into NASL further and in other tournaments, he will single-handedly make zerg look OP in NA even if he's the only zerg playing major tournaments and getting far. More people need to read this. It's tempting to read something out of this, but imagine how few major tournaments are played in a month - particularly in Korea - and think if could really be representative of the current metagame. Perhaps you should include smaller size cups and tournaments, like weekly and monthly ones, as well?
The full list can be found here: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/sc2-international/individual-leagues
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EPT
