[Trans] Interview, Chris Sigaty/David Kim

On December 22 2011 05:29 yoonstar91 wrote:
Thank you!.. I really tried googling it... haha.... Faill... fixed! ^0^

On December 22 2011 05:32 OpTiKDream wrote:
Is PvT seriously 65% on ladder?

On December 22 2011 05:32 Antoine wrote:
thanks for translation! i rehosted the image since pxp has anti-image leech measures (and it's generally nice to not leech)

(you might also want to put something in about the original date of the article since some things have changed since then)

On December 22 2011 05:32 OpTiKDream wrote:
Is PvT seriously 65% on ladder?

On December 22 2011 05:35 KonohaFlash wrote:
Wait, so for the next patch what are they going to do to protoss and terran? Nerf, buff? O_o

On December 22 2011 05:39 Kouda wrote:


I thought he meant that Terrans in the PvT matchup have a 65% winrate.

On December 22 2011 05:48 Lebzetu wrote:
Good interview, but it's kind of strange how they can have such a versatile unit in the game. The marine is the best unit in the game only for fifty minerals. They nerfed the infestor because it was "too versatile". Well, all I can say is look at the marine, it is good against all units if you have the micro to make them work (Splitting is easy)

EDIT: And yes, I think ZvP is Zerg favored and that ZvT is the most balanced matchup in the game.

On December 22 2011 05:48 Roxy wrote:
hmm.. well.. i hope all of the people posting in those terran QQ threads are embarrassed

Cant believe terran win 65% vs protoss though.. that is staggering

But if it rounds out to 50%, does that mean that protoss is dominating zerg? If so, that contradicts the:

"In Europe, Zerg tends to be stronger against Protoss. Overall Protoss seems weak while Terran and Zerg seems to be about the same"

On December 22 2011 05:59 Alexstrasas wrote:


I hope you are embarassed for not looking at the date of this interview and also for not bothering to read the thread were people point out that you should read the date of the thread.

On December 22 2011 06:02 Roxy wrote:


Typed up my response before the date was posted, bro

Last edit of OP: Last edit: 2011-12-22 06:01:35
My Post: December 22 2011 05:48

I don't even know why an obsolete interview was posted here.

On December 22 2011 06:06 K3Nyy wrote:


I think the date was in the original post. He edited it to fix the spoiler tags.

On December 22 2011 06:08 ArtisaBang wrote:
The Truth by Korean Netizen:

BestToss: The Terran problem is probably because the foreign players do not know how to use the Terran very "cheap." (Referring to all-in and etc) If Terran always goes all-in, they're such a fraud race.

In the Expansion Pack (SC2), you tried to change the flow of the multiplayer games….

A. (David Kim) We tried to add more specialized units for the Protoss.

On December 22 2011 06:12 jinixxx123 wrote:



that really does not make any sense once you think about it.


If a foreign terran cannot do an "all in" as good as a korean terran, then this whole thing about "all inning" not taking any skill is b.s, Since clearly it takes Alot of skill to all in properly .

On December 22 2011 05:50 Roxy wrote:


If splitting marines vs banes is easy, what do you consider to be hard as far as micro is concerned?

On December 22 2011 08:18 blade55555 wrote:
was I the only one who got excited seeing this bit?

A. (Chris Sigaty) We are planning on Cross-Regional battles. We are planning to make this happen before the Heart of the Swarm. But I believe that the balancing issue will remain. Balancing a game is a very difficult job.

A. (David Kim) In Korean ladder, the Terran tends to be a little stronger. But in GSL, Terrans are dominating. We are not sure why and we are continuing to analyze and resolve that problem.

Unless I am mistaken that would mean NA/EU/KR could play together without having to switch servers (and hopefully without latency?). If this is what I think it is that would be amazing especially if it was before HOTS :D

On December 22 2011 08:18 blade55555 wrote:
was I the only one who got excited seeing this bit?

A. (Chris Sigaty) We are planning on Cross-Regional battles. We are planning to make this happen before the Heart of the Swarm. But I believe that the balancing issue will remain. Balancing a game is a very difficult job.

A. (David Kim) In Korean ladder, the Terran tends to be a little stronger. But in GSL, Terrans are dominating. We are not sure why and we are continuing to analyze and resolve that problem.

Unless I am mistaken that would mean NA/EU/KR could play together without having to switch servers (and hopefully without latency?). If this is what I think it is that would be amazing especially if it was before HOTS :D

Unfortunately a player with only the Wings of Liberty can only play the Wings of Liberty.

On December 22 2011 08:27 Nouar wrote:


WTF, they told us at the beginning that we would only need one of the three games to play the full multiplayer with all units... Are they going back on their word ??

On December 22 2011 08:22 SarcasmMonster wrote:


Less latency or no latency? Isn't it physically impossible to remove lag between two people on the opposite side of Earth?

On December 22 2011 08:39 darkscream wrote:
I wonder what they'll do about the nydus, I didn't hear it mentioned before this interview. TLO uses it a lot but it often fails badly because well.. You know. Nydus worm.

I've started using it more too and I dunno. Its really hit and miss. I think it's useful way late game, when you're rolling your broodlords forward - you can nydus near the broodlords and reinforce/backstab. But I think it should be easier to use it aggressively.. it only takes 4 workers to prevent.

On December 22 2011 08:27 Nouar wrote:


WTF, they told us at the beginning that we would only need one of the three games to play the full multiplayer with all units... Are they going back on their word ??

On December 22 2011 08:27 Nouar wrote:


WTF, they told us at the beginning that we would only need one of the three games to play the full multiplayer with all units... Are they going back on their word ??

On December 22 2011 08:59 EvOr wrote:


That's not impossible, but it will cost a lot and I don't think Blizzard have neither the will nor the means to make that happen.

On December 22 2011 08:22 SarcasmMonster wrote:


Less latency or no latency? Isn't it physically impossible to remove lag between two people on the opposite side of Earth?

A. (David Kim) For example, in the Heart of the Swarm, there is a unit called “Shredder ” that cannot be used near his own units. Therefore the Heart of the Swarm will require the player to divide the army more.

On December 22 2011 08:53 Mobius_1 wrote:
Marines are very strong, and multitudes better with good players' godly micro. Nerfing it will only make Terran bio impossible at lower levels, because Banelings and Colossi are still a-move whereas splits tend to be nonexistent or suck. Ugh, I don't envy DK's job.

On December 22 2011 10:33 doko100 wrote:
Why would you post this now? All that's gonna happen is that protoss players will read this post, not actually read when the interview was released and assume that this is up to date.

TvP obviously isn't Terran favored anymore, all this post does is give protoss players another reason to whine about PvT, even though this interview is completely irrelevant now that terran got nerfed twice and protoss got buffed twice with the last 2 patches.

Somebody should lock this thread or delete it.

On December 22 2011 10:35 blade55555 wrote:


ICCUP did it for BW. I still don't see why it can't happen for SC2 :o.

On December 22 2011 11:01 Tingles wrote:


Sounds like somebody looses to Protoss alot and is pretty butthurt about it.
Chill out dude. Protoss needed the buffs and Terran needed the nerfs. Everyone except for Terrans agree with that. I wonder why ...

On December 22 2011 11:01 Tingles wrote:


Sounds like somebody looses to Protoss alot and is pretty butthurt about it.
Chill out dude. Protoss needed the buffs and Terran needed the nerfs. Everyone except for Terrans agree with that. I wonder why ...

On December 22 2011 09:49 Integra wrote:

They never claimed that, the expansions will work and has always worked exactly since Warcraft2, each expansion will increase the storyline with new single player missions for singplay and you get additional units in multiplay and there will be separate ladders for each expansion. It was like this in Warcraft2, Starcraft, and Warcraft3 and was announced for Starcraft2 as well.

On December 22 2011 11:34 Nouar wrote:


Hmm after checking I'm indeed wrong. I must have misread the part about "you can play all three races in multiplayer even if you only own WoL" (obviously not phrased like that, from Blizzcon 2008 when they announced it'd be released as 3 games)... I still don't like dividing the story and campaigns like that... for multi, it's ... ok...

On December 22 2011 11:20 doko100 wrote:


What are you babbling about? I never said that I disagree with any of the changes, all I said was that this interview is completely irrelevant, because the statistics are more than 2 months old and the game has changed drastically ever since.

There really isn't much of a point in posting this, it will only bring some protoss players in that complain about the numbers without looking at the actual date of the interview.

On December 22 2011 11:30 Orracle wrote:


Is your reading comprehension at a level where you can understand this interview is two months old? What good was it to be posted now.

Posting this article is the same of me going back to a random date when Protoss had KA and posting an article about Protoss having a higher win rate than Terran.

On December 22 2011 12:08 sluggaslamoo wrote:
Terran might be a bit stronger, but GSL Terrans are dominating because the players are just better. That's why the disparity is larger.

I know the argument sounds stupid at first glance, but if you look at the background of the players the Terrans have simply been better their whole career. This also has a snowball effect, because everyone will be copying the strategies from the best players.

The best BW players to switch over are all Terran (ForGG, MVP, Nada (vet), Boxer (vet)), Iron (ogsMC) was known as the suicide Toss (for just losing all his units and being really bad), and Zergbong (Nestea) never played 1v1 and was hardly known at all. Almost nobody knew MC and Nestea pre-SC2, but the Terrans are all quite well known. If you don't believe me just compare the winnings of these players on TLPD, the disparity is huge.

If Stork switched to SC2, he would create some crazy imba builds that would trickle down in the lower leagues, and eventually everyone would be crying out how imba Protoss is.

It makes no sense to nerf Terran that much given this information, SC2 has an advantage over other games in that they can look at the players backgrounds to see whether it is balance or skill. Instead other races should be given better defensive options so at least they don't die immediately, and can still produce good games regardless.

On December 22 2011 12:36 The Final Boss wrote:
Bio isn't fun to play with or against and it creates awkward one-sided battles:

1. The Marines all die to a single Storm/Baneling/Colossi/etc. and "Terran UP" chants ensue.
   
   
2. The Marines roll the opponent and "Terran OP" chants ensue.

It makes it so that the game comes down to the tiniest millimeter that decides whether every single Marine explodes into green goo or if they overrun the Zerg base. It gets to the point where if you're MMA and your Marine micro is that good, then you need something more then just Banelings to beat him. But if you're not MMA (or you just happen to move out of your base without scanning) then 2 Banelings absolutely wreck your army, you lose all map presence, and you subsequently get destroyed. It's just poor game design to have something so fragile, yet so powerful that plays such a prominent role in the game. It's one thing to have fragile units that do lots of damage, but they shouldn't be the "core" unit like the Marine. That role should be for caster units or other high tech "support" units. With core units like Roaches or Zealots, Zerg and Protoss armies are a lot more durable (in the Zerg case, if their army is made up of Zerglings then they have the ability to remax it super quickly so it's not as important that it's super fragile) and a lot less likely to suddenly die or suddenly win the game. I just wish that Blizzard would find some way to make Mech better (especially vP, as it seems to be the only match-up that it hasn't been successful in, but making it less difficult to do in TvT would be fine with me ^^).

TL;DR: Bio is dumb, make mech better

Sincerely,
A Terran player

On December 22 2011 12:49 ArtisaBang wrote:

the fact is almost every protoss unit destorying mech in TvP.
Zealot ✔
Stalker ✔
Colossus ✔
Immortal ✔
HT-DT ✔
Archon ✔

On December 22 2011 05:25 yoonstar91 wrote:
A. (Chris Sigaty) I cant say the specifics about the beta, but it’s coming soon. If one purchases the Zerg: Heart of the Swarm, one will still have the option to play the Terrans: Wings of Liberty. Unfortunately a player with only the Wings of Liberty can only play the Wings of Liberty.

On December 22 2011 14:49 Warpath wrote:


Well dang, I was hoping this wouldn't be the case.

On December 22 2011 12:44 Glockateer wrote:


^ This.

Trying to balance the game every month or two is silly as the game is constantly evolving. Even BW had an era of terran dominance and then a bonjwa zerg (turned "villain") came in and turned it on its head. Stuff changes and people get better. Some changes are obvious (PvP being nearly all 4 gate vs 4 gate) and then some are just controversial or silly (65 second barracks time instead of bigger maps). Complaining so much about balance is a double-edged sword.

On December 22 2011 05:48 Roxy wrote:
hmm.. well.. i hope all of the people posting in those terran QQ threads are embarrassed

Cant believe terran win 65% vs protoss though.. that is staggering

But if it rounds out to 50%, does that mean that protoss is dominating zerg? If so, that contradicts the:

"In Europe, Zerg tends to be stronger against Protoss. Overall Protoss seems weak while Terran and Zerg seems to be about the same"

On December 22 2011 15:36 SharkHuh wrote:

It's how Broodwar is. Not surprising at all.

On December 22 2011 12:08 sluggaslamoo wrote:
Terran might be a bit stronger, but GSL Terrans are dominating because the players are just better. That's why the disparity is larger.

I know the argument sounds stupid at first glance, but if you look at the background of the players the Terrans have simply been better their whole career. This also has a snowball effect, because everyone will be copying the strategies from the best players.

The best BW players to switch over are all Terran (ForGG, MVP, Nada (vet), Boxer (vet)), Iron (ogsMC) was known as the suicide Toss (for just losing all his units and being really bad), and Zergbong (Nestea) never played 1v1 and was hardly known at all. Almost nobody knew MC and Nestea pre-SC2, but the Terrans are all quite well known. If you don't believe me just compare the winnings of these players on TLPD, the disparity is huge.

If Stork switched to SC2, he would create some crazy imba builds that would trickle down in the lower leagues, and eventually everyone would be crying out how imba Protoss is.

It makes no sense to nerf Terran that much given this information, SC2 has an advantage over other games in that they can look at the players backgrounds to see whether it is balance or skill. Instead other races should be given better defensive options so at least they don't die immediately, and can still produce good games regardless.

On December 22 2011 05:40 SolidMoose wrote:


It's from October, aka pre 1.4.2. The matchup is closer to 55-45 in P favor now.

OP, you're going to need to make the old date more obvious, people are going to get confused.

On December 22 2011 05:50 Roxy wrote:


If splitting marines vs banes is easy, what do you consider to be hard as far as micro is concerned?

On December 22 2011 22:24 Genie1 wrote:
I wish they weren't so focused on pros because there are people that play this game with a much lower skill level.

On December 22 2011 22:24 Genie1 wrote:
I wish they weren't so focused on pros because there are people that play this game with a much lower skill level.

On December 22 2011 23:45 StyLeD wrote:

Tbh balance is a whine tactic at lower levels when at higher levels it can mean the difference between winning thousands and leaving empty-handed. So they should focus on higher level more. And they do focus on newbies. Look at the mothership, and how people hate it now. I'm sure its still used in lower level games, but other than the rare factor, its just a toy in pro play.

On December 22 2011 23:58 Lorch wrote:


Oh for the love of god I have to restrain myself so hard to not flame the shit out of you. Pro level is the closest we can get to perfect play, perfect play means that racial imbalance are only happening because something is UP/OP and not because of the lack of skill displayed by any players. If you look at bronze - masters it gets really, really hard to see whether the players at that skill level are just way too bad or if it really is imbalance.
Plus games like cod don't give a fuck about the pro scene and focus on the bad players, and hey it results in totally easy casual games that have a retardetly small skill gap.
Blizz is one of the few remaining developers that doesn't focus 100% on the casual scene (atleast with sc2), and I love them for that.

On December 22 2011 05:25 yoonstar91 wrote:



Q. Are you guys planning on balancing Starcraft 2 by making Starcraft 2 “global” instead of being divided into regions? And working on balancing the game from there? (some people say Korea is the only region with major balance problems.)

A. (Chris Sigaty) We are planning on Cross-Regional battles. We are planning to make this happen before the Heart of the Swarm. But I believe that the balancing issue will remain. Balancing a game is a very difficult job.

On December 22 2011 22:24 Genie1 wrote:
I wish they weren't so focused on pros because there are people that play this game with a much lower skill level.

On December 23 2011 02:52 shadymmj wrote:
So what do we make of this? I say leave Terran alone until there is a worldwide consensus that Terran is winning too much - not just in Korea. 1 year of statistics is very poor information to base arguments upon. Maps are the best way of tweaking balance numbers.

On December 23 2011 00:34 Genie1 wrote:

To the two posts quoted here. I stopped playing when they made mech no longer viable with the re-added energy to the Thor.

On December 23 2011 04:31 SeaSwift wrote:


If that was the reason why you stopped playing, you must feel stupid now. Mech is used consistently in both TvT and TvZ, and Hellion drops/Jjakji's mech timings are working their way into pro TvP.

Not to mention that from Diamond and below you could go mass Vikings every game and win consistently. Mech was not used for a time in high level matches, but why should that stop you?

Finally, that it balance change may have made you quit the game, but if you balance the game around lower levels the pros can potentially lose thousands of pounds. Imagine if MC had won vs Puma at IEM Cologne - he would be thousands of euros richer. I don't think your "I quite because of a small balance change which barely affected me anyway" compares to that.

On December 22 2011 05:32 Antoine wrote:
thanks for translation! i rehosted the image since pxp has anti-image leech measures (and it's generally nice to not leech)

(you might also want to put something in about the original date of the article since some things have changed since then)

On December 22 2011 12:49 ArtisaBang wrote:

the fact is almost every protoss unit destorying mech in TvP.
Zealot ✔
Stalker ✔
Colossus ✔
Immortal ✔
HT-DT ✔
Archon ✔

On December 23 2011 04:31 SeaSwift wrote:


If that was the reason why you stopped playing, you must feel stupid now. Mech is used consistently in both TvT and TvZ, and Hellion drops/Jjakji's mech timings are working their way into pro TvP.

Not to mention that from Diamond and below you could go mass Vikings every game and win consistently. Mech was not used for a time in high level matches, but why should that stop you?

Finally, that it balance change may have made you quit the game, but if you balance the game around lower levels the pros can potentially lose thousands of pounds. Imagine if MC had won vs Puma at IEM Cologne - he would be thousands of euros richer. I don't think your "I quite because of a small balance change which barely affected me anyway" compares to that.

On December 23 2011 06:14 Odoakar wrote:
I'm worried that HotS will completely break the current state of the game and that it will take another year to bring the game back to the existing level of play.

On December 23 2011 04:31 SeaSwift wrote:


If that was the reason why you stopped playing, you must feel stupid now. Mech is used consistently in both TvT and TvZ, and Hellion drops/Jjakji's mech timings are working their way into pro TvP.

Not to mention that from Diamond and below you could go mass Vikings every game and win consistently. Mech was not used for a time in high level matches, but why should that stop you?

Finally, that it balance change may have made you quit the game, but if you balance the game around lower levels the pros can potentially lose thousands of pounds. Imagine if MC had won vs Puma at IEM Cologne - he would be thousands of euros richer. I don't think your "I quite because of a small balance change which barely affected me anyway" compares to that.

On December 23 2011 07:44 Genie1 wrote:


Why should I feel stupid? It's a decision that I made and choose to stick to it and personally I find that I have a more healthy life style too now because of it. I enjoy watching Starcraft instead now and prefer being a viewer who can just tune in and just enjoy the matches. I prefer matches that don't have Korean's much more enjoyable but then again it's personal taste.

On December 23 2011 07:47 The Final Boss wrote:

Wait you don't enjoy matches with Koreans? Like I'll be honest when there's a foreigner against a Korean I'll tend to root for the foreigner, but what you're saying is ridiculous. Koreans provide the best games out there, why would you go out of your way to watch games that aren't played by Koreans?

On December 23 2011 07:42 Jakkerr wrote:


Who would have thought...
That's exactly the reason why Blizzard releases expansions.
Too keep the game interesting.

On December 24 2011 01:05 7mk wrote:


they should release a followup to Brood War as well then

On December 22 2011 06:20 suspiria wrote:
I'm seriously thinking about starting a "Save the Overseer" petition. While HOTS is a whiles away and little is known about it (to me at least), at this point, getting rid of the overseer seems like a huge mistake to me. Now, this is me imagining the viper's detection spell as a one-off, not energy based. If that's not the case, then my feelings are a bit unfounded. On the other hand, losing the changeling as an army tracker and general, cheap scout, would be a loss.

RELEVANCE EDIT: Sigaty said he listens to feedback, here's your feedback. Also, I think it would be a great thing for the community at large if each expansion was designed to create 3 truly viable games, though, I could see that being problematic for tournaments.

On December 22 2011 05:48 Lebzetu wrote:

EDIT: And yes, I think ZvP is Zerg favored and that ZvT is the most balanced matchup in the game.

On December 25 2011 08:49 TheTurk wrote:


ZvT has NEVER, in the history of SC2 SINCE THE BETA been balanced, on any server, in a any region, in any patch.
Terran has ALWAYS statistically had a higher win rate.
This is true both on ladder and tourneys all over the world.

On December 26 2011 13:15 BLinD-RawR wrote:


ZvT has never been 50% ever in the history of starcraft its always been terran favored.

its never going to change.

I'm not complaining either, i'm just saying that there is no point to it.

A. (David Kim) When we get rid of the units, we look at how often the units are used in a game. In Terran, all the units are often used, therefore there’s really nothing to get rid of. Instead of weakening Terran, we have added new units for the other races to make them strategically stronger.

On December 26 2011 21:53 Cutlery wrote:


Don't terran get the most new units overall? How does this make sense?

On December 26 2011 21:53 Cutlery wrote:


Don't terran get the most new units overall? How does this make sense?

On December 27 2011 08:19 WeaVerPrime wrote:
Ooooh that's musci 4 my ears
Go Nerf Terran seriously, do something 4 rines and give some Toss units a sense. Thx Kim

On December 27 2011 02:37 ekewow wrote:
Protoss is weak? wtf..

On December 27 2011 15:07 tdt wrote:

Read it and weep, I do.
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/sc2-korean/players/?tabulator_search=&auto_redirect=1

A. (David Kim) When we get rid of the units, we look at how often the units are used in a game. In Terran, all the units are often used, therefore there’s really nothing to get rid of. Instead of weakening Terran, we have added new units for the other races to make them strategically stronger.

If one purchases the Zerg: Heart of the Swarm, one will still have the option to play the Terrans: Wings of Liberty.

Even within Blizzard, we sometimes fear that we have changed the game too much with the Heart of the Swarm. After the release, we will have to wait for the feedbacks and make final decisions.

For example, in the Heart of the Swarm, there is a unit called “Shredder ” that cannot be used near his own units. Therefore the Heart of the Swarm will require the player to divide the army more.

In the patch 1.4, Bionic units were very powerful. We are trying to make it so that Terran players play bio half the time and mechanic the other half the time.

Q. In the Expansion Pack (SC2), you tried to change the flow of the multiplayer games….

On December 27 2011 13:19 Newbistic wrote:
I believe packaging Blizzard Dota with HotS will lead to more sales overall, though it will lead to less people playing actual SC2.

On December 27 2011 15:37 doko100 wrote:


Are you serious? TLPD is now evidence that a certain race is weak/strong?

On December 27 2011 16:01 tdt wrote:

ELO is a reliable mathematical formula showing them as weaker. You could always look at months of Code S and results too for a more narrow quantification. Statistically they are weak at the top period even David Kim says so.

On December 27 2011 16:04 doko100 wrote:


First of all, this interview is more than 2 months old, so "he says" is wrong. "he said" is correct.

And second of all, TLPD is inaccurate as hell, a system in which Deezer has a higher ranking than someone like White-Ra or Boxer can not be taken seriously.

edit: Calling TLPD reliable is actually a joke. Or can you seriously reliably conclude that Deezer is better than Boxer and White-Ra?

On December 27 2011 16:15 K3Nyy wrote:


I'd think again before you disrespect something that people put tons of effort into.

ELO just shows how well someone is doing right now. Deezer probably won a tournament or placed high or something. Also, he might be a huge stream cheating/sniping asshole, but he's actually not that bad a player. (Not to say he's Whitera's or Boxer's level.

On December 27 2011 16:19 doko100 wrote:



doesnt change the fact that its inaccurate.

On December 27 2011 16:51 HolyArrow wrote:


Heh. Obviously, you'll call any sort of mathematical/statistical measure inaccurate if it goes against your own biases. It's natural, but try to remember that in the end, these type of player scoring systems are completely objective. Maybe a few inaccuracies here and there, but no system is perfect, and just because you nitpick at small imperfections such as Deezer being placed above WhiteRa/BoxeR doesn't mean that the system is completely and utterly devoid of any meaning or accuracy.

On December 27 2011 16:51 HolyArrow wrote:



How do we determine if a game is balanced? Well, people can theorycraft, and pros can give their opinions, but all those things are obviously marred by bias. So, we then also have an objective, unbiased scoring system that seems to indicate a trend of Protoss being weak at the highest level, but you proceed to just rationalize things to support your own biases by discrediting objective (albeit, perhaps slightly flawed) evidence. This tells me that absolutely no argument can be made to change your views, due to a very large degree of stubbornness on your part.

On December 27 2011 17:09 doko100 wrote:



Do you really think that Deezer thing is the only inaccuracy on TLPD? That was just one example, there are hundreds of players that nobody even knows and that are not top level that have an insanely high ELO.

Seiplo, Verdi, Vortix, roof, Edge, Sungpa, iceice, DemonShip, Unix, daisuki, Pegasus, Ninkum, Bubbles, Suppy, Outside, Mafia, Mihai, Meyera, Targa... just to name a few and each and everyone of them has a ELO higher than 2100.

And not a single on of these players is anywhere close to the top level, even at foreign standards. Now please keep defending TLPD, but I'm sure that even the programmers of TLPD are aware that it is really inaccurate.

And I'm not disrespecting anyone here, just stating some facts. TLPD is extremely random, it has no statistical meaning.

So please don't call me nitpicky when there is actually hundreds of examples that prove how inaccurate TLPD is.

On December 27 2011 17:20 HolyArrow wrote:


Check out my edit. I will say again: It's not good for player-to-player comparisons, but it's good for indicating trends. Furthermore, plenty of trends in the GSL support the general trend TLPD is displaying: That Protoss is weaker at the top level. Seriously, just look at how many Protosses have been in the finals/semifinals of Code S or Code A compared to Terrans. Surely, you can't deny that the first Protoss player on TLPD in Korea is all the way down at the 15th spot is a mere coincidence, a product of the "extreme randomness" that you speak of.

On December 27 2011 17:21 doko100 wrote:


check out my edit then. oh wait you will just ignore that because it shows terran as the weakest race in november. herp derp TLPD indicates how balanced the game is, eh? Buff terran then.... I guess?

On December 27 2011 17:25 HolyArrow wrote:


The problem here is that we're simultaneously editing stuff and thus are missing each other's edits, so don't try to use that as an excuse to accuse me of ignoring evidence.

On December 27 2011 16:15 K3Nyy wrote:


I'd think again before you disrespect something that people put tons of effort into.

ELO just shows how well someone is doing right now. Deezer probably won a tournament or placed high or something. Also, he might be a huge stream cheating/sniping asshole, but he's actually not that bad a player. (Not to say he's Whitera's or Boxer's level.

On December 27 2011 17:30 doko100 wrote:


Nice cop-out. So you are just ignoring the fact that TLPD shows terran as the statistically weakest race in November (after the last 2 patches in which Terran got nerfed and Protoss got buffed). According to you that proves that Terran is the weakest race, because TLPD = statistical evidence for imbalance..

On December 27 2011 17:39 HolyArrow wrote:


I already kind of preemptively countered this crappy point, but I guess I'll also say that if you're serious about it, then you also need to look at the numbers carefully. See how Terran is a mere 1% below Protoss and Zerg in overall winrates? Now, observe how Protoss is 9% below Terran overall in October, 5% below Terran in September, and 6% below Terran in July. You're conveniently oversimplifying things. Numbers matter, and they clearly show how weak your point actually is.

On December 27 2011 17:48 Boblhead wrote:
All i read was cross region battles *Crosses fingers for multi region play*

On December 27 2011 17:30 doko100 wrote:


Nice cop-out. So you are just ignoring the fact that TLPD shows terran as the statistically weakest race in November (after the last 2 patches in which Terran got nerfed and Protoss got buffed). According to you that proves that Terran is the weakest race, because TLPD = statistical evidence for imbalance..

edit: Then how does the argument that TvP is terran favored make any sense at all, even statistically it's protoss favored (after the last 2 patches) and how does your argument of protoss being the weakest race make any sense when TLPD (what you base your argument on) shows Terran as the weakest race? Contradiction much?

And I love how you called me stubborn when your post is actually one big contradiction that doesn't even make sense, yes I'm stubborn because other people don't know what they are talking about.... ouch.

On December 27 2011 17:53 HolyArrow wrote:


In response to your edit: There are quite a few things wrong with your logic, and it's pretty clear to me that all you are doing is exaggerating certain things about my points to misrepresent them, and/or are willfully misinterpreting them because it's convenient for you to make my points look silly, though they are certainly not. First of all, you assume that just because the TLPD for November alone finally has Terran a mere 1% below Protoss and Zerg in overall winrate that Terran is now the weakest race. However, this would be a very limited scope of how things are, and, if you look at the big picture, the Protoss line is still well below both the Terran and Zerg lines, while the Terran line has finally stopped being the top line for the first time in the entire year. Only time will tell as to how the big picture will change, but, right now, Terran is a mere 1% below Zerg and Protoss, which I'm sure anyone would agree is pretty negligible.

Secondly, Terran being 1% below Zerg/Protoss in overall winrate is negligible; the first Protoss in the Korean ELO being at rank 15 is not. If you have a relatively small pool of players (compared to an international view of tons of different games) and none of the top 14 are Protoss, then I think it clearly shows that the best Protoss players are clearly having trouble competing with the very best of the other races. This also shows in the general popular perception of respective heroes of each race. Terran has very clear heros, such as MVP and MMA. Zerg as well, with Nestea, DRG, and Leenock. But, in the Korean scene, what does Protoss have? Oz? He's looked fairly strong, but far from MVP/MMA/Nestea/DRG status. HerO? He's not even out of Code A, and overall has a pretty bad record in Korea. MC is the best candidate in my opinion, but even he hasn't done all that much lately, and has certainly fallen from being up there with MVP and Nestea in terms of results.

On December 27 2011 17:43 doko100 wrote:


My point is that TLPD is inaccurate and therefore doesn't prove anything at all. Your argument is that, according to TLPD, Protoss is the weakest race. However, when we look at TLPD it shows Terran as the weakest race. I'm not saying that Terran is the weakest race, all I'm saying is that your point is wrong, because A: TLPD is inaccurate and B: TLPD doesn't show Protoss as the weakest race, so it is actually ridiculous or I would even say impossible to logically conclude that Protoss is the weakest race. Even based on TLPD they are not the weakest race.

So even if TLPD was accurate, your conclusion that Protoss is the weakest race would still be wrong, so it doesn't even matter, you are wrong either way.

On December 27 2011 17:59 HolyArrow wrote:


Hardly. You neglect the fact that ELO is more of a long-term thing, whereas overall winrates for a single month is a very limited picture. A more reasonable view for you to take would be to actually look at the Terran and Zerg lines in the main graph. See how they're still significantly above the Protoss line? That's because those lines represent the long term; the big picture.

On December 27 2011 17:57 doko100 wrote:



Like I said, my point is not that Terran is the weakest race. And your post is extremely biased. Seriously just because there is only 1 Protoss in the Top 15 means that Protoss is evidently the weakest race? Or maybe Zerg and Terran players are just better, this is such an incredibly small player pool (15 people) there is no statistical evidence at all because individual skill could very well be the main factor when limiting the scope to just 15 people.

You are incredibly bias and actually wasting my time now, statistically Protoss isn't the weakest race, which is what I was getting at, intelligent people will get the point, others won't.

And you are also ignoring the last 2 patches, who cares about the entire year when ,in the last 2 patches, Terran got nerfed and Protoss got buffed, the game changed so drastically it is absolutely irrelevant what happened before that.

On December 27 2011 18:12 HolyArrow wrote:


I'm okay with you thinking that I'm wasting your time, because I'm getting kind of tired of this as well. However, I will make one last point: The fact that you don't think the rest of the year matters makes your implication that I'm unintelligent terribly ironic. There's more to balance than simply how a race is currently doing. Races are designed differently - some better, some worse than others, and I'm pretty sure most agree that Terran is the best designed race, in its versatility and modularity. There's a reason Blizzard took so long to nerf the 1-1-1 all-in, and that's because Terran is so well designed that it was difficult for them to figure out what to nerf. The strength of the 1-1-1 all-in wasn't due to a single unit - it was due to how incredibly well all the units worked together - hence, good design, and that's just one example. Throughout the year, Terran has been subjected to plenty of nerfs, yet only now Terran has finally been brought down, and that's ignoring the fact that statistics will be skewed immediately after a nerf because players haven't had much time to figure other things out yet. Why did it take this long for Terran to be brought down? Simple: It's so well designed. And while good design is certainly laudable on behalf of the developers, it's not good for balance when one race is so well designed compared to the other two.

You can try to make the argument that the past is irrelevant, but it isn't. At the core of each race is a design, and that design dictates how the metagame will shift. A badly designed race will flounder when its core strategies are figured out/nerfed and will have a difficult time bouncing back, while a well designed race will always find more options. Design is absolutely paramount in considering the big picture of balance, and hopefully HotS will fix some big design problems present in the game overall.

On December 27 2011 18:18 doko100 wrote:


I'm totally fine with that statement. But that just isn't what you originally said, if you had said this in your first post there would have been no need for an argument. You basically just said something completely different to what you originally said. Let me remind you "protoss is statistically the weakest race" - which is wrong.

To me it seems like you just changed your argument, after realizing that your actual statement was simply wrong.

On December 27 2011 18:24 HolyArrow wrote:


When was "Protoss is statistically the weakest race" my argument? I was merely taking issue with how people will discredit objective evidence when it's inconvenient in my original post. But, I do admit that one thing led to another, and I began arguing that Protoss is statistically the weakest race. However, my final point indeed supports that argument, because that point was made to argue that the past does matter. If the past does matter, then the it's clear that the Red, Blue, and Green lines do matter in the overall winrate graph, and if those do matter, the point still stands that the Protoss line is well below the Zerg and Terran lines.

On December 27 2011 18:26 doko100 wrote:



No, no, the past is irrelevant in terms of current balance (which is what we were originally talking about) it is only relevant in terms of design problems which then lead to balance problems. You were already right with what you said at one point, why make the same mistake again and change your argument into something that is flatout wrong.

On December 27 2011 18:29 HolyArrow wrote:


I don't think I was ever talking about "current balance". I was talking about "trends" originally, which is completely different, since "trend" implies long-term.