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On January 03 2012 18:06 Meega wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On January 03 2012 08:26 Scila wrote:
What I think most people in this thread don't realize is that balance does not = good design and a good game. Sure, by looking at these statistics of roughly 50% win ratios at the top level (which is how it should be measured) you can say that the game is "balanced". However, this doesn't look at the real issues of game design. For example, in TvP, Terran tends to win much more before the "late" game. Also, Terran tends to use all-ins like the 1 base or 2 base 1/1/1 a lot to achieve these wins. Protoss, on the other hand, tends to have much higher win ratios in the late game.
You could see a similar situation in pretty much every match up. In PvZ, Protoss tends to win with either a big 2 base all-in, or a super late game situation where the Zerg can't handle the deathball.
In TvZ, Terran also tends to lose much more in the late game, and win much more in the early and mid game. It's no big secret that Terran overall is weaker in the late game than the other races, and instead tends to rely on gimmicky aggression-based builds and timings to win a lot if not most of their games.
I like the fact that most match ups are going towards 50% balance, but that doesn't look at the issue of different races struggling at different points in a game, like Terran in Late game TvP, or Protoss fast expanding versus Zerg. Every race should win and lose at ANY point of the game resulting DIRECTLY from the skill and decisions of the player. THAT is good design, and what I think was almost achieved in Brood War.
I really like this post! I think you are 100% right - these are things blizzard should recognize and deal with!
Been saying this forever. Just because Terran's cheese a lot more early game (because lategame is incredibly diffucult) and end up winning a decent amount doing it, means game design is flawed, and should be looked at separately from just straight balancing.
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On January 03 2012 08:26 Scila wrote:
What I think most people in this thread don't realize is that balance does not = good design and a good game. Sure, by looking at these statistics of roughly 50% win ratios at the top level (which is how it should be measured) you can say that the game is "balanced". However, this doesn't look at the real issues of game design. For example, in TvP, Terran tends to win much more before the "late" game. Also, Terran tends to use all-ins like the 1 base or 2 base 1/1/1 a lot to achieve these wins. Protoss, on the other hand, tends to have much higher win ratios in the late game.
You could see a similar situation in pretty much every match up. In PvZ, Protoss tends to win with either a big 2 base all-in, or a super late game situation where the Zerg can't handle the deathball.
In TvZ, Terran also tends to lose much more in the late game, and win much more in the early and mid game. It's no big secret that Terran overall is weaker in the late game than the other races, and instead tends to rely on gimmicky aggression-based builds and timings to win a lot if not most of their games.
I like the fact that most match ups are going towards 50% balance, but that doesn't look at the issue of different races struggling at different points in a game, like Terran in Late game TvP, or Protoss fast expanding versus Zerg. Every race should win and lose at ANY point of the game resulting DIRECTLY from the skill and decisions of the player. THAT is good design, and what I think was almost achieved in Brood War.
None of the situations you describe are actually true. Some matchups may slightly favour a team in the early or late game but nowhere near as much as you describe.
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On January 03 2012 18:08 Raambo11 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 18:06 Meega wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On January 03 2012 08:26 Scila wrote:
What I think most people in this thread don't realize is that balance does not = good design and a good game. Sure, by looking at these statistics of roughly 50% win ratios at the top level (which is how it should be measured) you can say that the game is "balanced". However, this doesn't look at the real issues of game design. For example, in TvP, Terran tends to win much more before the "late" game. Also, Terran tends to use all-ins like the 1 base or 2 base 1/1/1 a lot to achieve these wins. Protoss, on the other hand, tends to have much higher win ratios in the late game.
You could see a similar situation in pretty much every match up. In PvZ, Protoss tends to win with either a big 2 base all-in, or a super late game situation where the Zerg can't handle the deathball.
In TvZ, Terran also tends to lose much more in the late game, and win much more in the early and mid game. It's no big secret that Terran overall is weaker in the late game than the other races, and instead tends to rely on gimmicky aggression-based builds and timings to win a lot if not most of their games.
I like the fact that most match ups are going towards 50% balance, but that doesn't look at the issue of different races struggling at different points in a game, like Terran in Late game TvP, or Protoss fast expanding versus Zerg. Every race should win and lose at ANY point of the game resulting DIRECTLY from the skill and decisions of the player. THAT is good design, and what I think was almost achieved in Brood War.
I really like this post! I think you are 100% right - these are things blizzard should recognize and deal with! Been saying this forever. Just because Terran's cheese a lot more early game (because lategame is incredibly diffucult) and end up winning a decent amount doing it, means game design is flawed, and should be looked at separately from just straight balancing.
this is actually not true, terran losing late game have nothing to do with balance, theoretically terran can get far bigger and deadlier late game army than zerg and toss(you only need 25-30scv with terrans late game, thats about 30pop more, for example that may be 15 extra vikings, or 15ravens with seeker missile (: ), but why does terrans lose to bl infestor corupter armies so much? well because they f""k up early mid game, giving zerg huge advantiges and letting him to make his dream death ball at that point even if terran max out on 200/200, if wont matter since his max will be terrible compared to zerg be resourse wise zerg max will be 2x+ times bigger, same goes with toss.
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On January 03 2012 17:20 Catatonic wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2012 21:10 HowardRoark wrote:
Korean stats are the only that ought to matter, and fairly balanced. Zerg having the worst winrates, but with the highest skill ceiling for Z I do not see any problem with this. Zerg will in some month's come up on top without patches. Elitism for the win man? No not really though, they should definatly take in winrates from more then Koreans seeing as how the majority of the people playing the game are non Koreans. Yea the Koreans are better but when the majority of the populace isn't Korean why only focus on winrates that don't apply to them as players. These winrates are here to get a general consensus of which race is winning an discuss the reasons for that. Only adding Koreans negates more then 50% of the community cause most don't have the skill of a Korean so why have us compare ourselves against them?
There's a clear logical progression that justifies such elitism.
1. We accept that the skill level in Korea is overall higher than anywhere else
2. Balance should be determined at the top level
3. We thus balance around Korean results, because if we balance around non-Korean results, then we balance around a level that isn't the top level
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On January 03 2012 18:29 HolyArrow wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 17:20 Catatonic wrote:On January 02 2012 21:10 HowardRoark wrote:
Korean stats are the only that ought to matter, and fairly balanced. Zerg having the worst winrates, but with the highest skill ceiling for Z I do not see any problem with this. Zerg will in some month's come up on top without patches. Elitism for the win man? No not really though, they should definatly take in winrates from more then Koreans seeing as how the majority of the people playing the game are non Koreans. Yea the Koreans are better but when the majority of the populace isn't Korean why only focus on winrates that don't apply to them as players. These winrates are here to get a general consensus of which race is winning an discuss the reasons for that. Only adding Koreans negates more then 50% of the community cause most don't have the skill of a Korean so why have us compare ourselves against them? There's a clear logical progression that justifies such elitism. 1. We accept that the skill level in Korea is overall higher than anywhere else 2. Balance should be determined at the top level 3. We thus balance around Korean results, because if we balance around non-Korean results, then we balance around a level that isn't the top level
These are tournament results only so they dont apply to the majority anyway.
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On January 03 2012 17:57 darkness wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 09:36 Big J wrote:On January 03 2012 08:26 Scila wrote:
What I think most people in this thread don't realize is that balance does not = good design and a good game. Sure, by looking at these statistics of roughly 50% win ratios at the top level (which is how it should be measured) you can say that the game is "balanced". However, this doesn't look at the real issues of game design. For example, in TvP, Terran tends to win much more before the "late" game. Also, Terran tends to use all-ins like the 1 base or 2 base 1/1/1 a lot to achieve these wins. Protoss, on the other hand, tends to have much higher win ratios in the late game.
You could see a similar situation in pretty much every match up. In PvZ, Protoss tends to win with either a big 2 base all-in, or a super late game situation where the Zerg can't handle the deathball.
In TvZ, Terran also tends to lose much more in the late game, and win much more in the early and mid game. It's no big secret that Terran overall is weaker in the late game than the other races, and instead tends to rely on gimmicky aggression-based builds and timings to win a lot if not most of their games.
I like the fact that most match ups are going towards 50% balance, but that doesn't look at the issue of different races struggling at different points in a game, like Terran in Late game TvP, or Protoss fast expanding versus Zerg. Every race should win and lose at ANY point of the game resulting DIRECTLY from the skill and decisions of the player. THAT is good design, and what I think was almost achieved in Brood War.
until there are any statistics for this (which there wont be because it's simply not true... the game has been designed for each race to have achievable composition in the lategame that can at least be even with your opponents) this is nothing but the usual "races i dont play are imba"-crap paired with a little bit of "bw is better"-crap. Not really. He is right about design.
no he is not. he talks about the lategame as if it was magucally separated from the early game.
the truth is that there are no stats for this.
I could as well just say that terran is completly imba lategame if they get 10+ ghosts. and seeing how terrans have the infrastructure for that I dont see a reason why it shouldnt be possible to build them when the other races have the money
to build mass infestor or mass archon/ht unless terran has screwed up earlier and therefore maxes mainly on the cheap MM (in vP) or mainly on Marines (in vZ)... but you know, Im not even saying that. i cant support that completly made up statement with anything.
also the bw comparison is bullshit to begin with... there were all sorts of "race X has to do damage, else the tank/vessel/carrier/expansion... count gets to high and y becomes unstoppable". thats actually not even bad design. it means that the players have/should interact on certain times, when their races have a window to exploit the opponents weaknesses.
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On January 03 2012 09:08 skatbone wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 04:37 SeaSwift wrote:Interesting. It looks like on ladder, at least, Zerg is underrepresented in almost every league. Is the race just not appealing to play as or something? I wouldn't read too much into these numbers. Just 3 or 4 weeks ago, Terran was so underrepresented, according to SC2Ranks, that we had that painful thread about Terrans dying out. Once Christmas break came around, the Terrans seemed to re-emerge in diamond. I play against more T now that I do P or Z. tl;dr These things are in flux.
Terran is the least played race from gold-masters on sc2ranks global, US, EU, and it has been for ages. It's only in Korea/Sea/China where that doesn't apply.
Zerg is now the least played in grandmaster global, where terran used to be, but from what I understand after reading a couple of threads about it some week ago, grandmaster has nothing to do with actual skill but about gaming the system so anyone can get entered into it, which makes it irrelevant.
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If we wish to investigate balance it is futile to use statistics based on Korean GSL players. The number of players is so few that individual skill will skew the results too much. It is better to look at the replay, if a player plays better than his opponent but still loses then maybe there could be a balance problem.
Win percentage statistics are only useful when the sample size is large enough that individual skill differences even out.
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Win rate is not a measure of balance, for the better player wins against the worse player. These graphs don't account for player skill, and therefore it can't possibly accurately represent balance, or even come close.
Lets stop pretending like win rate graphs actually mean something, please. If the best player in the whole world is a Terran, he's going to do better than the 12th best player in the world who is a Zerg or the 5th best player in the world who is a Protoss.
Love always,
Your Friend Logic.
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United Kingdom20326 Posts
On January 03 2012 22:30 Chargelot wrote:
Win rate is not a measure of balance, for the better player wins against the worse player. These graphs don't account for player skill, and therefore it can't possibly accurately represent balance, or even come close.
Lets stop pretending like win rate graphs actually mean something, please. If the best player in the whole world is a Terran, he's going to do better than the 12th best player in the world who is a Zerg or the 5th best player in the world who is a Protoss.
Love always,
Your Friend Logic.
So there are 10 terrans in the top 12, with zerg and protoss only placing once each at 12'th and 5'th place?
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On January 03 2012 22:30 Chargelot wrote:
Win rate is not a measure of balance, for the better player wins against the worse player. These graphs don't account for player skill, and therefore it can't possibly accurately represent balance, or even come close.
Lets stop pretending like win rate graphs actually mean something, please. If the best player in the whole world is a Terran, he's going to do better than the 12th best player in the world who is a Zerg or the 5th best player in the world who is a Protoss.
Love always,
Your Friend Logic.
so what should be used else?
based on that argument I could simply say every terran and protoss in the early beta was bad and 1supply 2armor 3range roaches were balanced, because you can't proof that they werent (without stats). immortals, colossi, tanks, marauders and air units still performed well vs them so whatever argument you bring on, i can just counter by: if P/T players had been good enough, they would have had enough of those against roach play.
it's bullshit to argue balance without a focus on statistics. the game isn't played by machines (perfect apm) and neither is it possible to have absolute knowledge (full vision and information about the match and the game overall). but those two ate needed to create a game based on nonstatistical balance.
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On January 03 2012 22:55 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 22:30 Chargelot wrote:
Win rate is not a measure of balance, for the better player wins against the worse player. These graphs don't account for player skill, and therefore it can't possibly accurately represent balance, or even come close.
Lets stop pretending like win rate graphs actually mean something, please. If the best player in the whole world is a Terran, he's going to do better than the 12th best player in the world who is a Zerg or the 5th best player in the world who is a Protoss.
Love always,
Your Friend Logic. So there are 10 terrans in the top 12, with zerg and protoss only placing once each at 12'th and 5'th place?
Are all 2218 of your other posts like this?
On January 03 2012 23:09 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 22:30 Chargelot wrote:
Win rate is not a measure of balance, for the better player wins against the worse player. These graphs don't account for player skill, and therefore it can't possibly accurately represent balance, or even come close.
Lets stop pretending like win rate graphs actually mean something, please. If the best player in the whole world is a Terran, he's going to do better than the 12th best player in the world who is a Zerg or the 5th best player in the world who is a Protoss.
Love always,
Your Friend Logic. so what should be used else? based on that argument I could simply say every terran and protoss in the early beta was bad and 1supply 2armor 3range roaches were balanced, because you can't proof that they werent (without stats). immortals, colossi, tanks, marauders and air units still performed well vs them so whatever argument you bring on, i can just counter by: if P/T players had been good enough, they would have had enough of those against roach play. it's bullshit to argue balance without a focus on statistics. the game isn't played by machines (perfect apm) and neither is it possible to have absolute knowledge (full vision and information about the match and the game overall). but those two ate needed to create a game based on nonstatistical balance.
It's equally bullshit to argue incomplete statistics which don't compensate for the biggest difference in win/loss ratio actually describe balance. This is why Blizzard has an internal measure of skill, in a sense, which they can use to compare to win/loss ratios both on ladder and in tournaments. They don't balance the game based on W:L Ratios, with the exception of map pools, which is another thing entirely.
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On January 03 2012 23:22 Chargelot wrote:
It's equally bullshit to argue incomplete statistics which don't compensate for the biggest difference in win/loss ratio actually describe balance. This is why Blizzard has an internal measure of skill, in a sense, which they can use to compare to win/loss ratios both on ladder and in tournaments. They don't balance the game based on W:L Ratios, with the exception of map pools, which is another thing entirely.
Except with hundreds of games played, the player skill will on average tend towards equal. While outstanding players like MVP and Nestea can and will win far more games than race balance would estimate, the variance caused by player skill will never be great enough to make more than 1-2% difference.
There is no reason to believe any race is superior in terms of skill to either of the others, so these statistics are still very useful in looking at race balance.
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Terran has such a high win rate because a majority of the terran players are not pushovers at all and they have a VERY high level of skill. Terran pros are always finding new ways to get around the nerfs they get. Cant say its that easy for us low league players. lol
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On January 03 2012 23:31 SeaSwift wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 23:22 Chargelot wrote:
It's equally bullshit to argue incomplete statistics which don't compensate for the biggest difference in win/loss ratio actually describe balance. This is why Blizzard has an internal measure of skill, in a sense, which they can use to compare to win/loss ratios both on ladder and in tournaments. They don't balance the game based on W:L Ratios, with the exception of map pools, which is another thing entirely. Except with hundreds of games played, the player skill will on average tend towards equal. While outstanding players like MVP and Nestea can and will win far more games than race balance would estimate, the variance caused by player skill will never be great enough to make more than 1-2% difference. There is no reason to believe any race is superior in terms of skill to either of the others, so these statistics are still very useful in looking at race balance.
But you have absolutely no ability to say that skill only makes a 1-2% difference. Because it is completely unmeasured on this graph and any other chart or graph that you've ever seen. There is no reason to believe that a race is superior, true. But a player? There are a few $100,000.00 reasons to believe that.
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On January 03 2012 23:22 Chargelot wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 22:55 Cyro wrote:On January 03 2012 22:30 Chargelot wrote:
Win rate is not a measure of balance, for the better player wins against the worse player. These graphs don't account for player skill, and therefore it can't possibly accurately represent balance, or even come close.
Lets stop pretending like win rate graphs actually mean something, please. If the best player in the whole world is a Terran, he's going to do better than the 12th best player in the world who is a Zerg or the 5th best player in the world who is a Protoss.
Love always,
Your Friend Logic. So there are 10 terrans in the top 12, with zerg and protoss only placing once each at 12'th and 5'th place? Are all 2218 of your other posts like this? Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 23:09 Big J wrote:On January 03 2012 22:30 Chargelot wrote:
Win rate is not a measure of balance, for the better player wins against the worse player. These graphs don't account for player skill, and therefore it can't possibly accurately represent balance, or even come close.
Lets stop pretending like win rate graphs actually mean something, please. If the best player in the whole world is a Terran, he's going to do better than the 12th best player in the world who is a Zerg or the 5th best player in the world who is a Protoss.
Love always,
Your Friend Logic. so what should be used else? based on that argument I could simply say every terran and protoss in the early beta was bad and 1supply 2armor 3range roaches were balanced, because you can't proof that they werent (without stats). immortals, colossi, tanks, marauders and air units still performed well vs them so whatever argument you bring on, i can just counter by: if P/T players had been good enough, they would have had enough of those against roach play. it's bullshit to argue balance without a focus on statistics. the game isn't played by machines (perfect apm) and neither is it possible to have absolute knowledge (full vision and information about the match and the game overall). but those two ate needed to create a game based on nonstatistical balance. It's equally bullshit to argue incomplete statistics which don't compensate for the biggest difference in win/loss ratio actually describe balance. This is why Blizzard has an internal measure of skill, in a sense, which they can use to compare to win/loss ratios both on ladder and in tournaments. They don't balance the game based on W:L Ratios.
well they do and you know why they balance around W/L ratios?
because there is a statistcal rule that says in bigger samples of statistics the numbers you get are close to what you have to expect (=balance). you can argue that those statistics are not really good and can only signal trends (like i did at the beginning of the last page) but in the end all your balancing efforts have to be based on statistics.
especially as skill isn't really measureable... maybe the game is completly zergfavored but noone plays them right, right now. in that case i still prefer it that blizzard doesnt hardnerf zerg right now, and rather keeps the game playable/balanced with the current metagame.
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On January 03 2012 23:36 Chargelot wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 23:31 SeaSwift wrote:On January 03 2012 23:22 Chargelot wrote:
It's equally bullshit to argue incomplete statistics which don't compensate for the biggest difference in win/loss ratio actually describe balance. This is why Blizzard has an internal measure of skill, in a sense, which they can use to compare to win/loss ratios both on ladder and in tournaments. They don't balance the game based on W:L Ratios, with the exception of map pools, which is another thing entirely. Except with hundreds of games played, the player skill will on average tend towards equal. While outstanding players like MVP and Nestea can and will win far more games than race balance would estimate, the variance caused by player skill will never be great enough to make more than 1-2% difference. There is no reason to believe any race is superior in terms of skill to either of the others, so these statistics are still very useful in looking at race balance. But you have absolutely no ability to say that skill only makes a 1-2% difference. Because it is completely unmeasured on this graph. There is no reason to believe that a race is superior, true. But a player? There are a few $100,000.00 reasons to believe that.
As I said, this is based on TLPD. For example, Nestea only played 8 games last month in Korea, with a total of 429 games played last month in Korea.
No way that is going to make a significant difference (more than 1-2%) to the graph.
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On January 03 2012 23:09 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 22:30 Chargelot wrote:
Win rate is not a measure of balance, for the better player wins against the worse player. These graphs don't account for player skill, and therefore it can't possibly accurately represent balance, or even come close.
Lets stop pretending like win rate graphs actually mean something, please. If the best player in the whole world is a Terran, he's going to do better than the 12th best player in the world who is a Zerg or the 5th best player in the world who is a Protoss.
Love always,
Your Friend Logic. so what should be used else? based on that argument I could simply say every terran and protoss in the early beta was bad and 1supply 2armor 3range roaches were balanced, because you can't proof that they werent (without stats). immortals, colossi, tanks, marauders and air units still performed well vs them so whatever argument you bring on, i can just counter by: if P/T players had been good enough, they would have had enough of those against roach play. it's bullshit to argue balance without a focus on statistics. the game isn't played by machines (perfect apm) and neither is it possible to have absolute knowledge (full vision and information about the match and the game overall). but those two ate needed to create a game based on nonstatistical balance.
To be honest witnessing how imbalanced a unit can be, for example early beta roaches is a much better indicator than statistics. A huge disparity in winrate still requires you to find the cause of the imbalance either way. Not that statistics aren't useful, but the entire matter of balance is completely subjective. Even when accounting for statistics.
On January 03 2012 22:03 Dalavita wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 09:08 skatbone wrote:On January 03 2012 04:37 SeaSwift wrote:Interesting. It looks like on ladder, at least, Zerg is underrepresented in almost every league. Is the race just not appealing to play as or something? I wouldn't read too much into these numbers. Just 3 or 4 weeks ago, Terran was so underrepresented, according to SC2Ranks, that we had that painful thread about Terrans dying out. Once Christmas break came around, the Terrans seemed to re-emerge in diamond. I play against more T now that I do P or Z. tl;dr These things are in flux. Terran is the least played race from gold-masters on sc2ranks global, US, EU, and it has been for ages. It's only in Korea/Sea/China where that doesn't apply. Zerg is now the least played in grandmaster global, where terran used to be, but from what I understand after reading a couple of threads about it some week ago, grandmaster has nothing to do with actual skill but about gaming the system so anyone can get entered into it, which makes it irrelevant.
The fuck. You can't game the system to get into GM. How the fuck are people still making this retarded comment.
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On January 03 2012 09:08 skatbone wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2012 04:37 SeaSwift wrote:Interesting. It looks like on ladder, at least, Zerg is underrepresented in almost every league. Is the race just not appealing to play as or something? I wouldn't read too much into these numbers. Just 3 or 4 weeks ago, Terran was so underrepresented, according to SC2Ranks, that we had that painful thread about Terrans dying out. Once Christmas break came around, the Terrans seemed to re-emerge in diamond. I play against more T now that I do P or Z. tl;dr These things are in flux.
Not really, Diamond Terran population is smaller this season(24,1)% than last (25,7%)(data for US server).
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EPT
