• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 10:39
CEST 16:39
KST 23:39
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 243ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12
Community News
Weekly Cups (Aug 3-9): Protoss get shut out6RSL goes to London! 2026 Offline Finals Nov 21-2212Weekly Cups (July 27-Aug 2): SHIN's big week0SC4ALL II: Brood War - $2500 - Dec 5-69SC4ALL II announced - $10,000 prize pool, Dec 5-64
StarCraft 2
General
Protoss AoE skill expression Weekly Cups (Aug 3-9): Protoss get shut out SC4ALL: II Talent Announcement! SC4ALL II: StarCraft 2 Player Announcement 5/8 August World Ranking: Clem climbs to #2
Tourneys
2026 KungFu Cup Announcement PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament RSL goes to London! 2026 Offline Finals Nov 21-22 RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 538 Media Blackout The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 537 Hostile Territory Mutation # 536 Railroad Switch
Brood War
General
ASL22 General Discussion Data needed BW General Discussion Michaelbg appreciation thread How FlaSh Nearly Forfeited MSL Finals being late
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3 2v2v2v2 Tournament Escore Tournament - Season 3
Strategy
Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Fighting Spirit mining rates Any training maps people recommend? Simple Questions, Simple Answers
Other Games
General Games
General RTS Discussion Thread EVE Corporation Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Diablo 2 thread
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread The Letting Off Steam Thread Iain M Banks Says He Has Cancer And Months To Live Russo-Ukrainian War Thread
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club The herO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread Series you have seen recently... [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books
Sports
TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Football (Soccer) Thread NBA General Discussion Formula 1 Discussion MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread Simple Questions Simple Answers FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Are High-Level Gamers more A…
TrAiDoS
Cathedral Of CS And NY pizza a…
FuDDx
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
Hello guys!
LIN1s
ASL S22 English Commentary…
namkraft
Poker (part 2)
Nebuchad
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 4190 users

Model for imbalance, with myths - Page 4

Forum Index > SC2 General
Post a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next All
Anomandaris
Profile Joined July 2010
Afghanistan440 Posts
May 20 2011 07:21 GMT
#61
Meh, this kind of posts is (nearly) useless imo, and mistaken in a couple of points.

Discussing how to discuss balance wtf.

All those lower leagues play the game wrong, and are insignificant for balance. The only one which you should watch are GM and maybe tournament results.

Altough they sometimes qq, high level players try non stop new things out and reinvent the matchup. Non believes seriously in imbalance.

I guess some people are impressed when they see some math...
qazadex
Profile Joined October 2010
Australia473 Posts
May 20 2011 07:24 GMT
#62
On May 20 2011 16:17 Essentia wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 20 2011 16:11 omisa wrote:
On May 20 2011 15:00 avilo wrote:

The most obvious thing completely wrong with the "post" is to not look at pros for balance. In any RTS game or game you always look at the top level for balance because these are the people playing the game at the highest level and are actively trying to "break the game."
.


The most obvious thing wrong with your post is you assume you're right.

Amazing OP. It seems the whole point of it is to look at the balance situation with a little less bias and to not automatically assume rumors of imbalance are actually true. If anything is to be assumed, its that you are wrong (this goes for everybody).



Ok, then explain why the game shouldn't be balanced around pro play/


It's not that the game shouldn't be balanced against pro play, its that anyone with ~80% win ration is a statistical outlier. Their skill is above the other competitors by a significant enough margin that they cannot be used.
Holy_AT
Profile Joined July 2010
Austria978 Posts
May 20 2011 07:26 GMT
#63
All those "mind = blown" posts and other 1 sentence statements in regard to the opneing post feel so horrible.
If you are actually amazed then explain why, because with that sort of statement I can only come to the conclusion that you are not able to understand what the thread opener is writing about and therefore your mind is blown ?
It would be nice to read about more educated opinions then just 1 sentence, it does not need to be highly detailed but "mind blown" and "golfclap" make me feel bad.
VIB
Profile Blog Joined November 2007
Brazil3567 Posts
May 20 2011 07:28 GMT
#64
- First of all, to even start arguing, we need to decide what "balance" is. Seems silly, but actually people have very contradictory opinion about this
- Even if the game has 1/3 of each race at every level. It doesn't mean it's "balanced". Balance is much more than that.
- ZvZ has a 50% win ratio. But often times the winner is the one who got a lucky coin flip in the build order battle. And not the most skilled player. Does that fit your definition of the word "balanced"? Opinions will vary.
- SC2, like every other game in history, does NOT use objective math to "calculate" balance. There is no formula where you put in variables and find out how much damage a stalker should do
- SC2, like any other game. Is balanced through brute force. You put a random value, test it, if it seems imba, you change it out of pure intuition. There's zero science in this.
- It is mathematically impossible to achieve perfect mathematical balance with this brute force approach.
- Only solution would be remake a game from scratch. With balance in mind since start. And calculate balance (once we define what that is) before designing the game. Then make the game around this balanced model. ie.: completely remake sc2
- Of course blizzard will never do this. So we will never have perfect balance. We can only hope for "balanced enough" (like many would argue bw is)
- Realistically, considering the brute force approach. Our best bet is have as many balance-test iterations as possible. The easiest way to do this is to balance through designing maps (which is about ~50% of what balances the game), instead of patching. Just like BW is being rebalanced by kespa mappers after blizzard stopped patching
Great people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people.
Waking
Profile Joined October 2010
United States46 Posts
May 20 2011 07:29 GMT
#65
On May 20 2011 16:02 jalstar wrote:
Show nested quote +

Yet these players with sub-50% win/loss ratios are both by rank and by nature superior players to their peers with 50% win/loss ratios. Their low ratios come from the fact that they’re so good they’re the only amateurs who get matched against professional level players. This low ratio comes from the assumption that there is a significant skill gap between amateur players and professional players. We know that at the top level, skill gaps can be huge because Idra has a huge win/loss ratio.


There are very few players (relatively) with 70-80% W/L ratios, so the best players outside those ratios will face ~50% ratio players most of the time, and if they're truly better they'll have a higher than 50% win rate against those. Over hundreds of games the better players should have a higher winrate unless 70-80% win ratio players are literally laddering all the time.

How much math have you taken, OP? By your post I'm guessing you're a second-year math undergrad, or maybe an engineering/science major.


No need to insult the guy. If player skill between high masters and grandmasters scale in a nonlinear way with points, then you will get a situation where high masters have less than 50% ratio. Not that hard to understand.
NastyMarine
Profile Blog Joined May 2006
United States1252 Posts
May 20 2011 07:34 GMT
#66
Incredible post!
Treatin' fools since '87
omisa
Profile Joined January 2011
United States494 Posts
May 20 2011 07:35 GMT
#67
On May 20 2011 16:17 Jombozeus wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 20 2011 16:11 omisa wrote:
On May 20 2011 15:00 avilo wrote:

The most obvious thing completely wrong with the "post" is to not look at pros for balance. In any RTS game or game you always look at the top level for balance because these are the people playing the game at the highest level and are actively trying to "break the game."
.


The most obvious thing wrong with your post is you assume you're right.

Amazing OP. It seems the whole point of it is to look at the balance situation with a little less bias and to not automatically assume rumors of imbalance are actually true. If anything is to be assumed, its that you are wrong (this goes for everybody).


Cool, so we have reached a conclusion that the OP is wrong despite also being amazing. Doublethink it is!


It seems you have reached a conclusion of your own. But this sort of bickering is quite off topic, lets keep discussion on topic.
\m/
forSeohyun
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
504 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-20 07:42:22
May 20 2011 07:38 GMT
#68
On May 20 2011 16:24 qazadex wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 20 2011 16:17 Essentia wrote:
On May 20 2011 16:11 omisa wrote:
On May 20 2011 15:00 avilo wrote:

The most obvious thing completely wrong with the "post" is to not look at pros for balance. In any RTS game or game you always look at the top level for balance because these are the people playing the game at the highest level and are actively trying to "break the game."
.


The most obvious thing wrong with your post is you assume you're right.

Amazing OP. It seems the whole point of it is to look at the balance situation with a little less bias and to not automatically assume rumors of imbalance are actually true. If anything is to be assumed, its that you are wrong (this goes for everybody).



Ok, then explain why the game shouldn't be balanced around pro play/


It's not that the game shouldn't be balanced against pro play, its that anyone with ~80% win ration is a statistical outlier. Their skill is above the other competitors by a significant enough margin that they cannot be used.


If you want to balance the game statistically you have to use either all or a number of randomly selected players from a league or from the game as whole.

This depends on a) if the balance is linear or not, and if it's not b) who do you want to balance it for.

You could select randomly a equal (high enough) number of Z,V,T's in GM-league and find the difference in mean rank or win ratio.

If the imbalances are not linear you have to sacrifice balance for some players, otherwise it's just fine using statistics of "pro play"-
Seohyun fan
BeastofManju
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States79 Posts
May 20 2011 07:48 GMT
#69
To the OP:

What about map imbalances? How does maps win/loss ratios play into all of this?

And 2nd question... Let's just assume that it is found that 1 race is OP or UP. How should one go about pinpointing the unit/mechinic that is the source of this imbalance?
The raven nevermore.
omisa
Profile Joined January 2011
United States494 Posts
May 20 2011 07:58 GMT
#70
On May 20 2011 16:17 Essentia wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 20 2011 16:11 omisa wrote:
On May 20 2011 15:00 avilo wrote:

The most obvious thing completely wrong with the "post" is to not look at pros for balance. In any RTS game or game you always look at the top level for balance because these are the people playing the game at the highest level and are actively trying to "break the game."
.


The most obvious thing wrong with your post is you assume you're right.

Amazing OP. It seems the whole point of it is to look at the balance situation with a little less bias and to not automatically assume rumors of imbalance are actually true. If anything is to be assumed, its that you are wrong (this goes for everybody).



Ok, then explain why the game shouldn't be balanced around pro play/


There is no real way of objectively balancing the game to just the pro scene, assuming there is an imbalance. Just because it is considered top level play, does not mean it is acceptable to "balance" the game over it. I do agree that it is crucial to look at top level play for balance issues but to actually make assumptions of imbalance solely regarding pro play would be quite, nonsensical.
\m/
DestroManiak
Profile Joined December 2010
257 Posts
May 20 2011 08:06 GMT
#71
For a start, I believe that beginning with the idea of imbalance is the wrong way to start. What a lot of people do is begin with the idea of imbalance, and then seek data to back up their opinion.


[image loading]

One should always refrain from confirmation bias.
paperwing
Profile Joined February 2011
49 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-20 08:09:16
May 20 2011 08:07 GMT
#72
Good post, agree on harsher punishments by mods for obviously unfounded, or obviously low-quality criticisms
Jombozeus
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
China1014 Posts
May 20 2011 08:16 GMT
#73
On May 20 2011 17:07 paperwing wrote:
Good post, agree on harsher punishments by mods for obviously unfounded, or obviously low-quality criticisms


So you are a person with 4 posts, with absolutely content in this post, asking for mods to do your bidding by banning people who have contributed much more than you, and have given a structured argument against the OP?
Grohg
Profile Joined March 2011
United States243 Posts
May 20 2011 08:41 GMT
#74
I'm holding my breath for a thread like this expressed solely using symbolic logic with parameters explained using only quantifiable data. On my first pass through the OP I saw the logic and followed the arguments. However, I feel that some of the omissions and assumptions were more than minor factors in augmenting the eventual conclusions. Even excluding the top tier of players to eliminate out-lier bias, you end up theoretically balancing for only the top tier of the remaining sample. The middle of the pack players should have higher degrees of skill variance which skews the shape of the trend to no longer be a nice normal curve. In an ideal sample with the ever-desired certainty of the normal curve, most of the results from the OP could be reached due to the elimination of any assumptions (regardless of their actual impact on the game's balance).

Theorycrafting, even in the context of balance, will inevitably break down once too many variables are left without being operationally defined. This is especially true when dealing with skill. How do you accurately operationalize skill? Skill is loosely defined as it is and it would be hard to decide arbitrary values to use as means of measurement (think of how the social sciences define Happiness or Anger). In a closed study, the efficacy or internal validity might be extremely high. However, once parameters are no longer clearly defined outside of the study, the external validity and ability to generalize to any other study is shot to hell.

I think the idea itself is actually a refreshing way to approach balance but there would need to be an overhaul to the method's core to eliminate confounding variables or bias. I have too many other concerns to list out but that's probably just my compulsive personality kicking in wanting a way to eventually break everything down in to binary.
You can't spell slaughter without laughter.
AbInitio
Profile Joined March 2011
United States4 Posts
May 20 2011 09:01 GMT
#75
While I agree that the effects of imbalance scaling linearly is unrealistic, a linear relationship is the simplest case, and the OP does point out that this is merely a "simple" model.

Obviously this analysis cannot simply be directly applied and sweeping conclusions made, but it is arguably the first step that one would take to try and rigorously analyze the game.
Comogury
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States412 Posts
May 20 2011 09:18 GMT
#76
On May 20 2011 16:21 Anomandaris wrote:
Meh, this kind of posts is (nearly) useless imo, and mistaken in a couple of points.

Discussing how to discuss balance wtf.

All those lower leagues play the game wrong, and are insignificant for balance. The only one which you should watch are GM and maybe tournament results.

Altough they sometimes qq, high level players try non stop new things out and reinvent the matchup. Non believes seriously in imbalance.

I guess some people are impressed when they see some math...

I don't know what you mean by "play the game wrong." If there really was an imbalance, I am pretty sure that it would show in all levels of play, not just in grandmasters and tournaments. So why not lump them in, too?
ru.meta
Profile Joined November 2010
Russian Federation88 Posts
May 20 2011 09:32 GMT
#77
Could you explain what exactly matrix like [27 20 20 20 13] means?
sc2drill.com
Regretful
Profile Joined March 2011
Sweden91 Posts
May 20 2011 09:46 GMT
#78
Very well done!

I for one would like to see more analysis from you.
I already tried that. "When you got blueflame helions in your mineral line you better drink your own piss because you're in trouble" - Moletrap "What the fu-fenixes!" - Day[9]
Blasts
Profile Joined September 2010
Netherlands99 Posts
May 20 2011 09:48 GMT
#79
On May 20 2011 18:18 Comogury wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 20 2011 16:21 Anomandaris wrote:
Meh, this kind of posts is (nearly) useless imo, and mistaken in a couple of points.

Discussing how to discuss balance wtf.

All those lower leagues play the game wrong, and are insignificant for balance. The only one which you should watch are GM and maybe tournament results.

Altough they sometimes qq, high level players try non stop new things out and reinvent the matchup. Non believes seriously in imbalance.

I guess some people are impressed when they see some math...

I don't know what you mean by "play the game wrong." If there really was an imbalance, I am pretty sure that it would show in all levels of play, not just in grandmasters and tournaments. So why not lump them in, too?


On the lower levels players make to many mistakes to blame losses or wins on "balance".
But I think there are far too many factors to count in for when talking about balance, not to mention that nobody knows for sure what balance is. Or if balance should be for the pro's or the whole ladder.
My worst MU is me vs my cat. I always try to 2 rax him, but he 4 claws me :(
Regretful
Profile Joined March 2011
Sweden91 Posts
May 20 2011 09:50 GMT
#80
On May 20 2011 18:32 ru.meta wrote:
Could you explain what exactly matrix like [27 20 20 20 13] means?


I think he did.

It is the spread of people in the leagues.
27 bronze 20 s 20 g 20 pl and 13 diamond
I already tried that. "When you got blueflame helions in your mineral line you better drink your own piss because you're in trouble" - Moletrap "What the fu-fenixes!" - Day[9]
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Kung Fu Cup
11:00
2026 Week 19
RotterdaM285
SteadfastSC62
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
CosmosSc2 29
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 51820
Shuttle 2672
EffOrt 1029
Mini 833
Light 709
firebathero 700
Soma 611
Soulkey 517
Stork 483
Rush 289
[ Show more ]
Larva 276
Killer 262
Snow 239
Sharp 205
ZerO 161
Free 154
hero 122
Hyun 53
Barracks 49
ToSsGirL 46
PianO 45
soO 42
Sexy 35
sSak 33
Terrorterran 27
JYJ 26
Hm[arnc] 24
yabsab 22
Shine 17
Rock 16
zelot 15
NotJumperer 11
Dota 2
qojqva1847
Dendi1263
KheZu89
XaKoH 76
Counter-Strike
fl0m4770
olofmeister1261
x6flipin99
Other Games
B2W.Neo729
hiko637
Lowko437
crisheroes303
RotterdaM285
Liquid`VortiX215
Hui .159
TKL 141
elazer127
mouzStarbuck119
Mew2King104
QueenE83
SteadfastSC62
Rex56
ZerO(Twitch)7
Organizations
StarCraft: Brood War
UltimateBattle 489
Other Games
BasetradeTV46
StarCraft: Brood War
Kim Chul Min (afreeca) 9
[ Show 15 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• mYiSmile121
• Hinosc 14
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• C_a_k_e 1871
• WagamamaTV662
League of Legends
• Nemesis2086
• Jankos1677
• TFBlade720
Upcoming Events
Replay Cast
9h 21m
The PondCast
19h 21m
PiG Sty Festival
21h 21m
Serral vs Lambo
SHIN vs Rogue
OSC
22h 21m
Replay Cast
1d 9h
Escore
1d 19h
PiG Sty Festival
1d 21h
ByuN vs HeRoMaRinE
ShoWTimE vs Zoun
CranKy Ducklings
2 days
PiG Sty Festival
2 days
herO vs Krystianer
Solar vs Cure
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
[ Show More ]
PiG Sty Festival
3 days
Maru vs Shameless
Reynor vs TriGGeR
OSC
4 days
Afreeca Starleague
4 days
Rush vs Hm
Bisu vs Shuttle
WardiTV Weekly
4 days
The Patches Monday
5 days
Afreeca Starleague
5 days
Sharp vs Shinee
Action vs Shine
PiGosaur Cup
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Afreeca Starleague
6 days
BeSt vs Paralyze
Jaedong vs Speed
Kung Fu Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-08-11
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
Acropolis #5
RSL Revival: Season 6
Esports World Cup 2026
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S3: W7
CSLAN 4
ASL Season 22
Escore Tournament S3: W8
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
META DYMY #4
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
Thunderpick World Champ.
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
Logitech G Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.