Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 607

On July 28 2013 00:21 Sissors wrote:
And now I can also post a screenshot of my win ratio being worst vs zerg and best vs toss. It isn't THE evidence, and it also isn't evidence at all. It only proofs your best matchup is TvZ (after ZvT). It doesnt proof anything regarding balance, let alone it being 'utterly broken'. If you think N=1 statistics have any relevance then it is better if you just stay aways from stats.

Quite frankly what else I noticed from that page: That is yet again indicates that SC2 players are really loyal. I have played MMO, RTS and FPS games. In every one of those games, a large group of players ran towards whatever was strongest at that moment. Could be gear in MMOs, weapons in FPS, or races in an RTS. Yet of all those games, apparantly only SC2 is different. The most games you played were vs zerg. The least vs terran. SC2 ranks shows a similar image. So that surprises me a bit, considering in every other game people run to whatever is OP, yet in SC2 all those zerg players so incredibly loyal to their race they keep playing it despite it being utterly broken. And not only that, also no one runs to terran race, despite that terran apparantly has easy time considering how OP they are.

On July 27 2013 23:39 GhostOwl wrote:


I never meant that 1 screenshot to be THE evidence for TvZ T favored. I just said, here's an evidence from a Terran supporter, and even that evidence proves to be in favor of TvZ balance being utterly broken

On July 28 2013 01:48 forsooth wrote:

It isn't evidence of anything at all. It's just some dude on the ladder who happens to be better at one matchup than the others. My TvP is a little under 40%, and the only thing that means is that I suck at it.

On July 28 2013 02:06 GhostOwl wrote:
On a side note, I don't see why it's so hard for some of you to admit HotS made TvZ very unbalanced, in favor of Terran heavily. You don't see Zergs having a hard time admitting that end WoL was slightly unbalanced in favor of Zerg.

After all, the balance will probably change again after LotV comes out..why is it so hard to admit? Would you rather have a balanced game for everyone or matchups where its not fun anymore because one side is too strong? I'd rather have the former.

On July 28 2013 02:45 forsooth wrote:

Are you even reading what you're typing? There is no data that lends support to the conclusion that TvZ is imbalanced, and yet for reasons unknown, you continue to push your conclusion like it's a fact. It isn't. The absolute most we could conclude based on a small number of very current results is that Terran probably has an advantage in the meta, but we don't know how long that will last, and we certainly can't make claims like "the matchup is heavily Terran favored".

On July 28 2013 02:59 Foxxan wrote:


There sure is data to support what he says
Not 100% accurate but there still is

Stastistic balance is one part
which is 50/50,
another part is how the games are won
That is the data for you

50/50 tvz, yet zergs win with all-ins only, and terran can win in anyway , especially macro game
This is DATA!One example

On July 28 2013 03:01 forsooth wrote:

That isn't data, that's you typing a bunch of junk without anything concrete backing it up.

On July 28 2013 03:12 Rabiator wrote:

Try reading his post ... which isnt really about the statistics. The key point is the HOW ARE GAMES WON?

Statistics are actually a very very minor part of game balance, because a COIN FLIP is perfectly balanced (unless you cheat). Due to the game becoming dominated by more and more split second decisions I would say it has gone far too much in the direction of a coinflip game, where one wrong move can decide your fate without any chance for coming back. These kind of games do exist, but they shouldnt ...

Another big part is the style in which someone is winning and the number of options he has. In TvZ you still HAVE TO harrass the Zerg from as early as you can; you couldnt sit back and tech up because Zerg will have too much power with "unlimited larvae" to reproduce countless armies and their T3 units are much better than those of the Terran. Terrans only win nowadays, because they keep the Zerg economy low enough to not be able to get a decent army of Broodlords and some Infestors. Thus Blizzard kinda limits the options ... because nothing of this matters to them while trying to "fix the game". Pure 50/50 winrates are the last indicator they should use when balancing it and other questions need to be asked and answered first.

On July 27 2013 08:52 GhostOwl wrote:


Plansix, we all know you're a Terran player with T bias and not a Protoss player, why do you keep that Protoss icon on there? You're not fooling anyone

And Rhaegal's TvZ's VAST improvement was maybe, just maybe, because HoTS made TvZ vastly Terran favored? We've been discussing this point for the last 5 pages and someone actually shows real evidence and you are so quick to dismiss it.

On July 28 2013 03:20 Avi-Love wrote:
I played sc:bw for many years, and I've played Sc2 since the release, I've never been one to complain about balance, or to use it as an excuse - but I honestly think that zerg is not in a great spot right now. I feel that TvZ is quite terran favoured, and the best chance zerg has of winning are doing predictable, easy to scout, and easy to stop all ins. I realize that at a non-competitive level, imbalances will always be easy to overcome, because your opponent will make a lot of mistakes; and as such, I only think and care about balance in the highest level of play;

http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/hots/leagues/3724_2012-2013_SPL/main

http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/hots/leagues/3655_2013_GSTL_S1

http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/hots/leagues/3975_2013_WCS_S2:_OSL

The three biggest tournaments in Korea, with the absolute best of the best - and regardless of the "sample size", I think you would have to be really biased to no notice the trends.

However, since the purpose of my post was not to complain, whine, or force my opinion on anyone, I thought about ways of improving the matchup for zerg - while it's probably not original, I would like to see zerg structures buffed - it's a bit too easy to lose expansions to small groups of marines/marauders, especially late game where upgraded infantry demolishes zerg buildings in seconds; a possible solution would be to have buildings (hatches/spines, maybe spores?) scale with carapace, and possibly ranged upgrades.
The biggest worry I have, would obviously having it effect zvz, or zvp negatively, but maybe there's a way of circumventing that?

On July 28 2013 03:01 forsooth wrote:

That isn't data, that's you typing a bunch of junk without anything concrete backing it up.

On July 28 2013 00:47 Orek wrote:

It was different during WoL.
Early WoL: Terran was considered OP, Most played race = Terran
End of WoL: Zerg was considered OP, Most played race = Zerg

I guess Zerg underperformance in HotS started only recently. So, it might take a few more months until some of them switch to another race.

On July 28 2013 03:26 Rhaegal wrote:



WCG qualifiers from the past 2 days: TvZ

47–46 (51%)



And Innovation/Flash in SPL have 20 TvZ wins between themselves, so that stat line is skewed as hell.

On July 28 2013 04:26 Decendos wrote:


thats 93 games including non-highest level games. now if you add the 67% winrate of 78 games from OSL, GSTL and PL since june you will be somewhere around 60% winrate for T in TvZ and even the 40% come from a decent amount of Z all ins. so yeah something is definetly very wrong in TvZ right now (and its T favored since 5 months now but this month is the worst). since the 4 months before it was already T favored but not that much we will maybe have to wait another month to see if the trend continues. whats definetly already seeable is that roach hydra, SHs + support or ling infestor all dont work vs MMMM since they are bad in a direct engagement AND bad at defending drops AND bad at harrassing since ovidrop, nydus and burrow movement all suck since 4 years and need to be looked at.

On July 28 2013 04:26 Decendos wrote:


thats 93 games including non-highest level games. now if you add the 67% winrate of 78 games from OSL, GSTL and PL since june you will be somewhere around 60% winrate for T in TvZ and even the 40% come from a decent amount of Z all ins. so yeah something is definetly very wrong in TvZ right now (and its T favored since 5 months now but this month is the worst). since the 4 months before it was already T favored but not that much we will maybe have to wait another month to see if the trend continues. whats definetly already seeable is that roach hydra, SHs + support or ling infestor all dont work vs MMMM since they are bad in a direct engagement AND bad at defending drops AND bad at harrassing since ovidrop, nydus and burrow movement all suck since 4 years and need to be looked at.

On July 28 2013 05:13 Rhaegal wrote:


You know David Kim just said that Zerg is doing the best on ladder of the 3 races, and that he doesn't see TvZ as a promlem.

On July 28 2013 05:07 keglu wrote:


Actual results for Korea - July

PL 8:3
GSTL 9:2
WCS Korea 20:22
37-27 - 57% + WCG 84-73 - 54%


Zerg has actual +50% winrates in WCS season 2 Korea, they are losing mainly in teamleagues.
Source: aligulac

On July 28 2013 05:20 Qikz wrote:


Actually, balance at the lower levels matters considerably. If nobody outside of pros could enjoy the game due to incredibly bad balance issues where only the best 2 players in the world could overcome a problem, everyone would stop playing the game and nobody would be there to prop up the pro scene with views anymore.

There's a reason so many people watch LoL and Dota. It's because there's so many players.