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31,500 Replays - A look at balance in Starcraft II - Page 16

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Treyus
Profile Joined February 2011
38 Posts
February 08 2012 19:05 GMT
#301
anyone else notice how there are more "gg"s said than there are games played? lol
Fus
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden1112 Posts
February 08 2012 19:15 GMT
#302
I love antiga in PvT i don't know why it's so T favored. And also i can't belive ZvP metalopolis is so close to 50%, i guess it's because of close by air spawns because cross spawns gotta be like 35% win for protoss.
NaNiwa | Innovation | Flash | DeMuslim ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
dearyuna
Profile Joined December 2011
United States322 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-08 21:12:57
February 08 2012 21:10 GMT
#303
It would be really freaking awesome if there was a breakdown as to # of games for each pairing. If that was available, I could run stats to display any forms of significance between race pairings. Because the sample size (# of replays) is huge, running an ANOVA and post hoc t-tests should show some very interesting results. If anyone has access to this data, please please please PM me.

edit

Because there's a large sample size, a difference of 43% and 54% can have significance because the data could be normally distributed.

If people would like to see any further in depth probability of significance statistics, please support this post
@dearyuna Team SCV Life <3
Monsen
Profile Joined December 2002
Germany2548 Posts
February 08 2012 21:14 GMT
#304
On February 09 2012 04:05 Treyus wrote:
anyone else notice how there are more "gg"s said than there are games played? lol


Just a theory, but maybe in some games both players typed "gg" ?
11 years and counting- TL #680
julius33
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Estonia79 Posts
February 08 2012 22:09 GMT
#305
On February 09 2012 06:14 Monsen wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 09 2012 04:05 Treyus wrote:
anyone else notice how there are more "gg"s said than there are games played? lol


Just a theory, but maybe in some games both players typed "gg" ?

This and probably the fact that some players say "gl hf gg" or something like that at the start of a game so i guess that adds up to all of it...
Rahulikult!
andrewlt
Profile Joined August 2009
United States7702 Posts
February 08 2012 23:56 GMT
#306
As somebody who follows both BW and SC2, I disagree with the obsession of the SC2 community with very balanced maps. A map pool with 50% win rate for all match-ups would be a very boring map pool. 40-60% win rates are good enough, provided that not all maps in the pool favor the same race in any match-up.

In order to create a map pool with all maps being very closely balanced, you'd pretty much have to design all the maps very similarly to each other. That defeats much of the purpose of having a map pool, which is having players devise a diverse set of strategies, unit compositions, timings and push paths.
godulous
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
United States337 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-09 00:06:58
February 09 2012 00:06 GMT
#307
On February 09 2012 08:56 andrewlt wrote:
As somebody who follows both BW and SC2, I disagree with the obsession of the SC2 community with very balanced maps. A map pool with 50% win rate for all match-ups would be a very boring map pool. 40-60% win rates are good enough, provided that not all maps in the pool favor the same race in any match-up.

In order to create a map pool with all maps being very closely balanced, you'd pretty much have to design all the maps very similarly to each other. That defeats much of the purpose of having a map pool, which is having players devise a diverse set of strategies, unit compositions, timings and push paths.


While you're right to a degree we still need to keep that variance within a certain margin, you wouldn't want a map with a 40% win rate as a starting map in a Bo1 round of 256 or you'll screw up the racial balance throughout the entire tournament. At the same time it's also important that maps in the pool that are not starting maps have a slight racial imbalance since we use a loser-chooses-next format. This leads to the most interesting match ups and clearest determination of skill since it'll allow series to be played out with more games more frequently and most often determine which player was actually best and not just which one got lucky with maps.

I try to put the most balanced maps early in the tournament and as starting maps, while the ones with racial skews are moved to the map pool that losers can choose from, and maps with extreme percentages get removed entirely. Hopefully that sheds some light on the process we use when adjusting our pool.
Playhem.com | Ben.477 US | Ben.1125 EU
iiGreetings
Profile Joined March 2011
Canada563 Posts
February 09 2012 03:48 GMT
#308
Thanks man love statistics that prove good points, to bad most people on liquid are classy boss's and accept balance... the haterz won't see this
Adapt and React I MKP, PartinG, EffOrt ♥
BadAim
Profile Joined September 2011
Norway879 Posts
February 12 2012 11:59 GMT
#309
I read the topic and braced myself for the incoming shitstorm, but was really surprised to when I read the article. Truly great job!
My esports soul belongs to: Boxer | White-Ra | Daigo Umehara | Nazgul | IceFrog
Shanyo
Profile Joined July 2011
Belgium70 Posts
February 12 2012 12:05 GMT
#310
Looks pretty balanced imo.
I'm all creeped out
how
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States538 Posts
February 12 2012 12:09 GMT
#311
Awesome stats, thanks for doing this for us!
http://twitter.com/howsc
babybell
Profile Joined June 2011
776 Posts
February 13 2012 13:58 GMT
#312
did anyone see the word dick in the lowest part of the word-cloud :S
Blacklizard
Profile Joined May 2007
United States1194 Posts
February 13 2012 16:28 GMT
#313
Very interesting. I've always guessed that there are no actually Protoss favored maps... this seems to say the same thing. So for the sentiment of balancing the game with maps, maybe it can't be done. I wonder what the recent patch or HotS will do for this sort of thing.
darkscream
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Canada2310 Posts
February 13 2012 16:34 GMT
#314
On February 14 2012 01:28 Blacklizard wrote:
Very interesting. I've always guessed that there are no actually Protoss favored maps... this seems to say the same thing. So for the sentiment of balancing the game with maps, maybe it can't be done. I wonder what the recent patch or HotS will do for this sort of thing.


You didn't bother reading the stats I guess. Cloud Kingdom is decidedly protoss favored by a small, acceptable margin.
Blacklizard
Profile Joined May 2007
United States1194 Posts
February 13 2012 17:20 GMT
#315
On February 04 2012 16:41 godulous wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 04 2012 16:34 KawaiiRice wrote:
The reason I'm being sort of critical here is because playhem is trying to use these stats to represent some sort of statement about map balance when they also include thousands of games where people lose because of millions of mistakes that have nothing to do with map balance because they aren't as good.


The underlying meaning behind the analysis was more along the lines that map design can have an impact on balance, and that neither maps nor patches alone will lead to a perfect game but that changes have to be made in order to eventually find the best balance. Everyone knows how different BW was in the earliest days compared to now, and change is the only thing that will facilitate SC2's progress toward a better game.

While you're right that mistakes are factored in just as the map balance is, with a large enough sample size you should have mistakes factoring in roughly evenly for all maps/matchups unless something else is influencing some races to be more prone to game-losing mistakes. That might be an entirely different/interesting issue about how the racial mechanics work in SC2.

tl;dr, Tournaments should try out some new stuff and not just cling to old maps.

By the way, here's a picture of what a big pile of replays looks like
http://i.imgur.com/eRMGH.png


Good post, I tend to agree. Just sheer numbers makes these stats pretty good.

However, people should get off KawaiiRice because he also is stating quite a bit of truth, and thankfully isn't being so politically correct that there is nothing to be gleaned from what he is saying. You have to balance for the very top to balance the game for the rest... that is the best way to do it. Blizzard knows this and is attempting to put in balance tweaks for low level in HotS to compensate a little... the statement David Kim made about hellions starting in x mode is a nice example IMO.
Blacklizard
Profile Joined May 2007
United States1194 Posts
February 13 2012 17:25 GMT
#316
On February 04 2012 16:50 Splynn wrote:
It's sad that PvP is so... dumb on Tal'Darim Altar. The balance in the non-mirror matchups looks great and I really enjoy playing the map. But every time I get a PvP on it I just go straight to frown town.

Great work compiling all of this data, and thanks for all of the content in general from Playhem.


1. It is very very interesting that a map with no ramp at main is the most balanced for this level of play. What does that say about the validity of forcefields? It screams to me that distance is the only way a Protoss is safe early game against many powerful early game tactics. This has to change if map variety is ever going to be anything but huge maps in tournaments.

2. PvP 4 gate vs 4 gate... people should just learn to play early game perfectly and suddenly 4 gate vs 4 gate is a nice stable game that can go to mid and even late game. It's not perfect, but it's just as good if not better than other BO problems on other maps PvP.
DaemonX
Profile Joined September 2010
545 Posts
February 14 2012 02:55 GMT
#317
Doesn't anyone remember a little game called Brood War?

Maps were NOT race balanced in that. They were never meant to be. Map adversity is what made the tournaments interesting. I want different maps that force me to change up my strategies. I voted down shakuras plateau till I learned how to do solid multi-drop openings vs Z. Now I can play the map. Is it Z favoured? Sure. Still fun.

Map balance = boring.
NeoGeoOdin
Profile Joined October 2011
Colombia140 Posts
February 14 2012 03:06 GMT
#318
On February 14 2012 11:55 DaemonX wrote:
Doesn't anyone remember a little game called Brood War?

Maps were NOT race balanced in that. They were never meant to be. Map adversity is what made the tournaments interesting. I want different maps that force me to change up my strategies. I voted down shakuras plateau till I learned how to do solid multi-drop openings vs Z. Now I can play the map. Is it Z favoured? Sure. Still fun.

Map balance = boring.


wat? Are you seeing the SPL latelty? or, have you follow the Pro Scene BW at least this 5 last years? almost all maps were X race favorate, the only one wiith 50/50 in all races was Fighting Spirtit (gad! what a perfect map <3 <3 <3)
i3rainless
Profile Joined March 2011
Germany34 Posts
February 14 2012 13:28 GMT
#319
Man Great work!!!
This is why shakuras and taldarim feel so good :D
Mentalizor
Profile Joined January 2011
Denmark1596 Posts
February 14 2012 13:34 GMT
#320
Isn't Shakuras and Cloud Kingdom the only maps where protoss has just a single 50%+ winrate in any matchup?
(yಠ,ಠ)y - Y U NO ALL IN? - rtsAlaran: " I somehow sit inside the bus.Hot_Bit giving me a massage"
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