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I'd just like to chime in for everyone who is trying to use GSL as a sort of balance discussion topic. While GSL is generally accepted as the highest level SC2 tournament in the world, with the best players, it can't be used exclusively on it's own without support as some unquestionable fact.
The fact is that people seem to forget that the GSL is in itself not perfect as a tournament or as a structure. Do we not all forget the open seasons and the difference it is in terms of skill level today, it took a long time for certain "average" players who everyone didn't think belonged in code S to fall down with the up/down format.
Remember how the ro32 is set up for both Code A and S. Before in Code S, the bottom two in groups were always sent into the up and downs with 1 person from code A coming up, with the top 2 of those 3 players making it back into Code S. Now the turnover is better for code A -> S but still the same for Code S. There is still only 8 people out of a 32 man tournament that could potentially lose Code S every season. Then there's code A Ro32 which is just a bo3 and if you lose you are knocked into code B which everyone knows is insanely difficulty to get back into code A.
My final point regarding the GSL is the group structure in ro32 code S. While people cannot handle multiple bo3s because of time constraints, this leaves us with the much worse outcome in terms of player potential, 2 bo1s and a 3rd potentially for a tiebreaker. Will you not agree that a single bo1 is not enough of a factor to determine who is the better player? Nerves aside in a tournament setting, this also increases the chances of cheese being seen in people's strategies since it's only a bo1 and if you cheese well, you generally have a high chance of just straight up winning which is why cheese is so popular. And I think most people would generally agree that a cheese game is 1) not fun for viewers, 2) not indicative of a players true skill. Remember IMmvp in GSL March? He got baneling busted twice in a row by July in an "upset" and fell to up and downs, and then lost in up and downs to two protosses and fell into code A. Now look at him, 3 time GSL champion with another high chance of winning a 4th title. Do people not slump and do weird results happen in the group stages. Yes and yes. Don't keep using GSL as a stand alone #s game since even out of 20 Terrans, at most 8 can go into up and downs every season, so getting the GSL to be racially balanced will take a long time regardless of game balance because of the tournament format.
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On September 23 2011 03:19 R3N wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 03:07 tyrless wrote:On September 23 2011 02:42 headbus wrote:
7 Zergs, 5 Protoss in GSL code S. That should be enough to convince people that terran is stronger. Anybody who is convinced by those most meaningless numbers is in fact ignorant and uneducated to basic statistical analysis. Which most of the whiners in this thread are, not to mention the terrible reading comprehension I'm seeing (there are actually people here bringing up the matchmaking system in their arguments). Sometimes I forget that there are just a lot of uneducated/inexperienced kids posting here. Sorry haters but Blizzard does in fact have people who are much smarter/more experienced than you who work fulltime on this. can bet my left nut on you're a terran lol. Seriously the code S race balance shouldn't be the only important stat (well it actually isn't a stat  , but still it says something!) but it's definitely not useless. It's been going on for months now and this is just the result of it. Also you could present your ideas on how these numbers are void, I'd like to hear it.
I hope you weren't attached to your left nut because you just lost it  Should probably take the other nut too for even suggesting that what race I play is relevant to the facts. As for methodology for interpreting GSL stats in the context of game balance, it's not really my job to educate you of basic statistics, your local community college can probably help with that.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On September 23 2011 03:34 QTIP. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 03:33 Huragius wrote:On September 23 2011 03:08 ShootingStars wrote:
Korea results ONLY matter. Look at TvP Korea... haha unbalanced there X_X With all the respect to the koreans protoss (compared to korean Terrans)- they suck shit. Honestly, you have to be very ignorant not to admit that. Most of the GSL games from Protoss looks really sad compared to Terrans/Zergs. And If Korea results are the only ones who matter, then the problem isn't protoss. It's their players.b And how would you go about reliably proving that? If there is an inherent imbalance in the Protoss race can we agree that their play would also tend to "suck shit" as you so elegantly put it?
Proving ? Inca vs Nestea finals and such ? There are boat loads of reliable proofs in GSL, all you need to do is to watch the games and not to blindly follow statistics.
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If people don't like comparing to GSL how about looking at other prominent tourneys. What were the racial distributions of the last couple MLG finals? What about the most recent dreamhack?[
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On September 23 2011 03:38 Huragius wrote:
Proving ? Inca vs Nestea finals and such ? There are boat loads of reliable proofs in GSL, all you need to do is to watch the games and not to blindly follow statistics.
As I mentioned in previous pages, the GSL finals are the worst place to look at balance because most of the time it's about who prepared better against the opponent. That's why you see so many one-sided finals and/or build order wins/losses despite the community yearning for an "epic" final.
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Are these stats from the start of when sc2 was releasedÉ because the numbers would make a lot more sense in that case\
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On September 23 2011 03:38 Huragius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 03:34 QTIP. wrote:On September 23 2011 03:33 Huragius wrote:On September 23 2011 03:08 ShootingStars wrote:
Korea results ONLY matter. Look at TvP Korea... haha unbalanced there X_X With all the respect to the koreans protoss (compared to korean Terrans)- they suck shit. Honestly, you have to be very ignorant not to admit that. Most of the GSL games from Protoss looks really sad compared to Terrans/Zergs. And If Korea results are the only ones who matter, then the problem isn't protoss. It's their players.b And how would you go about reliably proving that? If there is an inherent imbalance in the Protoss race can we agree that their play would also tend to "suck shit" as you so elegantly put it? Proving ? Inca vs Nestea finals and such ? There are boat loads of reliable proofs in GSL, all you need to do is to watch the games and not to blindly follow statistics.
maybe nestea is better than inca...
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Can anyone explain to me why they lumped in EU and NA under the same numbers? I would of liked to see all 3 servers have their statistics shown individually.
You would never see KR&EU represented together "vs." NA for example...kinda confusing.
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On September 23 2011 03:38 Huragius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 03:34 QTIP. wrote:On September 23 2011 03:33 Huragius wrote:On September 23 2011 03:08 ShootingStars wrote:
Korea results ONLY matter. Look at TvP Korea... haha unbalanced there X_X With all the respect to the koreans protoss (compared to korean Terrans)- they suck shit. Honestly, you have to be very ignorant not to admit that. Most of the GSL games from Protoss looks really sad compared to Terrans/Zergs. And If Korea results are the only ones who matter, then the problem isn't protoss. It's their players.b And how would you go about reliably proving that? If there is an inherent imbalance in the Protoss race can we agree that their play would also tend to "suck shit" as you so elegantly put it? Proving ? Inca vs Nestea finals and such ? There are boat loads of reliable proofs in GSL, all you need to do is to watch the games and not to blindly follow statistics.
Inca got to the finals on his admittedly impressive PvP and all-inning a teammate 3x. Inca was realistically only a PvP specialist, he was never actually that good at the other matchups. I've watched every single game involving a protoss, and while I agree sometimes their play does "suck shit", other times they make zero visible mistakes and still lose.
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On September 23 2011 03:30 ComplexConf wrote:
The thing is R0yal that although toss have been failing left and right lately. We cannot conclude anything at this given time. One patch at a time, one meta game at a time, we grow wiser...
Yeah, sorry it does not always mean there is a problem, the metagame fluctuates a lot. However looking at the race distribution in Code S (which most people recognize as the highest level) you can definitely tell if there is a perceivable problem in one way or another. Terrans outnumber Zerg and Protoss combined, that shouldnt happen @_@' It is also possible that Terran players are also just straight up better than Zerg and Protoss players so that is another factor you have to consider. I don't think this is the case though. Anyhow, I know that things will turn out ok in the end. I'd like it to be the end now though! 
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On September 23 2011 03:33 Huragius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 03:08 ShootingStars wrote:
Korea results ONLY matter. Look at TvP Korea... haha unbalanced there X_X With all the respect to the koreans protoss (compared to korean Terrans)- they suck shit. Honestly, you have to be very ignorant not to admit that. Most of the GSL games from Protoss looks really sad compared to Terrans/Zergs. And If Korea results are the only ones who matter, then the problem isn't protoss. It's their players.b
Sorry, but this is a really dumb post.
Watch Alicia vs. Select in Code A. Now I'm glad Select won(foreigners fighting!), but Alicia's macro was much better in all three games. Because Select actually knows how to control his ghosts (unlike the majority of terrans) and use abusive tactics that protoss don't have at their disposal.
Korean Terrans(and select) show how good the terran race can be. It's not the Korean protoss that suck shit, it's the foreigner terran.
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On September 23 2011 03:40 polysciguy wrote:
If people don't like comparing to GAL how about looking at other prominent tourneys. What were the racial distributions of the last couple MLG finals? What about the most recent dreamhack?
The problem is the unevenness of the skill levels. If NesTea beats Goody, does that tell you anything about balance?
GSL, on the other hand, has the highest skill levels, tapering off in the "diminishing returns" part of skill, where the differences are a lot more compressed.
@usethis2:
You raise some valid criticisms, and those are indeed limitations of looking at GSL. Nonetheless, it's the closest we've got to controlling the "skill" variable.
It's definitely not a perfect solution to use GSL. But imho it sure as hell beats Blizzard's internal statistics.
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On September 23 2011 03:26 tztztz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 03:19 Ownos wrote:On September 23 2011 02:54 Grummler wrote:On September 23 2011 02:44 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
Also, there's this thing on the ladder called MMR. Because it will have you play people on your MMR, you can be a lot better than someone and play Protoss, but beat them because you're just a lot better than them. How the ladder works is that it is supposed to keep things 50%. The ladder is by no means a demonstration of balance. Try to read what is written above these numbers. Are you seriously thinking that Blizzard forgot about their own matchmaking system? That would make you look very stupid. Actually i think this might be true, so i am going to quote the important part for you, in case you have trouble finding it: What's an adjusted win percentage? While the math behind calculating an adjusted win percentage is extremely complex, an adjusted win percentage can be summed up as the 'true' win percentage of a given race, produced by removing the skewing effects of the matchmaker and factoring in player skill.
Source: See OP. People are just questioning the convenient effects of this black box adjustment. "Let me use this algorithm that I won't show you to conveniently demonstrate that all win rates are 50%." It all comes down to trusting their word. i don't get why it's such a problem to trust their word. why has mistrust always have to be the default position? why has it to be "propaganda" an not just blizzard being so kind and releasing some stats? the math they're using is probably to complicated to understand for 99% of the people on this thread.
That and people will cherry pick parts of the formula, claim they are a PhD in math and stats, and try to a make a case why their race is weak and the forums will be filled with this nonsense for months. Also, every time Blizzard releases such stats it is always a positive for them. So it's easy to mistrust the stats as Blizzard is looking out for themselves. Even if they released stats that showed imbalance, people would still complain and use that as proof that Blizzard were dropped on their heads at birth. As Blizzard, you just can't win no matter what you do.
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I gotta say from what I read they seem overly optimistic. The 5% variance doesn't only work for better balance, they say that a 45%-55% is okay. "ratios just outside that range are within acceptable boundaries" But with 5% variance that 45-55 could mean 40-60. That would be terrible balance.
I think they need to set higher standards, I don't think 45%-55% with 5% variance is acceptable. I'd also like to see the numbers of just GM and also I've always questioned how the account for actual skill for a race.
For example how many (race X) players would go up or down in ranking if they played a different race.
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Huh. So zerg is the hardest race to play outside of Korea (at moderate to high levels of play). I too am scratching my head as to why Blizzard released these numbers. Maybe it's just them saying "We're working on it"?
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On September 23 2011 03:38 Huragius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 03:34 QTIP. wrote:On September 23 2011 03:33 Huragius wrote:On September 23 2011 03:08 ShootingStars wrote:
Korea results ONLY matter. Look at TvP Korea... haha unbalanced there X_X With all the respect to the koreans protoss (compared to korean Terrans)- they suck shit. Honestly, you have to be very ignorant not to admit that. Most of the GSL games from Protoss looks really sad compared to Terrans/Zergs. And If Korea results are the only ones who matter, then the problem isn't protoss. It's their players.b And how would you go about reliably proving that? If there is an inherent imbalance in the Protoss race can we agree that their play would also tend to "suck shit" as you so elegantly put it? Proving ? Inca vs Nestea finals and such ? There are boat loads of reliable proofs in GSL, all you need to do is to watch the games and not to blindly follow statistics.
That's not proof. That only proves is that Nestea is a much better player than Inca. How the hell does that prove your original statement that Protoss players "suck shit" compared to Korean Terrans?
Way to stay on topic.
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On September 23 2011 03:06 ScoutingDrone wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 02:22 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
I'm kind of interested why Blizzard wants us to know this. As far as I know, there's no pressure on them to release these numbers. No one is waiting on them. And no one in the community is going to use them for anything. Blizzard simply wants us to know them... why? Because Blizzard want to show us the balance of each matchup? .....
You confuse what they're doing with their purpose for doing so.
In my eyes, Blizzard wants to make it seem like it's doing a better job that it is. I ignored the non-Masters and GM stats because I don't give two shites about that.
In EVERY SINGLE MATCHUP, Terran is favoured (none of this +-5% nonsense). Although Blizzard acknowledges that this is simply data, a much better indication is a) what the pros say and b) the racial distribution at the highest levels (GSL, MLG placement rankings for the last 4 events etc.)
I really hope Blizzard realises soon that very few people care about the balance at lower levels. It was well known in BW that a struggling iCCUP Zerg could switch to Protoss and after a few days of purely working on their mechanics, could achieve a much higher ranking than they could as Zerg because frankly, Protoss was easier to learn. No one cared about that because the game at the pro level was extremely evenly balanced with no pros complaining about perceived imbalance and no glaring distribution stats in the OSL, MSL or Proleague.
Fix your game before everyone loses interest in it.
/rant
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To be fair, OP made a snapshot of the post without the important initial paragraphs explaining the meaning of "adjusted winrates". Questions about the matchmaker system was the first thing that hit my mind too reading the excerpt. We can do without calling each other names and point out important non-obvious things like these in a less condescending way methinks.
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On September 23 2011 03:33 Huragius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2011 03:08 ShootingStars wrote:
Korea results ONLY matter. Look at TvP Korea... haha unbalanced there X_X With all the respect to the koreans protoss (compared to korean Terrans)- they suck shit. Honestly, you have to be very ignorant not to admit that. Most of the GSL games from Protoss looks really sad compared to Terrans/Zergs. And If Korea results are the only ones who matter, then the problem isn't protoss. It's their players.b
I'll give you a stick, and I'll drive an M2 Bradley. Then I'll say you did poorly not because you had a stick against an IFV, but because you're not skilled.
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EPT
