Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 1107

On September 23 2014 13:46 ZombieFrog wrote:
People tend to be inconsistant with their arguments. The main one I see is pointing to alligulac win rates when it suites their race and ignoring it when it doesn't, but people being hypocritical doesn't change whether win rates are a decent indication of balance, and they are at the very least an indication of the current meta-game's balance. These are the last 2 aligulac periods:

118
PvT 122–127 (49.00%)
PvZ 220–233 (48.57%)
TvZ 164–133 (55.22%)

119
PvT 191–182 (51.21%)
PvZ 248–259 (48.92%)
TvZ 222–190 (53.88%)

So at the very least in the current meta it is pretty clear that Terran is beating Zerg. Will it remain into the future or is there some way to adapt around the new patches? Time will tell, but while it's too early to call the match up imbalanced its also too early to say its balanced.

On September 23 2014 15:22 SC2Toastie wrote:

There were huge explanations of this posted already.

Also: this is logical. The patch is doing it's job. Terrans are getting higher and the lesser players of the other races lose some more until they are out of tournaments and winrates stabilize again. This difference in winrate might just as well be Terrans who finally get the wins thwy were supposed to.

On September 23 2014 15:22 SC2Toastie wrote:

There were huge explanations of this posted already.

Also: this is logical. The patch is doing it's job. Terrans are getting higher and the lesser players of the other races lose some more until they are out of tournaments and winrates stabilize again. This difference in winrate might just as well be Terrans who finally get the wins thwy were supposed to.

On September 23 2014 06:39 TheDwf wrote:

Nah I give up actually. Two months after a major patch some people have already decided Terran is OP. It's the eternal return. They just don't learn.


Based on?


Yeah. I still have no idea how you're supposed to attack Zerg's fourth on Overgrowth since your army traps itself in a tight corridor with a natural flank for your opponent, the distance on cross Deadwing is so long and Catallena's fourth just seems to be out of reach when Zerg takes the furthest one.

… ah you meant for Zerg. I don't know. We're far from things like Bel'shir or Star Station. I'd take the map pool from the beginning of HotS over the current one any day. The map pool from this season is better for TvP than for TvZ. I don't know what Zerg pros think about it, maybe you can ask Snute or TLO their opinion on the Strategy forum.


No, I don't make statements like that.

The syllogistic argument you mention goes like:

1. TvZ was balanced pre-Mine nerf;
2. Since then Terrans got merged upgrades, Tank buff, Hellbat transformation with Armory, Thor targetting air while Zerg got burrow buff for Roaches and increased dps for hydras;
3. So of course with all those buffs Terran is OP.

Except that:

1. The "initial balance" remains unknown since Blizzard patched the game before both sides found/refined the optimal way(s) to play the match-up…
2. Merged upgrades have no impact on 4M;
3. Increased attack speed for Tanks has no impact on 4M;
4. Hellbat timings would be a problem if they weighed Zerg standard builds down so much that they would lose to other stuff (straight 3OC, etc.) but that's not the case. Zerg isn't forced to open blind defensive Roaches every game, plus all Hellbat openings end up behind against correct Zerg defence or even have straight build order losses that adjust their risk/reward ratio (in short they're a "metagaming tool" and not a standard);
5. Thor splash is still negated by magic box, and the situation in which a pack of mutas tries to snipe a Mine under the surveillance of a Thor is unchanged pre- and post-patch (since there are only air targets anyway). Plus not all pro Terrans constantly build Thors. Some like Flash or Polt do, some like Bogus produce them episodically, some like Maru, Cure or Bomber don't get them at all in some games. Even for that aspect that may seem straightforward there's no consensus yet…

Last point, Zerg play is still evolving. Zerg isn't stuck in a bottomless pit like Terran was the past few months. There's still the potentially giant wave of Swarm host play after mutas waiting to crash on the TvZ shore. In Europe that's already the standard way to play for pros like Snute, TargA or Kane, and it's spreading. Who knows, in 2 months this thread may be full of rage towards Locusts being standard in TvZ…

On September 23 2014 15:41 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:


Oh yeah because there were so many Zergs playing at the top already right?
Or Terran players are just better ofcourse.
Love how Terrans are just always ok with it when they're at an advantage.
What Blizzard should have done was waiting a bit longer after the hellbat patch to stabilize a bit.
And I think we would have had a fairly balanced game by now.

On September 23 2014 15:37 bo1b wrote:

Must be time for another queen buff then I suppose.

On September 23 2014 16:02 SC2Toastie wrote:


I'm very sorry, but if you two whiny ***** don't understand the basic mechanism behind this, please, get the fuck out of this thread. Learn to play and stop looking for an excuse for projecting your frustration.

Must be time for another queen buff then I suppose.

On September 23 2014 16:02 SC2Toastie wrote:


I'm very sorry, but if you two whiny ***** don't understand the basic mechanism behind this, please, get the fuck out of this thread. Learn to play and stop looking for an excuse for projecting your frustration.

On September 23 2014 16:08 bo1b wrote:

If you're gonna make a stupid post saying terrans are rightfully winning again when they've won the most tournaments of any race and zergs won the lowest in hots then what the fuck am I supposed to say?

Also, you can swear at me, I won't be offended.

On September 23 2014 16:21 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:


Namecalling, very mature.
Please just repond substantively or just don't say anything at all.

On September 23 2014 16:27 SC2Toastie wrote:

That is not what I wrote.

It's a NORMAL process for a race that receives a buff when the race is not OP (UP/balanced does have an effect - disregarding whether the buff is warranted) to have a higher winrate for a short time because the race is going to be more effective in tournaments, which take time to 'rebalance' their racial distribution.

I'll give an example. Say Top 4 of RaceA managed to qualify for Supermegaawesome tournament -every- player in the world wanted to attend. The Top 15 of RaceB is there and the Top 13 of RaceC. Given this data, and the fact all players of each race sharing a rank are equally skilled (Top 1 RaceA has exactly the same skilllevel as Top 1 RaceB/C. (Mind you, placement is a function of skill + racial strenght + another million factors)), the policy makers decide to increase the strenght of RaceA. The new distribution will ideally be Top 10.67 for every race. Because changes in tournaments don't happen overnight, it will take some time for RaceA to reclaim the spots it has a right to (eg. Player #7 for RaceA is as skilled as player #7 for B/C, but the race was weaker, so he didn't get the spot he deserved). In this time, RaceA is going to have a high winrate. This happens because the players on Race A that are in the tournament (1 through 4) are REKKING players 5 through 13/15 of the other races now. Race A is going to have a high winrate, only because the racial representation is off (Skilllevel is not equal). With time, lower level players from RaceA will claim their spot, and they will lose to the players of B/C. In the end, the winrates will ideally equal out and the player numbers will be balanced.

This process has nothing to do with me being Terran biased or not, it is a logical process that occurs after a buff. This is why intelligent people say you cannot derive information from winrates closely after a patch - there's a lot of shifting going on as a result, which might artificially increases winrates to appear unbalanced.

If a race becomes underpowered, for whatever reason, it'll usually follow a particular pattern:
50/50 - game is balanced, but after a lot of complaints from the community, policy makers decide unit Y on race A is uncool, not fun, not nice for noobies, and decide to weaken the unit.
45/55 - Race A is underpowered and starts dropping games. The rank 6 through 15 players start losing games left and right.
50/50 - Race A is still underpowered, but winrates are even. How does this happen? The very best players from Race A are matched up with far lesser players from races B/C and deservingly take these matches. The very best players from races B/C rape Race A. You can only really see this in statistics if the racial representation of Race A is far lower than the others (as seen with Terran, for example. Having 400 PvP, 500 ZvZ and 150 TvT in some Alligulac Lists). Policy makers decide to buff Race A.
55/45 - Race A players start shifting out the lesser players from races B/C (eg. Patchzergs). This results in a temporarily increased winrate, until the race balance in tournaments is fair again.
50/50 - Balanced game.


Here you are.
And please get off your high horse.

On September 23 2014 16:31 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:

Except that TvZ was not in Zerg's favor to begin with, I get what you're coming from but in this case it's flawed.

On September 23 2014 16:41 SC2Toastie wrote:

A kept races out of it on purpose to explain it to you guys. I'm trying to learn you how the process of balancing works. Your response has nothing to do with it as it is not a case. Why do you have to see everything in the perspective of your race being disadvantaged.
We've seen people arguing about balance being very hard to discuss because a balanced reference point is impossible to find. I'm merely explaining how changes in balance affect the winrates.

How can you prove Zerg was not OP vs Terran? You can't. Nor can I prove Terran was UP against Zerg. I can bring up examples and statistics, combine them with my opinion, so can you. We can discuss said data and mention flaws. Eventually, we have to come to a consensus and agree on something. This requires us to be as un-biased as possible. Protoss verse Terran, for example, was a matchup a lot of people agreed on was somewhat imbalanced. The same needs to happen for Zerg and Terran now.

What I don't get, is how people love to bring up statistics to claim their race is weak. Other people come in and explain to you why your statistics are a bad example (I try to explain why winrates are useless for now). You respond with one-liners, not having read the text well, just so you can dismiss a counter-argument which is inconvenient to your case. That's what I'm having trouble with. Such cheap behavior shouldn't be the course of action in a discussion. I can one-liner every 5 page statement you make, does that get us anywhere?

On September 23 2014 16:49 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:


I never used any statistics in my claims and I never even said they have true value.
They might have though, if they continue to be like this.
FACT is though, that Zerg has never been performing well in HoTS and still we get on the bad side of most patches which I find very weird.
I think Terran has won more premier tournaments since the patch then Zerg won this whole year.(Yeah I know statistics.)
And ofcourse Terran is winning more because the patch is only here for a bit and other races have to adjust.
The thing is though there was no reason for such drastic patching in TvZ, because Zerg was not dominating or close to that at all.

If a race becomes underpowered, for whatever reason, it'll usually follow a particular pattern:
50/50 - game is balanced, but after a lot of complaints from the community, policy makers decide unit Y on race A is uncool, not fun, not nice for noobies, and decide to weaken the unit.
45/55 - Race A is underpowered and starts dropping games. The rank 6 through 15 players start losing games left and right.
50/50 - Race A is still underpowered, but winrates are even. How does this happen? The very best players from Race A are matched up with far lesser players from races B/C and deservingly take these matches. The very best players from races B/C rape Race A. You can only really see this in statistics if the racial representation of Race A is far lower than the others (as seen with Terran, for example. Having 400 PvP, 500 ZvZ and 150 TvT in some Alligulac Lists). Policy makers decide to buff Race A.
55/45 - Race A players start shifting out the lesser players from races B/C (eg. Patchzergs). This results in a temporarily increased winrate, until the race balance in tournaments is fair again.
50/50 - Balanced game.

On September 23 2014 08:21 Superbanana wrote:

Individual game results should be analysed as... individual games. They can be used as an example to ilustrate the imbalance, but single games are no evidence.
Some things that can indicate imbalance:
1 - A race is underperforming or overperforming in top tournaments (BL infestor era/2 Terrans in GSL)
2 - An specific build or composition is used repeatedly with overwhelming sucess, without any clear way to hold/secure an advantage (BL infestor/blink)
Numbers are important but not enough, imbalance must be identified, and adressed properly. Before any conclusion it must be clear that the supposed to be UP race attempted multiple changes with no sucess, and it must be enough to conclude there is no reliable way to play the game.
Small imbalaces might remain unchanged with this but idk.
About the layers, the highter the better, since highter level is highter relevance from my perspective. But using only the top 4 of each race is an evaluation of individual struggle in playstyles. Players dislike units, have difficulty with specific all-ins, etc
To answer the question "Are carrier all ins too strong?" if the answer is "not in code S" its not as important if foreigners are dying to it since there is clearly a way to hold and they are just not good enough. (invented something ridiculous to make clear its just an example).
But in some circunstances it might be necessary to look at other layers, for example, if there is only 1 player in Code S that had to hold the carrier al in, the sample is simply too small and could be related only with individual weaknesses.