EPTIts funny they have to consult all the master league games to gloss over their statistics.
Now we know they balancing for casuals or what do they want to tell us with this shitload of figures crap?
Blizzard Blog: Balance Snapshot - Page 16
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laee
Germany137 Posts
Its funny they have to consult all the master league games to gloss over their statistics. Now we know they balancing for casuals or what do they want to tell us with this shitload of figures crap? | ||
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Brotocol
243 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:40 jdseemoreglass wrote: When it comes to "measuring" balance, Blizzard has some of the most ass-backwards logic I've ever heard in my life. Every game that's played on battlenet is a function of two dependent variables: skill and balance. If you don't know one, it is mathematically impossible to calculate the other. This is an undeniable common sense fact. If you don't know what the balance is, you can't calculate a player's relative "skill." After you've falsely and incorrectly assumed you know what a players skill is, you can't use that number to somehow assess the balance of the game. It makes no fucking sense! Am I the only one who sees this? Let me break it down to kindergarten level for you... Let's say Idra and MC play 10 games together. MC wins 6, Idra wins 4. Now... did MC win more because of balance or because of skill? YOU CAN'T KNOW THAT SIMPLY FROM THE WIN/LOSS STATISTICS! No matter how many millions of games were played, it would be absolutely impossible to know if MC was winning more because of skill or balance. You cannot calculate EITHER with win ratios. And so long as they are both dependent and unknown variables, you won't ever, ever, be able to figure them out independently. Is Blizzard really this stupid, or do they assume everyone else is? This is a fantastic post. Supposedly, the answer lies within the super complex formula that Blizz adjusts the statistics with. But I don't see how B.net could assess skill level as an independent variable from win/loss. I'm very skeptical about this. My semi-subjective take: this supports that we should look at GSL. It's the closest thing we've got to minimizing skill discrepancies. People have pointed out valid limitations to this approach. But it really is the closest thing we've got. If we want to examine balance, then we absolutely must minimize skill variations in our observed set of matches. | ||
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RvB
Netherlands6261 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:40 jdseemoreglass wrote: When it comes to "measuring" balance, Blizzard has some of the most ass-backwards logic I've ever heard in my life. Every game that's played on battlenet is a function of two dependent variables: skill and balance. If you don't know one, it is mathematically impossible to calculate the other. This is an undeniable common sense fact. If you don't know what the balance is, you can't calculate a player's relative "skill." After you've falsely and incorrectly assumed you know what a players skill is, you can't use that number to somehow assess the balance of the game. It makes no fucking sense! Am I the only one who sees this? Let me break it down to kindergarten level for you... Let's say Idra and MC play 10 games together. MC wins 6, Idra wins 4. Now... did MC win more because of balance or because of skill? YOU CAN'T KNOW THAT SIMPLY FROM THE WIN/LOSS STATISTICS! No matter how many millions of games were played, it would be absolutely impossible to know if MC was winning more because of skill or balance. You cannot calculate EITHER with win ratios. And so long as they are both dependent and unknown variables, you won't ever, ever, be able to figure them out independently. Is Blizzard really this stupid, or do they assume everyone else is? That's why Blizzard made this huge ass formula, sure it's impossible the calculate skill level but they try to get as close as they can. They probably also calculate a margin of error with it and all that stuff. It's all educated guessing in the end. | ||
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Tsubbi
Germany7996 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:40 jdseemoreglass wrote: When it comes to "measuring" balance, Blizzard has some of the most ass-backwards logic I've ever heard in my life. Every game that's played on battlenet is a function of two dependent variables: skill and balance. If you don't know one, it is mathematically impossible to calculate the other. This is an undeniable common sense fact. If you don't know what the balance is, you can't calculate a player's relative "skill." After you've falsely and incorrectly assumed you know what a players skill is, you can't use that number to somehow assess the balance of the game. It makes no fucking sense! Am I the only one who sees this? Let me break it down to kindergarten level for you... Let's say Idra and MC play 10 games together. MC wins 6, Idra wins 4. Now... did MC win more because of balance or because of skill? YOU CAN'T KNOW THAT SIMPLY FROM THE WIN/LOSS STATISTICS! No matter how many millions of games were played, it would be absolutely impossible to know if MC was winning more because of skill or balance. You cannot calculate EITHER with win ratios. And so long as they are both dependent and unknown variables, you won't ever, ever, be able to figure them out independently. Is Blizzard really this stupid, or do they assume everyone else is? that's exactly what i was getting at a few pages ago, but your post is way more eloquent this is just the fundamental flaw with "adjusted" winrates, it's a useless concept to measure balance | ||
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kubiks
France1328 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:47 RvB wrote: That's why Blizzard made this huge ass formula, sure it's impossible the calculate skill level but they try to get as close as they can. They probably also calculate a margin of error with it and all that stuff. It's all educated guessing in the end. What the guy saying about the fact that you can't distinguish between balance and skill is still right, and a big ass formula is just gonna hide this fact... However I think that with the mirroir match-up (and teh other matchup) you can have an approximation of the skill so maybe the big ass formula is doing the things right  | ||
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ChriseC
Germany440 Posts
ladder system tries to keep you to 50% win/lose ratio, so isnt it representitive at all? | ||
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GentleDrill
United Kingdom672 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:40 jdseemoreglass wrote: When it comes to "measuring" balance, Blizzard has some of the most ass-backwards logic I've ever heard in my life. Every game that's played on battlenet is a function of two dependent variables: skill and balance. If you don't know one, it is mathematically impossible to calculate the other. This is an undeniable common sense fact. If you don't know what the balance is, you can't calculate a player's relative "skill." After you've falsely and incorrectly assumed you know what a players skill is, you can't use that number to somehow assess the balance of the game. It makes no fucking sense! Am I the only one who sees this? Let me break it down to kindergarten level for you... Let's say Idra and MC play 10 games together. MC wins 6, Idra wins 4. Now... did MC win more because of balance or because of skill? YOU CAN'T KNOW THAT SIMPLY FROM THE WIN/LOSS STATISTICS! No matter how many millions of games were played, it would be absolutely impossible to know if MC was winning more because of skill or balance. You cannot calculate EITHER with win ratios. And so long as they are both dependent and unknown variables, you won't ever, ever, be able to figure them out independently. Is Blizzard really this stupid, or do they assume everyone else is? This idea works for your 2-man example but with a sample size of thousands it is quite reasonable to assume that skill is more-or-less even across all races. | ||
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Telenil
France484 Posts
Yet when Blizzard comes with its own number, it's "those numbers are meaningless" all over the place. So I wonder, if you say Blizzard stats aren't reliable, would you say the same about any other W/L ratio? | ||
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happyness
United States2400 Posts
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jarf1337
United States146 Posts
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galivet
288 Posts
This is purely about maximizing entertainment: a tournament is more entertaining if you have the full mix of matchups from beginning up through the Ro4. To understand the reason, consider the current GSL season: Almost all protoss have been eliminated very early in the season, so protoss fans aren't going to get much entertainment value out of the rest of the tournament. Even terran fans may get tired of the endless TvT and wish for a little more TvP and TvZ for the sake of variety. To maximize the entertainment value of tournaments, you have to throw your "real" notions of game balance out the window; they don't matter. You have to compensate for factors that have nothing to do with game balance, such as: 1. One race may not have as many good players. 2. One race may not have as many players who entered the tournament. Even under these circumstances, for the tournament to be entertaining for *all* of the fans, you have to ensure that the race with fewer players/fewer good players make it to the final rounds of the tournament -- even if you have to give them an artificial boost that allows the lesser skilled players to win. To put it simply, I would be in favor of doubling stalker DPS if it meant that I got to enjoy watching more matches in a GSL season, even though that wouldn't be a fair change. I don't care about game fairness since I watch much more often than I play. I care about seeing the race I like to watch win an equal share of games to the players of the other two races, fairness be damned. If making the game completely fair accomplishes that, then great! If not, then fuck fairness -- just make it entertaining. E-sports is about entertainment, pure and simple. Blizzard needs to do what it takes to keep the entertainment value high, even if it makes the game unfair. e: A side-effect of this approach is that over time the game actually does become fair, and the fairness becomes easier to maintain. When pros don't need to all pick Terran to have the best chance of making money in tournaments, they spread out across the races, equalizing the race-skill and race-playercount gaps that we may currently have. After that has occurred, then just by ensuring roughly-equal win ratios at the top level of play Blizzard will be sure that the game really is skill-fair at that level, because skill will have evenly distributed across the races. | ||
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polysciguy
United States488 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:58 happyness wrote: Has anyone calculated the probability of there being 20/32 terrans in the GSL assuming the 96 top players are 32 of each race? And how would you solve that? kubiks did I know I shouldn't post this but It seemed quite funny to caculate so I tryed. If we consider that the game is balance means there is a uniform distribution on the code S spots for the 3 races (so basically we can toss a dice for each code S spot , so we throw 32 dices and look what is the result). Now the probability that terran got k (20 here) spot in code S which have n players (32 here) is : (n! 2^(n-k))/(k!(n-k)! 3^n). It's quite ugly but I'm not sure it's possible to make a better formula (well at least it works for n=1 and n=2 ) This formula gives that the probability that there is 20 terrans out of 32 players is 0,05%. In comparison the probability that there is 12 terran is 12% and 11 terran is 14%.... | ||
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Cyrak
Canada536 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:54 Telenil wrote: What strikes me is that whenever you have the "win ratio of the month" post updated, people go "poor [race with less than 50%], makes me sad. [Race with more than 50%] is OP atm." Yet when Blizzard comes with its own number, it's "those numbers are meaningless" all over the place. So I wonder, if you say Blizzard stats aren't reliable, would you say the same about any other W/L ratio? The reason people say the numbers are meaningless is that they are made up primarily of bad players or casual players (all of masters pretty much). When people look at pro gamer win rates, particularly Korea-only pro gamer win rates, they should be able to get a better idea of game balance because all the statistics produced are from extremely strong players clashing with other extremely strong players. Do you really think it's valuable to know what the race win rates are in the bronze-masters skill range? If so please explain their value so the rest of us can be enlightened. | ||
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RisingTide
Australia769 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:54 Telenil wrote: What strikes me is that whenever you have the "win ratio of the month" post updated, people go "poor [race with less than 50%], makes me sad. [Race with more than 50%] is OP atm." Yet when Blizzard comes with its own number, it's "those numbers are meaningless" all over the place. So I wonder, if you say Blizzard stats aren't reliable, would you say the same about any other W/L ratio? It's because Blizzard's numbers have been 'adjusted'. We have no idea what the actual numbers are, just these vague percentages. There is also the fact that they lump masters and grand masters as though there is anything close to a comparison. As a middling masters player I don't think my games should really be taken into too much consideration concerning balance. Most of the time when I lose, it's because I'm bad. Lastly, these numbers are found from games on the ladder maps, where things like close position spawns and 'rush maps' that blizzard seems to love would have a pretty serious effect on the game. | ||
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decaf
Austria1797 Posts
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Condor Hero
United States2931 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:59 jarf1337 wrote: The fact that it has to exceed a 60/40 ratio is the scariest part of the article for me. With the number of games that they have to analyze(100,000's), we shouldn't be seeing such a large gap in win-rates if we are assuming a balanced state. If the game reaches a 60/40 ratio, that matchup would be basically unplayable. Yeah I don't think ZvP with Void/Colo vs Roach/Hydra ever reached 60/40 and even then you had tons and tons of Idra fans saying it was unplayable. | ||
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Animostas
United States568 Posts
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SeaSwift
Scotland4486 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:52 ChriseC wrote: there are some things that i dont understand ladder system tries to keep you to 50% win/lose ratio, so isnt it representitive at all? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH There really should be a link that is required viewing for every new TL member to the Blizzcon in which they explain their way of taking away that. Oh, and the squillions of other posts that ask exactly the same question. Basically, Blizzard has a fucking huge equation to remove the matchmaking system from the equation (allegedly), among other things. So NO, the 50% win/lose ratio SHOULDN'T have any impact. | ||
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flowSthead
1065 Posts
On September 23 2011 05:40 jdseemoreglass wrote: When it comes to "measuring" balance, Blizzard has some of the most ass-backwards logic I've ever heard in my life. Every game that's played on battlenet is a function of two dependent variables: skill and balance. If you don't know one, it is mathematically impossible to calculate the other. This is an undeniable common sense fact. If you don't know what the balance is, you can't calculate a player's relative "skill." After you've falsely and incorrectly assumed you know what a players skill is, you can't use that number to somehow assess the balance of the game. It makes no fucking sense! Am I the only one who sees this? Let me break it down to kindergarten level for you... Let's say Idra and MC play 10 games together. MC wins 6, Idra wins 4. Now... did MC win more because of balance or because of skill? YOU CAN'T KNOW THAT SIMPLY FROM THE WIN/LOSS STATISTICS! No matter how many millions of games were played, it would be absolutely impossible to know if MC was winning more because of skill or balance. You cannot calculate EITHER with win ratios. And so long as they are both dependent and unknown variables, you won't ever, ever, be able to figure them out independently. Is Blizzard really this stupid, or do they assume everyone else is? You're right, but then I have a question to ask you. How do you measure balance at all? So many people on TL talk about how BroodWar was perfectly balanced, but according to your logic, this would never be the case. And judging by what Artosis said on the last SOTG, none of that was dependent on player skill or racial balance, but map balance. "The Legend of the Fall" means Protoss win more in the Fall because there are more Protoss favored maps in the Fall? That doesn't sound particularly balanced. I mean I understand the general principle that you cannot balance in a vacuum without maps, but if you are balancing around maps then doesn't racial balance become negligible? If there is a huge imbalance, then if you make a certain race favored on a map, then it might even things out so that players of equal skill will have a 50% win ratio. All of that assumes that you know what skill level everyone is, which you point we do not. So what is the answer then? How do you do this when you can never accurately judge how much skill someone has? | ||
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Corrosive
Canada3741 Posts
people drop people cheese frequently just for fun or a quick win people leave for no reason people do stupid strategies just for fun people generally mess around even in high leagues so how does this show balance proof? | ||
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