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I wanted to do a version of this post on win rates and game lengths using a larger data set. Thankfully, Playhem has recently made replay packs for all tournaments available as long as you are logged in to your playhem account. I downloaded almost all of the completed NA Playhem daily tournaments. This produced a dataset of over 21,000 replays ... over 10x the size of the MLG Providence dataset. I used SC2 gears and some excel kung-fu to analyze the results based on the length of the game. If you're interested in the raw data, please PM me; the Excel file isn't compatible with Google Docs.
Different Game Lengths in Different Matchups:
Lets first take a look at all 6 matchups to see if games in a certain matchup tend to be shorter or longer than other matchups. The first graph shows the percentage of games in each matchup that end exactly in that time bucket. The second graph shows the cumulative percentage of games that have ended by the time we reach the end of that time bucket. Note that these timings are using Game Time (i.e. the time you see on the in-game timer), not wall clock time.
:![[image loading]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7180/6784379544_67f398910f_z.jpg)
Game_Length by niq77174, on Flickr
![[image loading]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7062/6930519265_23af0d446f_z.jpg)
Game_Length_Cumulative by niq77174, on Flickr
Analysis:
PvP and ZvZ appear to be very different games from the other four matchups. In those two mirror matches, players face a more than 40% chance of seeing the game end in the early game. In no other matchup does the chance of losing in the early game go above 20%.
PvZ Over Time (5636 games):
Despite the high win rate for Zerg in the early game, the PvZ matchup is quite balanced across all phases of the game:
![[image loading]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7179/6930496375_1c3c839d5a_z.jpg)
Playhem PvZ Win Rates by Game Length by niq77174, on Flickr
Yes, the raw PvZ win rate shows an extremely high win rate for Zerg in the early game, followed by a very even matchup. However, PvZ is also the matchup that is least likely to end before the 10 minute mark. This is at least circumstantial evidence that, if an early-game attempts by Zerg to kill of the protoss that fails, it produces longer games, where Protoss is at less of a disadvantage. A closer analysis of early-game PvZ wins, most likely examining build orders, is needed to identify failed Zerg all-ins and determine the win rate in longer games.
Beyond the 10 minute mark, neither race experiences an Win Rate above 55% that suggests serious imbalance until the 30-35 minute mark, when protoss briefly has a win rate just above 55%. However, the number of games that reach the 30 minute mark (324 games total) may be too small to draw any meaningful conclusions.
ZvT Over Time (4532 games):
The ZvT matchup shows a significant advantage for Terran until the 15 minute mark, with Zerg slowly working its way back unto the game, and even to a significant advantage at the 25 minute mark. But then, the Zerg advantage begins to erode; past the 30 minute mark, there are 254 total games, and Zerg has a 52.3% win rate in those games.
![[image loading]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7040/6930496419_f8fb7191db_z.jpg)
Playhem ZvT Win Rates by Game Length by niq77174, on Flickr
ZvT is the slowest of all 6 matchups; slower even than TvT (!). As in PvZ, the high early-game win rate against Zerg is slightly deceptive. ZvT has the fewest games which end in the 10-15 minute range and before the 15 minute mark overall.
TvP Over Time (3997 games):
The TvP matchup swings wildly. Protoss appears to be strongly favored in the early game; then Terran takes a big advantage in the midgame, then things swing back into protoss's favor in the lategame. However, in a small sample (24) of extremely late games, the matchup appears to even out.
![[image loading]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7192/6784379496_43648f6efb_z.jpg)
Playhem TvP Win Rates by Game Length by niq77174, on Flickr
Unlike Zerg in PvZ or ZvT, each race in TvP faces significant risk of losing during the phase of the early & midgame where the opposing race favored. Excluding ZvZ and ZvP, TvP is 2nd most likely to in before 10 minutes, and is the matchup most likely to end in the 10-20 minute window. This suggests that both races may be trying to take advantage of the the point in the game where their race has the edge.
Do you have an alternate interpretation of these results? Thoughts on what it is about the state of the current metagame and/or balance in general that would produce the results that we see here? Are there other questions you would like to see answered?
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Seems to be pretty accurate.
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Seems like very interesting analysis, definitely timings within games that people seem to hit to win. I do wonder though whether knowing data like this exist can help people look at their match ups to sacrifice say winning percentage at certain points to help smooth out the line. That is, if I know toss has the best shot at beating me before 10 minutes, i'm going to be defensive til 10 until i get some sort of timing window.
Though I wonder if there is correlation between the different windows. Like this the fact that toss wins before 10 at a high percentage lead to the fact that they lose after 10 at a high percentage. Be interesting to analyze build orders, but I think that takes a lot more data crunching capability that I imagine few people have.
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I expected the tvp graph to be honest. Terran has the best opening units and can punish protoss players who are gearing up for the mid to late game, but around when colossus, HT and 3/3 speed lots enter it becomes a very hard fight for terran.
what I wasen't expecting was the pvz graph. Honestly expected protoss to be in a bigger lead by around the 25+ minute mark, yet stays relatively even up until the point where there is insignificant data to draw any conclusions.
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I think the PvT graph is quite telling. Deathball = very strong apparently :D
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Great post. The bigger data set is a huge plus in terms of statistical reliability. I also liked the way you cleaned up your graphs, they're much better this time around :D
Very interesting stuff, seems to fit with what most people seem to think for the time being. Surprised TvZ is longer than TvT though, that seems hard to believe 
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I'm really interested in what major things occur where the graph lines intersect. Specifically, in ZvT the ~18 minute mark looks like a significant change occurs. I'd have to watch some replays of it but maybe that is when zerg typically gets their brood lords out. Or perhaps the shift is reflective of the cumulative effect of 5-8 minutes of mutalisk harassment?
What about TvP, is that first intersection when terran has their MMM rocking and rolling? What is that second intersection? Does protoss now have templar AND colossi? I think this could be revealing of some very typical timings in the current metagame, and more importantly insight on how to deal with it as each race.
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The ZvZ winrate makes me sad. Macro ZvZs tend to be some of my favorite games, but everyone just does 9 pool or 14/14 baneling all-in. It's really annoying when the entire game comes down to ling/bling micro -_-
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On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
I think the PvT graph is quite telling. Deathball = very strong apparently :D
strong assuming you survive to that point. From the cumulative graph, it seems something like 80% of tvps end before 20 minutes anyway.
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Ah! I was hoping that you would get around to using the playhem data. These graphs unfortunately confirm all of my suspicions about everything ever. =(
I guess a game where everything was a flat line would be pretty boring too.
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Honestly, the early game and late game balance does not look good at all, according to these. As you stated in the op, it would be interesting to see how much of the mid game appears balanced due to failed all ins or cheese.
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On February 26 2012 16:25 _scout wrote:
I'm really interested in what major things occur where the graph lines intersect. Specifically, in ZvT the ~18 minute mark looks like a significant change occurs. I'd have to watch some replays of it but maybe that is when zerg typically gets their brood lords out. Or perhaps the shift is reflective of the cumulative effect of 5-8 minutes of mutalisk harassment?
What about TvP, is that first intersection when terran has their MMM rocking and rolling? What is that second intersection? Does protoss now have templar AND colossi? I think this could be revealing of some very typical timings in the current metagame, and more importantly insight on how to deal with it as each race.
I think you're right with both, the zergs would be on hive and getting broods out at around that time. Around 10 minutes is when I always have a good number of marine/marauder and medivacs, and that's when you can take control. Toss doesn't have much aoe out, so you can win the game pretty easily from there. Once they get out storms + colossus it gets really hard and that's where P has the advantage.
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On February 26 2012 16:40 Reborn8u wrote:
Honestly, the early game and late game balance does not look good at all, according to these. As you stated in the op, it would be interesting to see how much of the mid game appears balanced due to failed all ins or cheese.
Early-game winrate means nothing, as a game ended early is a cheese play 99.99% of the time or a very successful rush play that forgoes fast expansion to deal damage into midgame or outright kill an opponent.
That being said, winrates at different times mean different things in game. Terran will seem strongest vs other races more and more in midgame and early game bcause we're moving toward constant harassment gameplay and most late-game wins come from damage dealt in midgame that the P stuck it out OR from a big drop that wasn't handled well/denied bases. Same could be said, increasingly, vs zerg. Playstyle is becoming a contributing factor to winrates, as "macro" terrans will, in general, lose more without doing significant damage with their timings and will do so when protoss AOE is on the field en masse.
While I would love a buff to help Terran win a game if you started with 5-base, split map, all tech'd, and all upgraded with standard production infrastrucutre (ie super late-game/late-game scenarios) I would also love to see playsets change again. Terran has seemingly done this most consistently, and I expect the race to do so again. Meanwhile in winrate land, we'll be racking up wins in early/mid because of aforementioned harassment play that can break opponents to gg if they don't respond well.
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could you put up % of pros that play each race and how that might affect the stats?
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The TvP one makes a lot of sense. Protoss gets favored for all ins, terran gets favored for midgame pushes before protoss tech, protoss favored after that with deathball.
Also now that I'm seeing the TvZ one, it reaffirms the epic fail that was the ghost nerf.
And I agree the fact that these are not more even in all three seems like a bad sign, not the best way to balance the game IMO.
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I can see the problem Blizzard has in balancing with these graphs. Make terrran weaker at start for zerg's benefit and protoss will just roll terran early. But you can't make protoss weaker because they are already a little weaker than zerg early.
Ghost Snipe nerf and EMP nerf was a total fail by this graph. Terran is already weak late, can't tech switch like other race, make them weaker?
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On February 26 2012 16:12 MercilessMonkey wrote:Great post. The bigger data set is a huge plus in terms of statistical reliability. I also liked the way you cleaned up your graphs, they're much better this time around :D Very interesting stuff, seems to fit with what most people seem to think for the time being. Surprised TvZ is longer than TvT though, that seems hard to believe
When it's fun times goes fast. 
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winning percentages based on when game ends is super interesting, it sort of confirms my suspicions of certain matchup's powercurve.
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I think the colors on the top graph are too close its hard to tell them apart, at least for me.
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On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
I think the PvT graph is quite telling. Deathball = very strong apparently :D
It's also telling how very strong mid game MMM pushes are.
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Is this enough evidence for terran to get a strong lategame buff and get the snipe reverted and get an early game nerf?
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I think doing this for the korean server would be great for gaining information for balancing.
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Yeah, the NA playhem is definitely not a great set of games to do it from, considering the overall skill level is considerably lower than the KR server, or Korean tournament games.
Then again, I don't know how easy that data would be to get a hold of.
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On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
I think the PvT graph is quite telling. Deathball = very strong apparently :D
Terran and Zerg all-ins pretty strong from what we can see also, especially 5-15 mins. :D
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On February 26 2012 23:31 thezanursic wrote:
Is this enough evidence for terran to get a strong lategame buff and get the snipe reverted and get an early game nerf?
Lol. This graph isnt implying that anything is overpowered, its only showing how winrates fluctuate based on game length, which they always will because it is impossible to balance a matchup at all moments in the game. The tools they have (adjusting unit statistics etc.) dont allow for such precision and it would make for an incredibly boring game if at no point was any race at a disadvantage or advantage.
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On February 26 2012 23:32 Aunvilgod wrote:
I think doing this for the korean server would be great for gaining information for balancing.
I agree completely, but unless Playhem starts doing KR dailies, we will not get enough replays out of korea, since pro-houses tend to not release them and ESV weekly doesnt release them either afaik.
Maybe playhem info should be limited to top 16 players in a daily, to weed out the lower tier players.
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On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
I think the PvT graph is quite telling. Deathball = very strong apparently :D
I think the PvT graph is quite telling. MM pushes and shift queued drop =very strong apparently :D
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On February 26 2012 23:37 XenoX101 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2012 23:31 thezanursic wrote:
Is this enough evidence for terran to get a strong lategame buff and get the snipe reverted and get an early game nerf? Lol. This graph isnt implying that anything is overpowered, its only showing how winrates fluctuate based on game length, which they always will because it is impossible to balance a matchup at all moments in the game. The tools they have (adjusting unit statistics etc.) dont allow for such precision and it would make for an incredibly boring game if at no point was any race at a disadvantage or advantage.
Ideally, it's better to have a game in which each matchup is pretty even on average with game length. Small fluctuations are fine, but what you see here are huge.
As for it being OK for the matchup having different swings for each race at different moments in the game, imagine this scenario, for example:
PvT, let's say, is impossible for Terrans after the 10 minute mark. Therefore, they always all-in before then, or they die. That all-in has an approximately 50% chance of working.
According to Blizzard, that is balanced and the matchup is excellent. But we both know that it must be completely broken.
So while it is fine for there to be minor fluctuations in winrate per game length, what we are seeing at the moment is a massive change in winrate over time, which is definitely not good, particularly in PvT.
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I guess that confirms what I've always thought about Terran matchups, it's interesting to see that the longest games in TvP are relatively balanced. I'm curious to see what the really really really late replays in TvP were just so I can check them out.
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On February 26 2012 23:49 Chaggi wrote:
I guess that confirms what I've always thought about Terran matchups, it's interesting to see that the longest games in TvP are relatively balanced. I'm curious to see what the really really really late replays in TvP were just so I can check them out.
It's these kind of game where the map is almost mined out, army supply get back to the 100 range, with low amount of tech units.
MMM get a lot more efficient in these scenarios.
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Excellent work. I wish Blizzard would work with this kind of data rather than just looking at raw win-percentages. If this data is any indication, it's early-game terran that needs to be fixed, and the late-game nerfs to Snipe and EMP are mistakes.
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On February 26 2012 16:25 _scout wrote:
I'm really interested in what major things occur where the graph lines intersect. Specifically, in ZvT the ~18 minute mark looks like a significant change occurs. I'd have to watch some replays of it but maybe that is when zerg typically gets their brood lords out. Or perhaps the shift is reflective of the cumulative effect of 5-8 minutes of mutalisk harassment?
What about TvP, is that first intersection when terran has their MMM rocking and rolling? What is that second intersection? Does protoss now have templar AND colossi? I think this could be revealing of some very typical timings in the current metagame, and more importantly insight on how to deal with it as each race. Looks like it's based on 5 minute intervals which means that information about what happens between the data points, like more exact timings is not in the graphs. So we can't know if 50% happens at 16 or 19 minutes and the lines might even intersect multiple times between 15 and 20 minutes.
Always fun seeing some data but would have been nice with shorter intervals.
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I thought ZvZ was actually overall faster ending match-up than PvP. Seems I was wrong lol.
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I worry about people trying to make balance assumptions on the basis of game end times and the like. For example in TvZ, a good opening attack and the zerg tends to die out right where as if the zerg gets a good first engagement the terran rarely dies but is so far behind for the midgame that it's a foregone conclusion barring any horrific mistakes. The curves can be misleading as it shows when the game physically ended, not when it was won and lost.
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8748 Posts
On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
Deathball = very strong apparently :D
I think the opposite actually. Terran midgame is very strong so most terrans play for the midgame. It's often win or lose at that point, but if it's a loss for the terran, then the game drags on to late game before protoss can actually close it out. It's like in PvZ shakuras where protoss go for 2 base timing attack and when it fails, turtle up and go for late game. But zerg should usually win that late game. Important thing is that zerg can't just counterattack to immediately end the game at the point when they've gained a huge advantage.
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On February 27 2012 00:12 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
Deathball = very strong apparently :D I think the opposite actually. Terran midgame is very strong so most terrans play for the midgame. It's often win or lose at that point, but if it's a loss for the terran, then the game drags on to late game before protoss can actually close it out. It's like in PvZ shakuras where protoss go for 2 base timing attack and when it fails, turtle up and go for late game. But zerg should usually win that late game. Important thing is that zerg can't just counterattack to immediately end the game at the point when they've gained a huge advantage.
protoss do the same in early game versus terran with their 2base semi-all-in rush before stim/medivacs.
can a terran instantly close out a game after successfully defending a 2base blink rush or a warp prism rush? or a probe-cutting 6gate.... lmao not likely.
what's more.... when the protoss drags it to the late game, the terran can instantly lose all advantage and actually fall miles behind in a nano second just from taking a single storm.
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On February 26 2012 16:05 Energizer wrote:
what I wasen't expecting was the pvz graph. Honestly expected protoss to be in a bigger lead by around the 25+ minute mark, yet stays relatively even up until the point where there is insignificant data to draw any conclusions.
Despite the complaints from Zerg players, PvZ has been a Zerg favored matchup for awhile according to the win rate charts (http://imgur.com/a/hQHYS), almost 60/40 now, with many months of 45/55. So with that win rate data in mind, you wouldn't expect to see Protoss dominating any period of the game significantly, since Zerg simply wins more.
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On February 27 2012 00:12 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
Deathball = very strong apparently :D I think the opposite actually. Terran midgame is very strong so most terrans play for the midgame. It's often win or lose at that point, but if it's a loss for the terran, then the game drags on to late game before protoss can actually close it out.
That seems counter-intuitive to me - it always seems to me like if Protoss loses the mid-game battle (without too much of a margin), he can fall back on upgraded chargelots being very effective in small numbers and turtle on 3 bases (depending on the map, I suppose) until 3/3 before pushing out to take a 4th. In theory, forward pylons/warp prisms should allow Protoss more than any other race to capitalize on advantages in army size.
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On February 27 2012 00:17 Andreas wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2012 00:12 Liquid`NonY wrote:On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
Deathball = very strong apparently :D I think the opposite actually. Terran midgame is very strong so most terrans play for the midgame. It's often win or lose at that point, but if it's a loss for the terran, then the game drags on to late game before protoss can actually close it out. That seems counter-intuitive to me - it always seems to me like if Protoss loses the mid-game battle (without too much of a margin), he can fall back on upgraded chargelots being very effective in small numbers and turtle on 3 bases (depending on the map, I suppose) until 3/3 before pushing out to take a 4th. In theory, forward pylons/warp prisms should allow Protoss more than any other race to capitalize on advantages in army size.
From a pure PvT standpoint - Terran can turtle up with a PF 3rd/lifting/ tons of bunkers after a failed 2base push rather easily. If P fails a 2base push, you usually lose most of your units (no stream of reinforcements due to warp-ins) and the army advantage goes to the T (when MMM is already pretty strong with low unit counts).
Most 2base timings dont include charge, regardless who pushes. 6gates, blink all ins, 2base colossi dont have charge and the myriad of 10minute T timings almost always hit before charge too. Tyler is completely right.
edit: PvZ it makes complete sense too obviously, due to natural simcity + defensive sentry strength (which in turn is avoided with medivacs in PvT if the P is at a disadvantage)
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very nice work, very interesting analysis of the metagame 
and apart of TvP that swings rather hard and the few Terran (vs Zerg) and Zerg (vs Protoss) cheeses the game seems very nicely balanced through an entire game. (even TvZ is never over 57-43 after the superearly cheeses... looks a lot like all those "can't win early/late" claims come down to little adjustments in playstyles, to gain even better winrates)
I'm especially surprised by the "after-lategame" balance... Once two races have had their "favored phases", the game evens out again, though of course the samplesize for those games is really low and the quality of the players probably not korean level...
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its quiet impressive that winrates at the end go closer together again. But those pvt stats soooo lol. Toss / Terran / Toss / even. But it shows perfectly how tvp works, terran stays on low tech with t2 support and toss tries to survive to get up their high tech army. So i would be suprised if it would look different. The issue is, there is no option for the toss to stay heavy on low tech (the upgrade buff helped here quiet alot though, but also helped the lategame), same goes for the terran in regards to high tech, tvt nerfed their mech play quiet heavily affecting pvt alot. Its difficult to go directly into mech (immortal range buff is eww against tanks early on), and transitioning when you also want air upgrades is quiet complicated especially against fast upgrading toss.
And if there are chokepoints, the toss can pretty easily turtle up to a a critical level against bio. I don't think Blizzard can do alot in this matchup. Buffing the early game for toss would mess up zvp, buffing the lategame of terran would ruin tvt. So players will have to find new ways to change the balance. Terran teching a bit more would change the stats, same like if toss would tech less fast.
But the i cannot win in the mid/late game of both races really do their job well. But have to say ghosts for mech and ravens for bio work beautiful for me. (my winrate on mech is pretty low though since i often don't reach the lategame) Experimenting around is so much fun. (the raven came from, i don't want to die with 2k gas banked up !)
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On February 27 2012 00:35 FeyFey wrote:
its quiet impressive that winrates at the end go closer together again. But those pvt stats soooo lol. Toss / Terran / Toss / even. But it shows perfectly how tvp works, terran stays on low tech with t2 support and toss tries to survive to get up their high tech army. So i would be suprised if it would look different. The issue is, there is no option for the toss to stay heavy on low tech (the upgrade buff helped here quiet alot though, but also helped the lategame), same goes for the terran in regards to high tech, tvt nerfed their mech play quiet heavily affecting pvt alot. Its difficult to go directly into mech (immortal range buff is eww against tanks early on), and transitioning when you also want air upgrades is quiet complicated especially against fast upgrading toss.
And if there are chokepoints, the toss can pretty easily turtle up to a a critical level against bio. I don't think Blizzard can do alot in this matchup. Buffing the early game for toss would mess up zvp, buffing the lategame of terran would ruin tvt. So players will have to find new ways to change the balance. Terran teching a bit more would change the stats, same like if toss would tech less fast.
But the i cannot win in the mid/late game of both races really do their job well. But have to say ghosts for mech and ravens for bio work beautiful for me. (my winrate on mech is pretty low though since i often don't reach the lategame) Experimenting around is so much fun. (the raven came from, i don't want to die with 2k gas banked up !)
What exactly do you mean by "tvt nerfed their mech play quiet heavily" and "buffing the lategame of terran would ruin tvt"? It's a mirror matchup and it's the only matchup that does NOT get ruined no matter how much you buff/nerf. Rock vs Rock balance doesn't change even if you buff rock to the point where it beats paper.
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On February 27 2012 00:12 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
Deathball = very strong apparently :D I think the opposite actually. Terran midgame is very strong so most terrans play for the midgame. It's often win or lose at that point, but if it's a loss for the terran, then the game drags on to late game before protoss can actually close it out. It's like in PvZ shakuras where protoss go for 2 base timing attack and when it fails, turtle up and go for late game. But zerg should usually win that late game. Important thing is that zerg can't just counterattack to immediately end the game at the point when they've gained a huge advantage.
Or, you could say, that terrans aims to end game in midgame not due to terran midgame been very strong, but because terran lategame been weak, so they try to maximize their chances by committing to midgame play. And subsequently if they wouldn't try to use it their win rate would drop below 50%. Statistic could point both ways: terran midgame been strong, or terran lategame been weak. I personally think it's a combination of both.
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On February 27 2012 00:25 Serelitz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2012 00:17 Andreas wrote:On February 27 2012 00:12 Liquid`NonY wrote:On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
Deathball = very strong apparently :D I think the opposite actually. Terran midgame is very strong so most terrans play for the midgame. It's often win or lose at that point, but if it's a loss for the terran, then the game drags on to late game before protoss can actually close it out. That seems counter-intuitive to me - it always seems to me like if Protoss loses the mid-game battle (without too much of a margin), he can fall back on upgraded chargelots being very effective in small numbers and turtle on 3 bases (depending on the map, I suppose) until 3/3 before pushing out to take a 4th. In theory, forward pylons/warp prisms should allow Protoss more than any other race to capitalize on advantages in army size. From a pure PvT standpoint - Terran can turtle up with a PF 3rd/lifting/ tons of bunkers after a failed 2base push rather easily. If P fails a 2base push, you usually lose most of your units (no stream of reinforcements due to warp-ins) and the army advantage goes to the T (when MMM is already pretty strong with low unit counts).
Sure you can... but that will almost certainly lose you the game as you enable protoss to get complete map control, multiple expansions and tech up to storm + multi robos for the ideal chargelot/colossi/HT/archon mix, along with enough gateways to instantly reinforce. There's also the risk that all the money spent on bunkers will let the protoss max out way before you and successfully attack into you, OR that he uses a round of warpin on zealots in your main to draw a substantial part of your army back, re-warpin as they die at your front and attack. Short version - it feels to me like protoss can catch up simply by surviving after a loss in the midgame (unless the lose is huge), while if terran fails a 2base midgame play there's a lot of things protoss can do to secure his lead.
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That TvZ graph will change in the coming couple of weeks..
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On February 26 2012 17:24 bustanut wrote:
could you put up % of pros that play each race and how that might affect the stats?
Indirectly ... I'm going to do another analysis where I look at the race composition & build orders of the players who make it to the Ro8 in more than a certain percentage of the tournaments they compete in. Korean Terrans did have an extremely good run, but I'm not sure it's enough to skew the results.
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TvP looks a lot like how thought about, expect I thought early game would have been about 50% but I guess it isn't. =/
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On February 27 2012 01:46 Andreas wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2012 00:25 Serelitz wrote:On February 27 2012 00:17 Andreas wrote:On February 27 2012 00:12 Liquid`NonY wrote:On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
Deathball = very strong apparently :D I think the opposite actually. Terran midgame is very strong so most terrans play for the midgame. It's often win or lose at that point, but if it's a loss for the terran, then the game drags on to late game before protoss can actually close it out. That seems counter-intuitive to me - it always seems to me like if Protoss loses the mid-game battle (without too much of a margin), he can fall back on upgraded chargelots being very effective in small numbers and turtle on 3 bases (depending on the map, I suppose) until 3/3 before pushing out to take a 4th. In theory, forward pylons/warp prisms should allow Protoss more than any other race to capitalize on advantages in army size. From a pure PvT standpoint - Terran can turtle up with a PF 3rd/lifting/ tons of bunkers after a failed 2base push rather easily. If P fails a 2base push, you usually lose most of your units (no stream of reinforcements due to warp-ins) and the army advantage goes to the T (when MMM is already pretty strong with low unit counts). Sure you can... but that will almost certainly lose you the game as you enable protoss to get complete map control, multiple expansions and tech up to storm + multi robos for the ideal chargelot/colossi/HT/archon mix, along with enough gateways to instantly reinforce. There's also the risk that all the money spent on bunkers will let the protoss max out way before you and successfully attack into you, OR that he uses a round of warpin on zealots in your main to draw a substantial part of your army back, re-warpin as they die at your front and attack. Short version - it feels to me like protoss can catch up simply by surviving after a loss in the midgame (unless the lose is huge), while if terran fails a 2base midgame play there's a lot of things protoss can do to secure his lead.
Yeah it gets you behind and you lose in the lategame, that's the point. Protoss CAN'T turtle like that so they die in the midgame instead, which skews the number a bit. A protoss that fails a 2base all-in doesn't turtle with bunkers / 3rd PF / giving away map control, he just dies to medivac drops+push through the natural.
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really interested in what major things occur where the graph lines intersect. Specifically, in ZvT the ~18 minute mark looks like a significant change occurs. I'd have to watch some replays of it but maybe that is when zerg typically gets their brood lords out. Or perhaps the shift is reflective of the cumulative effect of 5-8 minutes of mutalisk harassment?
Typically that's what the game looks like when zerg dealt decisive damage early on (either a ton of worker harass or smashed an unsieged army or something) so that terran had a nearly insurmountable disadvantage, but doesn't have to actually leave the game until broodlords or a hundred and ten banelings kick in his front door.
The first few minutes are probably proxy barracks and scv pulls. The 10-15 minute range seems fair; it only looks terran favoured because when terran gets an advantage he wins, and when zerg gets an advantage, he gets ahead. The only time a game would actually end in that timespan is when the zerg is dead. When zerg takes an advantage, he can't usually end the game right away (and puts himself at a serious risk of losing it if he tries), but he can be so far ahead that he goes to hive and terran cannot be ready. So the 15-25 minute time span consists of terran wins, zerg wins, and zerg clean-up.
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On February 27 2012 00:17 Andreas wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2012 00:12 Liquid`NonY wrote:On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
Deathball = very strong apparently :D I think the opposite actually. Terran midgame is very strong so most terrans play for the midgame. It's often win or lose at that point, but if it's a loss for the terran, then the game drags on to late game before protoss can actually close it out. That seems counter-intuitive to me - it always seems to me like if Protoss loses the mid-game battle (without too much of a margin), he can fall back on upgraded chargelots being very effective in small numbers and turtle on 3 bases (depending on the map, I suppose) until 3/3 before pushing out to take a 4th. In theory, forward pylons/warp prisms should allow Protoss more than any other race to capitalize on advantages in army size.
Playing from both sides, I can say that if Protoss is ahead midgame, you can't just go kill Terran because pulling scvs and MMM are really strong if Protoss doesn't have AOE. The game drags on with Protoss taking his 3rd early and upgrades and pushes out with a deathball to win. If Terran is ahead, a smaller Protoss ball will never kill a bigger Terran ball because of medivacs, so you can just go kill him if you have a reasonable advantage. (in the midgame at least)
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Interesting is how PvP and ZvZ are clearly different from other march-ups.
The rest is as expected or too random to draw conclusions from.
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I want to see the TvZ graph after the snipe nerf. I think we can see 1 thing in the terran matchups: lategame terran is weak.
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On February 27 2012 01:54 ZeroTalent wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2012 17:24 bustanut wrote:
could you put up % of pros that play each race and how that might affect the stats? Indirectly ... I'm going to do another analysis where I look at the race composition & build orders of the players who make it to the Ro8 in more than a certain percentage of the tournaments they compete in. Korean Terrans did have an extremely good run, but I'm not sure it's enough to skew the results.
If that's the case consider making a graph without any actual pros so we can see how the game balance looks for the average joes.
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Great charts, definitely present some interesting info.
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On February 27 2012 03:17 zezamer wrote:
How old is the data.
The Playhem data starts in September 2011 and goes through last week. Since the ghost nerf just came out, the only balance change in this timeframe was to decrease the cost of protoss upgrades.
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On February 27 2012 00:17 shizna wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2012 00:12 Liquid`NonY wrote:On February 26 2012 16:12 synapse wrote:
Deathball = very strong apparently :D I think the opposite actually. Terran midgame is very strong so most terrans play for the midgame. It's often win or lose at that point, but if it's a loss for the terran, then the game drags on to late game before protoss can actually close it out. It's like in PvZ shakuras where protoss go for 2 base timing attack and when it fails, turtle up and go for late game. But zerg should usually win that late game. Important thing is that zerg can't just counterattack to immediately end the game at the point when they've gained a huge advantage. protoss do the same in early game versus terran with their 2base semi-all-in rush before stim/medivacs. can a terran instantly close out a game after successfully defending a 2base blink rush or a warp prism rush? or a probe-cutting 6gate.... lmao not likely. what's more.... when the protoss drags it to the late game, the terran can instantly lose all advantage and actually fall miles behind in a nano second just from taking a single storm.
Yes you can.... You are miles ahead if you live through a probe cutting 6 gate, you are just trying to QQ... Also, if that happens when you eat a storm the same happens when your stuff gets EMPed. So please stop complaining.
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Thanks for these data ! I asked myself since a long time why Blizzard do not make their data official in the same way. The 50% Winrate = Balance thing is so stupid and tvp shows it that Terran needs some changes in the T3/lategame macro mechanics.
What is the definition of balance? Just 50/50 in every matchup or that every race can win the game on every minute mark, if the player is better.
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On February 27 2012 16:08 USvBleakill wrote:
Thanks for these data ! I asked myself since a long time why Blizzard do not make their data official in the same way. The 50% Winrate = Balance thing is so stupid and tvp shows it that Terran needs some changes in the T3/lategame macro mechanics.
What is the definition of balance? Just 50/50 in every matchup or that every race can win the game on every minute mark, if the player is better. You can't have 50/50 every minute. Just becauce roach ling-allin hits at x-minute and 6 gate at y-minute, it doesn't mean it's imbalanced. And sometimes you can't just go and win.
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On February 26 2012 17:43 tdt wrote:
I can see the problem Blizzard has in balancing with these graphs. Make terrran weaker at start for zerg's benefit and protoss will just roll terran early. But you can't make protoss weaker because they are already a little weaker than zerg early.
Ghost Snipe nerf and EMP nerf was a total fail by this graph. Terran is already weak late, can't tech switch like other race, make them weaker?
Looks like it.
What Blizz should have done, was to nerf the MMM combo. Probably less DPS and movement bonus from stim, and less healing per second from the medivacs. EMP and Snipe look like could have stayed the way they were before the nerfs.
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On February 26 2012 23:31 thezanursic wrote:
Is this enough evidence for terran to get a strong lategame buff and get the snipe reverted and get an early game nerf?
I would say yes.
But I dont think Blizz will ever go for it.
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So interesting! I like the ZvP one cause it seems like you could explain it with:
Early game is the mass roach / roach ling / ling bling all ins. The the next spike is toss winning with their tech timings and if it fails zerg wins abit later. Then it evens out. Then toss wins again probably with some archon toilet and then extreme late game zerg wins with a billion infestor / brood / spines
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Here is a crazy idea: Remove energy from Thors and Battlecruisers.
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On February 27 2012 20:11 Sated wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2012 20:05 PureBalls wrote:On February 26 2012 23:31 thezanursic wrote:
Is this enough evidence for terran to get a strong lategame buff and get the snipe reverted and get an early game nerf? I would say yes. But I dont think Blizz will ever go for it. And what would you suggest as a Zerg early-game buff to balance this out?
Why would Zerg need an early-game buff, if terran was to get nerfed early-game, and buffed late game? O_o
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Those are some beautiful graphs. I love the matchup winrates by game length, especially the way the ZvT and PvT graphs end up at 50%. Definitely not what I would have expected.
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the "overall" dotted lines are a bit confusing to me, for the following reasons:
in PvZ its a red line that is below the 50% mark, so I assume that means zerg has a lower than 50% overall
in ZvT its a... purple line? so the color of the line is the mix between the racial colors and PvZ its red because red and green are opposites and thus wont mix, this will henceforth be my assumption. oh, and the purple line is below the 50% line.
in TvP its a teal line (makes sense with our assumption) and unlike the previous 2 its above the 50% line, wait, so that means it must be possible to differentiate whos overall winrate we are seeing, the most obvious such method would be we see the race mentioned first aka P in PvZ, Z in ZvT and T in TvP.
but then why would the PvZ line be red? it would make a lot more sense for it to be green if it indicates... whatever, this doesn't seem to make very perfect sense anyway, so lets just ignore the color of the line and assume that the line indicates the winrate of the first mentioned race, that would mean:
P<Z
Z<T
T>P
or is this wrong?
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I'm a bit confused with the TvP graph. What kind of aggressive openings do P have, that hit around 5min? I'm not aware of any.
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Proxy 2 gates. Even 4gate hits 5:30.
But remember there are very few games with this length, so it's nor conclusive.
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On February 27 2012 20:45 PureBalls wrote:
I'm a bit confused with the TvP graph. What kind of aggressive openings do P have, that hit around 5min? I'm not aware of any.
I would have to say cannons. Can out right end the game if not put the T so far in a hole they cant get out. That or proxy gates are the only thing i can think of that is viable at the 5 min mark in PvT.
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On February 27 2012 20:38 Roblin wrote:
the "overall" dotted lines are a bit confusing to me, for the following reasons:
in PvZ its a red line that is below the 50% mark, so I assume that means zerg has a lower than 50% overall
in ZvT its a... purple line? so the color of the line is the mix between the racial colors and PvZ its red because red and green are opposites and thus wont mix, this will henceforth be my assumption. oh, and the purple line is below the 50% line.
in TvP its a teal line (makes sense with our assumption) and unlike the previous 2 its above the 50% line, wait, so that means it must be possible to differentiate whos overall winrate we are seeing, the most obvious such method would be we see the race mentioned first aka P in PvZ, Z in ZvT and T in TvP.
but then why would the PvZ line be red? it would make a lot more sense for it to be green if it indicates... whatever, this doesn't seem to make very perfect sense anyway, so lets just ignore the color of the line and assume that the line indicates the winrate of the first mentioned race, that would mean:
P<Z
Z<T
T>P
or is this wrong?
I have interpreted it in the same way, though I'm also not sure, but imo you nailed it
also I think it is the same trend for overall winrate in the "monthly international stats" (Z>P, T>Z, T>P)
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On February 27 2012 20:53 Quintum_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2012 20:45 PureBalls wrote:
I'm a bit confused with the TvP graph. What kind of aggressive openings do P have, that hit around 5min? I'm not aware of any. I would have to say cannons. Can out right end the game if not put the T so far in a hole they cant get out. That or proxy gates are the only thing i can think of that is viable at the 5 min mark in PvT.
To be honest, I didnt think of those two, because I assumed, that they are sooooo bad against terran. (all ranged units + bunkers)
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On February 27 2012 20:58 PureBalls wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2012 20:53 Quintum_ wrote:On February 27 2012 20:45 PureBalls wrote:
I'm a bit confused with the TvP graph. What kind of aggressive openings do P have, that hit around 5min? I'm not aware of any. I would have to say cannons. Can out right end the game if not put the T so far in a hole they cant get out. That or proxy gates are the only thing i can think of that is viable at the 5 min mark in PvT. To be honest, I didnt think of those two, because I assumed, that they are sooooo bad against terran. (all ranged units + bunkers)
It can also be something like failed a Terran allin... But seriously, I wouldn't interprete too much into it... Neither Terran nor Protoss are hitting so hard so long before the 5min mark, that one player would have to give up before 5mins.
It's only 1-2 percent of the games, according to the cumulative graph, so we are probably really talking about very weird (metagamewise) strategies like SCV pulls against 1base, proxy canons, gates, raxes or simply people falling to zealot+stalker pokes (maybe someone trying to FFE against Terran)... Things like these happen, but with that small of a samplesize (only 1-2% of 3997games ~ 40-80games) and that close of a balance (56-44), there is not a lot you can really interprete balance or strategywise.
For all we know there could be 1 Protoss player who participates in Playhem regularly, that has found a perfect spot to canon Terrans on Tal'darim and has 56% winrate with it  (I'm exaggerating, but I guess you know what I mean...)
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Thanks for putting this together, it will bring some actual data (hopefully) into future discussions about racial balance/match-up, an area historically rife with conjecture and hyperbole. I also appreciate that you refrained from projecting too many unsubstantiated claims as comments regarding certain match-ups. Hopefully this info gives people a good starting point for follow-up studies.
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The TvP graph... that is so painful to see
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I think the most of the balance and win-rates at various times obviously have a lot to do with the metagame. Terran's winrate vs zerg early is the bunker rush, etc. I think those will be in constant flux and would change drastically at varying skill levels.
The thing I find most interesting is that between 20-30 minutes is basically when all matchups lose their timings and begin to pull back to 50% win rates. This suggests to me, with the possible exception of PvZ, that skill is what is most important beyond 30 minutes. Those numbers show me that the better multitasker/decision maker will win beyond 30 minutes, which is good.
I'd like to see PvZ's graph extended to include 30-35-40-45 minute games so we could see the continuationof the graph. Though I understand that the number of games in those windows is likely very small.
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On February 27 2012 16:08 USvBleakill wrote:
Thanks for these data ! I asked myself since a long time why Blizzard do not make their data official in the same way. The 50% Winrate = Balance thing is so stupid and tvp shows it that Terran needs some changes in the T3/lategame macro mechanics.
What is the definition of balance? Just 50/50 in every matchup or that every race can win the game on every minute mark, if the player is better.
Well this is a metaphysical question . I think blizzard has said in the past that they would like the game to be "balanced" in all phases of the game. For instance if the overall TvP win rate were 50%, but past 25 minutes the T win rate were 30% (I believe this was in fact the case before the removal of Khydarian Amulet), that's not good enough for them. They also don't seem to get too concerned until the win rate gets out of the 45-55% zone.
Also keep in mind that, based on publicly available data from Blizzard, Korean Diamond/Masters league shows very, very different results from everywhere else.
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On February 28 2012 00:17 Felnarion wrote:
I'd like to see PvZ's graph extended to include 30-35-40-45 minute games so we could see the continuationof the graph. Though I understand that the number of games in those windows is likely very small.
Too lazy to post a graph, but here are the raw numbers
30-35 minutes: P 85 : 67 Z
35-40 minutes: P 21 : 28 Z
40-45 minutes: P 14 : 9 Z
45-50 minutes: P 5 : 7 Z
50-55 minutes: P 0 : 2 Z
Keep in mind that the sample size even at 30 minutes is small enough that it's hard to draw super-fine conclusions.
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On February 28 2012 01:58 ZeroTalent wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2012 00:17 Felnarion wrote:
I'd like to see PvZ's graph extended to include 30-35-40-45 minute games so we could see the continuationof the graph. Though I understand that the number of games in those windows is likely very small. Too lazy to post a graph, but here are the raw numbers 30-35 minutes: P 85 : 67 Z 35-40 minutes: P 21 : 28 Z 40-45 minutes: P 14 : 9 Z 45-50 minutes: P 5 : 7 Z 50-55 minutes: P 0 : 2 Z Keep in mind that the sample size even at 30 minutes is small enough that it's hard to draw super-fine conclusions.
Thanks for that. Yep, it appears as I would expect it to. I think the 30-35 minutes is the last of the brood-lord switch timings and from there it swings back and forth. As you said, the sample is small, but it swings back and forth seemingly arbitrarily after the point I'm talking about, which makes me think that all matchups are essentially balanced beyond the 30-35 minute mark, and from there, the better player seems to win more often than not.
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On February 27 2012 20:38 Roblin wrote:
but then why would the PvZ line be red? it would make a lot more sense for it to be green if it indicates... whatever, this doesn't seem to make very perfect sense anyway, so lets just ignore the color of the line and assume that the line indicates the winrate of the first mentioned race, that would mean:
P<Z
Z<T
T>P
Sorry for the confusion; you have it right. Yes, the win rate is from the perspective of the first mentioned race. The dashed line is supposed to be a blend, but the blend of green and red is ... brown, and it's hard to make a brown that doesn't look sort of reddish :|.
Terran is favored in both TvP and TvZ; Zerg is favored in ZvP. Yet Terran is by far the least-played race, at least by total games played, and Protoss ... the weakest race by pure win rates ... is played almost as much as Zerg.
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I'm quite surprised that TvTs aren't generally longer. I always think of them as slow, super-careful games of chess, especially when comparing them to the razorblade "one wrong move and you lose" PvP and ZvZ match-ups. I stereotyped TvT as boring 40 minute games lol.
I like reading data like this Always useful to have. Thanks!
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On February 28 2012 02:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:I'm quite surprised that TvTs aren't generally longer. I always think of them as slow, super-careful games of chess, especially when comparing them to the razorblade "one wrong move and you lose" PvP and ZvZ match-ups. I stereotyped TvT as boring 40 minute games lol. I like reading data like this Always useful to have. Thanks!
There are some very scary 1-base attacks. You can lose all your workers (and much of your army) to something like Reaper-Hellion or cloaked banshee if you're not prepared. Someone can go for a fast tank build and contain you. Etc. TvT has the 3rd highest quit rate in the 5-10 minute window (behind PvP and ZvZ), and I'm guessing that's why.
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TvP win-rate ratio over time is brutal...
Graph clearly confirms the problem I've been experiencing / Terran players have been talking about current late-game TvP.
I was not expecting such discrepancy before late-game, though. Looks to me that Terran are trying to kill the Toss before late-game, with probably a 2 or 3 bases all-in (since we get medivacs at 10 min+). And as natural response to this trend, the Protoss goes for the kill with a 4-gate all-in (?) before the 10 min mark.
Good graphs, thanks for putting that together and sharing.
Edit : it would be very interesting if you could merge the game lenght datas per matchup with the Win-rate per game length datas (first graph with each respective matchup graph). That way we could get a more precise idea of who wins and when.
Don't know if I made myself clear... just superpose the TvP line of the first graph with the last graph, for TvP.
Edit 2 : also, I don't know how to read the "TvP overall" line : what does it mean?
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What I don't understand is how Protoss complain about losing after doing a 2 base ALL IN
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Great post. It will be interesting to see what happens to lategame TvZ because the Snipe nerf.
The TvP graph is interesting to look at. I was surprised to see that P had an advantage during the 0-10 minute range. I was also surprised to see lategame TvP balance out after the 35 min mark. I wonder how big those sample size segments are.
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It would be nice if TvP were more balanced like ZvP.
As a Protoss player I would gladly take a late game nerf if Terran's early-mid game wasn't so strong. After all, you've gotta survive the early-mid game first if before the odds are in your favor.
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On March 04 2012 05:01 Ghostface_Killa wrote:
It would be nice if TvP were more balanced like ZvP.
As a Protoss player I would gladly take a late game nerf if Terran's early-mid game wasn't so strong. After all, you've gotta survive the early-mid game first if before the odds are in your favor.
IMO it's not the late game units protoss has, it's the ability to warp in 40 zealots immediatley after an even trade of armies. Thats the problem I always seem to have.
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On March 04 2012 05:01 Ghostface_Killa wrote:
It would be nice if TvP were more balanced like ZvP.
As a Protoss player I would gladly take a late game nerf if Terran's early-mid game wasn't so strong. After all, you've gotta survive the early-mid game first if before the odds are in your favor.
Ever held a 6gate? Ever held a 3gate robo? Ever held blinkstalker rush? Yes, nerfing terran early game is very needed. That way terran CAN'T hold those protoss allins. Even a 2 base collosus push is VERY hard to hold.
It's such a nice myth from the beta that terran's early-mid game is too strong. The only "strong" build atm is the 1-1-1, but I saw tosses roll it so easily that I wonder if it's still that good.
If you 1 rax FE and toss 1 gate FE, then I don't see how terran can be stronger then protoss @ midgame. What can he do?
- 4-5 rax marine push?
- Ghost MM push?
- Try some lucky drops?
>> I don't see how this is "so strong".
On the other hand, if we look at lategame TvP, then we can see that the protoss deathball is VERY strong.
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On March 04 2012 05:20 Snowbear wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2012 05:01 Ghostface_Killa wrote:
It would be nice if TvP were more balanced like ZvP.
As a Protoss player I would gladly take a late game nerf if Terran's early-mid game wasn't so strong. After all, you've gotta survive the early-mid game first if before the odds are in your favor. Ever held a 6gate? Ever held a 3gate robo? Ever held blinkstalker rush? Yes, nerfing terran early game is very needed. That way terran CAN'T hold those protoss allins. Even a 2 base collosus push is VERY hard to hold. It's such a nice myth from the beta that terran's early-mid game is too strong. The only "strong" build atm is the 1-1-1, but I saw tosses roll it so easily that I wonder if it's still that good. If you 1 rax FE and toss 1 gate FE, then I don't see how terran can be stronger then protoss @ midgame. What can he do? - 4-5 rax marine push? - Ghost MM push? - Try some lucky drops? >> I don't see how this is "so strong". On the other hand, if we look at lategame TvP, then we can see that the protoss deathball is VERY strong.
I don't think anyone's arguing terran is "too strong" pre-stim and pre-medivac. It's timings where medivacs and stim are out, but not storm/colossi where terran is very strong. Personally I think that the shortness of terran's tech tree is at fault. The 1-1-1 literally unlocks 85% of terran units by about the 8 minute mark. As a result they can't be as powerful as their protoss counterparts, resulting in being very strong when terran has their tech lead, but weak once the other races have caught up. IMO the fusion core should become more like a science facility, being needed for ravens (with an associated buff), battlecruisers, and potential HotS units.
On an unrelated note, it's also kind of interesting that the game length looks like a maxwell-boltzmann distribution.
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On March 05 2012 16:48 dainbramage wrote:
\On an unrelated note, it's also kind of interesting that the game length looks like a maxwell-boltzmann distribution.
It also looks sort of like a Gamma distribution (EDIT: haha, it turns out the Maxwell-boltzmann distribution is a special form of the Gamma distribution). This is perhaps unsurprising, as lots of things humans do end up in Gamma distributions. But we don't have enough data points or observations to make really robust conclusions about the distribution function. Even if I bucketed in 1-minute increments, we have only 4500 or so ZvZ games, so it's hard to draw much of a conclusion.
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So Protoss is stronger at the early and late game while Terran is only good at the mid game?And people still wonder why terran representation lessens every passing season.
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Racial win rate by game length charts almost make the game look balanced.
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What is really interesting is that in each matchup a different race has an advance in the early game. That makes it hard for blizzard to just fix something.
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The paradox is that North America Playhem players are not good enough to show the truth about balance, but the GSL sample size is too small...
Only thing which is canonic about all balance graphs is the early winrate in TvP and ZvP where T and Z both have some nice all-ins.
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Very nice , but just cause a game ended at "x" time doesn't mean it was lost there
In the end overall win rate with subjective strategic analysis must remain the first criteria
For instance, the same medivac timing contributing to a win rate bump in one period may be responsible for losses in the next five minute period
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United Kingdom1381 Posts
Wow, that graph really illustrates how volatile PvP is.
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Is it difficult to secure a collection of pro korean replays to analyze? I, preconceivably, think that pure NA data would differ significantly from EU and Kor data.
Would be nice, but I understand how difficulty in securing thsoe replays.
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EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now.
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I don't think you can tell anything from these stats due to not knowing the relative player skill of each game. I wouldn't draw anything from this. Have equally skilled players play 500 games, and then take those statistics to use to make an educated judgment.
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I see a lot of people misinterpreting these graphs or zeroing on one particular, less important detail with tunnel vision towards everything else. I think there's a few more graphs that would be helpful in combining the winrates in each window with the number of games in each window to show how significant each deviation is. Is there a place I can see the raw numbers in each point rather than picking them out myself?
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I think it's easy to overlook what is going on BEFORE each change in win timings.
Look at TvP.
Assume all matches where protoss wins before 10 minutes are 4 gates. Then you could assume there SHOULD be a an immediate drop off where T is ahead, not due to 'balance' or 'racial mechanics' but because that's when protoss lose the game when they fail to win with a 4 gate.
Then you can assume all non 4 gate PvT the terran is doing a 111 1 or 2 base variant all in. After that you would expect a spike in protoss wins. Terran also do a lot of drop play at this point which either wins them the game or they lose a bunch of units. You can reasonably expect protoss win rates to spike after this as everyone who cocked up a 111 or lost all their medivacs with failed drops to just lose.
Then you see the protoss death ball being stronger than the terran bio-ball at end game.
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On March 12 2012 01:32 Sovern wrote:
EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now.
You do realize with all these toss nerfs, they'd have to buff the zealot damage by like 100% to make up for it? I don't think you understand how balance works.
If the stats are ~50/50, the matchup is balanced. You cannot just remove the warp tech upgrade. That's like me saying "hey so i don't like orbital commands/pfs. Remove them, let terran use command centers only". No more scans, no more mules, no more supply drops.
And your "charge shouldn't be auto cast" argument is so dumb. Should you hotkey every zealot to 1 hotkey each? I'm afraid this game doesn't have 50 hotkeys yet, so this would not be possible. You need a target in order you use charge. You don't press charge and watch your zealots charge stuff.
I don't think you realize just how f***ing biased you are ^^ But go ahead. Make your "pro-mod" where Terrans can't lose. I'm sure it'll be a very popular mod!
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On March 12 2012 01:32 Sovern wrote:
EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now.
I agree alot with what you say. Generealyl I feel like well designed units = Units that requires micro to be efficient, and still allows the opponent to "re-micro against it". Lack of micro should be a bit forgiveable as well as you shouldn't instalose the game if you make 1 micro mistake.
Making emp more forgiveable and collosus and chargelots harder to micro would seem like a good choice.
When that is said I feel like collosus/ht play is kinda supoed to beat bio (at least in late game), and then mech is supposed to be able to beat that toss army.
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On April 03 2012 10:13 xHPx_sc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 01:32 Sovern wrote:
EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now. You do realize with all these toss nerfs, they'd have to buff the zealot damage by like 100% to make up for it? I don't think you understand how balance works. If the stats are ~50/50, the matchup is balanced. You cannot just remove the warp tech upgrade. That's like me saying "hey so i don't like orbital commands/pfs. Remove them, let terran use command centers only". No more scans, no more mules, no more supply drops. And your "charge shouldn't be auto cast" argument is so dumb. Should you hotkey every zealot to 1 hotkey each? I'm afraid this game doesn't have 50 hotkeys yet, so this would not be possible. You need a target in order you use charge. You don't press charge and watch your zealots charge stuff. I don't think you realize just how f***ing biased you are ^^ But go ahead. Make your "pro-mod" where Terrans can't lose. I'm sure it'll be a very popular mod!
Colossus don't come from gateways
Tanks do splash damage. Hellions do splash damage. Raven HSM does splash. If splash damage was the most important factor then these units would be used more in the MU.
I'd counter 'manual charge' with 'manual healing from medivac'. Brilliant!
I'm willing to bet Sjow lost the units in the drops while taking 2 more bases. Of course the 2 base protoss, who has used all his resources to that point on his army, took his bigger army and killed the production facilities. That's called 'making the right decision'.
Colossus require charge up? Are you fucking insane? There are so many problems with this.
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On April 03 2012 10:13 xHPx_sc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 01:32 Sovern wrote:
EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now. You do realize with all these toss nerfs, they'd have to buff the zealot damage by like 100% to make up for it? I don't think you understand how balance works. If the stats are ~50/50, the matchup is balanced. You cannot just remove the warp tech upgrade. That's like me saying "hey so i don't like orbital commands/pfs. Remove them, let terran use command centers only". No more scans, no more mules, no more supply drops. And your "charge shouldn't be auto cast" argument is so dumb. Should you hotkey every zealot to 1 hotkey each? I'm afraid this game doesn't have 50 hotkeys yet, so this would not be possible. You need a target in order you use charge. You don't press charge and watch your zealots charge stuff. I don't think you realize just how f***ing biased you are ^^ But go ahead. Make your "pro-mod" where Terrans can't lose. I'm sure it'll be a very popular mod!
I think the reason why non-Protoss hate the warp tech upgrade is because at the most fundamental level it negates defender's advantage. It doesn't matter whether warp tech is "overpowered" or "underpowered"; it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP).
I agree with you that at this stage of the game it's impossible to remove warp tech from the game. But that doesn't mean it's untouchable. Here's some ideas that I think would be interesting to try in HotS:
1. Move Warpgate Technology from Cybernetics Core to Twilight Council
2. Move Charge from Twilight Council to Cybernetics Core
3. Increase the cost of Warpgate Technology from 50/50 to 200/200
4. Decrease the cost of Charge from 200/200 to 50/50
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5. Increase the Transform Gateway into Warpgate timer from 10 sec to 20 sec
6. Decrease the Transform Warpgate into Gateway timer from 10 sec to 0 sec
7. Increase the warpgate cooldown of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec
8. Decrease the gateway build time of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec
9. Disable the Transform Warpgate into Gateway ability while the Warpgate is on warpin cooldown
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haha, the zvt graph is an incredibly accurate view of my own zvt games ;p if the game is shorter than 15 mins, you bet your ass i lost
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On April 03 2012 11:38 RoboBob wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2012 10:13 xHPx_sc2 wrote:On March 12 2012 01:32 Sovern wrote:
EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now. You do realize with all these toss nerfs, they'd have to buff the zealot damage by like 100% to make up for it? I don't think you understand how balance works. If the stats are ~50/50, the matchup is balanced. You cannot just remove the warp tech upgrade. That's like me saying "hey so i don't like orbital commands/pfs. Remove them, let terran use command centers only". No more scans, no more mules, no more supply drops. And your "charge shouldn't be auto cast" argument is so dumb. Should you hotkey every zealot to 1 hotkey each? I'm afraid this game doesn't have 50 hotkeys yet, so this would not be possible. You need a target in order you use charge. You don't press charge and watch your zealots charge stuff. I don't think you realize just how f***ing biased you are ^^ But go ahead. Make your "pro-mod" where Terrans can't lose. I'm sure it'll be a very popular mod! I think the reason why non-Protoss hate the warp tech upgrade is because at the most fundamental level it negates defender's advantage. It doesn't matter whether warp tech is "overpowered" or "underpowered"; it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP). I agree with you that at this stage of the game it's impossible to remove warp tech from the game. But that doesn't mean it's untouchable. Here's some ideas that I think would be interesting to try in HotS: 1. Move Warpgate Technology from Cybernetics Core to Twilight Council 2. Move Charge from Twilight Council to Cybernetics Core 3. Increase the cost of Warpgate Technology from 50/50 to 200/200 4. Decrease the cost of Charge from 200/200 to 50/50 ===== 5. Increase the Transform Gateway into Warpgate timer from 10 sec to 20 sec 6. Decrease the Transform Warpgate into Gateway timer from 10 sec to 0 sec 7. Increase the warpgate cooldown of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 8. Decrease the gateway build time of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 9. Disable the Transform Warpgate into Gateway ability while the Warpgate is on warpin cooldown
Taken all together I think these are ok. I'd also argue for KA to come back but only apply to HT that are produced from a gateway, not a warp gate.
5 Might be too much. 15 sec would probably be enough. I like the idea of switching over gateway to warpgate as an emergency measure.
Proxy 2 gate would be REALLY hard to zerg to deal with.
I think FFE would disappear over night and instead 2 gate charge would be the primary opener. Chargelots sentry is REALLY strong in the early game.
Good players will have some gates on WP for emergencies and some gateways for faster massing army which would be a really interesting balancing act.
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On April 03 2012 11:38 RoboBob wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2012 10:13 xHPx_sc2 wrote:On March 12 2012 01:32 Sovern wrote:
EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now. You do realize with all these toss nerfs, they'd have to buff the zealot damage by like 100% to make up for it? I don't think you understand how balance works. If the stats are ~50/50, the matchup is balanced. You cannot just remove the warp tech upgrade. That's like me saying "hey so i don't like orbital commands/pfs. Remove them, let terran use command centers only". No more scans, no more mules, no more supply drops. And your "charge shouldn't be auto cast" argument is so dumb. Should you hotkey every zealot to 1 hotkey each? I'm afraid this game doesn't have 50 hotkeys yet, so this would not be possible. You need a target in order you use charge. You don't press charge and watch your zealots charge stuff. I don't think you realize just how f***ing biased you are ^^ But go ahead. Make your "pro-mod" where Terrans can't lose. I'm sure it'll be a very popular mod! I think the reason why non-Protoss hate the warp tech upgrade is because at the most fundamental level it negates defender's advantage. It doesn't matter whether warp tech is "overpowered" or "underpowered"; it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP). I agree with you that at this stage of the game it's impossible to remove warp tech from the game. But that doesn't mean it's untouchable. Here's some ideas that I think would be interesting to try in HotS: 1. Move Warpgate Technology from Cybernetics Core to Twilight Council 2. Move Charge from Twilight Council to Cybernetics Core 3. Increase the cost of Warpgate Technology from 50/50 to 200/200 4. Decrease the cost of Charge from 200/200 to 50/50 ===== 5. Increase the Transform Gateway into Warpgate timer from 10 sec to 20 sec 6. Decrease the Transform Warpgate into Gateway timer from 10 sec to 0 sec 7. Increase the warpgate cooldown of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 8. Decrease the gateway build time of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 9. Disable the Transform Warpgate into Gateway ability while the Warpgate is on warpin cooldown
They would have to change faar more than that. Seeing as the new nexus-energy-cannon doesn't touch armored units, it would be 100% impossible to hold any kind of roach rush/proxy marauder rush. They would have to make dropping a research as you wouldn't be able to have warp-tech in the midgame, and you'd have to also pick between warp tech and blink, making dropping even better. And then ontop of that, robo would become shit, twilight would be the only option. And Protoss would have absolutely no offensive potential until they've got warp tech researched. Maybe these changes could do if they removed OC/PF and Queens.
it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP).
I did not get that part. You're bascally a terran calling Protoss matchups boring? I think PvT/PvZ/PvP is a lot more fun than any of the Terran matchups. That's why I play Protoss. I don't find the warp-tech mechanic boring, I find it fun because you can get really slim timing attacks, especially in PvP/PvZ. You find the warp-tech mechanics boring, so you play Terran. Not sure what the problem is here. You don't like playing against it, is that what you meant? Yea, I don't like playing against drops either. Or broodlords. They're still important to the game and they're not going anywhere, just like the warp-tech mechanic.
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On April 03 2012 13:59 xHPx_sc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2012 11:38 RoboBob wrote:On April 03 2012 10:13 xHPx_sc2 wrote:On March 12 2012 01:32 Sovern wrote:
EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now. You do realize with all these toss nerfs, they'd have to buff the zealot damage by like 100% to make up for it? I don't think you understand how balance works. If the stats are ~50/50, the matchup is balanced. You cannot just remove the warp tech upgrade. That's like me saying "hey so i don't like orbital commands/pfs. Remove them, let terran use command centers only". No more scans, no more mules, no more supply drops. And your "charge shouldn't be auto cast" argument is so dumb. Should you hotkey every zealot to 1 hotkey each? I'm afraid this game doesn't have 50 hotkeys yet, so this would not be possible. You need a target in order you use charge. You don't press charge and watch your zealots charge stuff. I don't think you realize just how f***ing biased you are ^^ But go ahead. Make your "pro-mod" where Terrans can't lose. I'm sure it'll be a very popular mod! I think the reason why non-Protoss hate the warp tech upgrade is because at the most fundamental level it negates defender's advantage. It doesn't matter whether warp tech is "overpowered" or "underpowered"; it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP). I agree with you that at this stage of the game it's impossible to remove warp tech from the game. But that doesn't mean it's untouchable. Here's some ideas that I think would be interesting to try in HotS: 1. Move Warpgate Technology from Cybernetics Core to Twilight Council 2. Move Charge from Twilight Council to Cybernetics Core 3. Increase the cost of Warpgate Technology from 50/50 to 200/200 4. Decrease the cost of Charge from 200/200 to 50/50 ===== 5. Increase the Transform Gateway into Warpgate timer from 10 sec to 20 sec 6. Decrease the Transform Warpgate into Gateway timer from 10 sec to 0 sec 7. Increase the warpgate cooldown of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 8. Decrease the gateway build time of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 9. Disable the Transform Warpgate into Gateway ability while the Warpgate is on warpin cooldown They would have to change faar more than that. Seeing as the new nexus-energy-cannon doesn't touch armored units, it would be 100% impossible to hold any kind of roach rush/proxy marauder rush. They would have to make dropping a research as you wouldn't be able to have warp-tech in the midgame, and you'd have to also pick between warp tech and blink, making dropping even better. And then ontop of that, robo would become shit, twilight would be the only option. And Protoss would have absolutely no offensive potential until they've got warp tech researched. Maybe these changes could do if they removed OC/PF and Queens. Show nested quote + it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP). I did not get that part. You're bascally a terran calling Protoss matchups boring? I think PvT/PvZ/PvP is a lot more fun than any of the Terran matchups. That's why I play Protoss. I don't find the warp-tech mechanic boring, I find it fun because you can get really slim timing attacks, especially in PvP/PvZ. You find the warp-tech mechanics boring, so you play Terran. Not sure what the problem is here. You don't like playing against it, is that what you meant? Yea, I don't like playing against drops either. Or broodlords. They're still important to the game and they're not going anywhere, just like the warp-tech mechanic.
sentry chargelot would hold that fine...
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i want to know the longest games played lets see em
edit2: apparently i dont know wtf im talking about
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On April 03 2012 14:44 SlapMySalami wrote:
i want to know the longest games played lets see em
edit: @xHPx_sc2 i thought blizzard was removing warp gates in hots
ill google for a source now im not sure where i heard it and im also not sure if it's true or if they're going back on their word or something like that
They never said this.
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On April 03 2012 14:22 Kharnage wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2012 13:59 xHPx_sc2 wrote:On April 03 2012 11:38 RoboBob wrote:On April 03 2012 10:13 xHPx_sc2 wrote:On March 12 2012 01:32 Sovern wrote:
EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now. You do realize with all these toss nerfs, they'd have to buff the zealot damage by like 100% to make up for it? I don't think you understand how balance works. If the stats are ~50/50, the matchup is balanced. You cannot just remove the warp tech upgrade. That's like me saying "hey so i don't like orbital commands/pfs. Remove them, let terran use command centers only". No more scans, no more mules, no more supply drops. And your "charge shouldn't be auto cast" argument is so dumb. Should you hotkey every zealot to 1 hotkey each? I'm afraid this game doesn't have 50 hotkeys yet, so this would not be possible. You need a target in order you use charge. You don't press charge and watch your zealots charge stuff. I don't think you realize just how f***ing biased you are ^^ But go ahead. Make your "pro-mod" where Terrans can't lose. I'm sure it'll be a very popular mod! I think the reason why non-Protoss hate the warp tech upgrade is because at the most fundamental level it negates defender's advantage. It doesn't matter whether warp tech is "overpowered" or "underpowered"; it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP). I agree with you that at this stage of the game it's impossible to remove warp tech from the game. But that doesn't mean it's untouchable. Here's some ideas that I think would be interesting to try in HotS: 1. Move Warpgate Technology from Cybernetics Core to Twilight Council 2. Move Charge from Twilight Council to Cybernetics Core 3. Increase the cost of Warpgate Technology from 50/50 to 200/200 4. Decrease the cost of Charge from 200/200 to 50/50 ===== 5. Increase the Transform Gateway into Warpgate timer from 10 sec to 20 sec 6. Decrease the Transform Warpgate into Gateway timer from 10 sec to 0 sec 7. Increase the warpgate cooldown of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 8. Decrease the gateway build time of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 9. Disable the Transform Warpgate into Gateway ability while the Warpgate is on warpin cooldown They would have to change faar more than that. Seeing as the new nexus-energy-cannon doesn't touch armored units, it would be 100% impossible to hold any kind of roach rush/proxy marauder rush. They would have to make dropping a research as you wouldn't be able to have warp-tech in the midgame, and you'd have to also pick between warp tech and blink, making dropping even better. And then ontop of that, robo would become shit, twilight would be the only option. And Protoss would have absolutely no offensive potential until they've got warp tech researched. Maybe these changes could do if they removed OC/PF and Queens. it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP). I did not get that part. You're bascally a terran calling Protoss matchups boring? I think PvT/PvZ/PvP is a lot more fun than any of the Terran matchups. That's why I play Protoss. I don't find the warp-tech mechanic boring, I find it fun because you can get really slim timing attacks, especially in PvP/PvZ. You find the warp-tech mechanics boring, so you play Terran. Not sure what the problem is here. You don't like playing against it, is that what you meant? Yea, I don't like playing against drops either. Or broodlords. They're still important to the game and they're not going anywhere, just like the warp-tech mechanic. sentry chargelot would hold that fine...
No, would definetly not. You're going to have almost no units at all. 1gate exp will disappear while the terran can still ffe and feel even safer than before. Your first 3 units comes 40seconds too late, charge does not make up for that by any means. Charge doesn't make a difference if you don't suck shit with your force fields anyways. There is literally nothing you would hold with this.
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On April 03 2012 17:34 xHPx_sc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2012 14:22 Kharnage wrote:On April 03 2012 13:59 xHPx_sc2 wrote:On April 03 2012 11:38 RoboBob wrote:On April 03 2012 10:13 xHPx_sc2 wrote:On March 12 2012 01:32 Sovern wrote:
EMP should do AOE over time simliar to storm and emp shouldnt drain energy. Just imo. As of right now I'd have to say Templars > Ghosts as templars can even transform into a T3 unit that hard counters the fuck out of any bio unit and getting a ball of bio units stormed is not even remotely close to a toss getting a ball of their units emped, storm stacks, emp only drains shields which are really only auxiliary to the toss's armor/health until they start to upgrade their shields.
TvP would be fixed if warp tech was removed and archon required templar tech but they would only be produced out of gateways. Right now Toss has too many advantages over terran once that toss has their tech going (warp gates, templar storms into Archons, Chargelots, and Collosus).
IMO charge also shouldnt be auto cast and should require a click just like stim does, collosus should also have to charge up before using their dual lancer attack simliar to carriers this way toss has to be more careful about engaging and it would all make the toss require more micro which would even the field up when it comes to TvP and possibly even PvZ.
I just watched a TvP of Sjow on his stream and he dropped the hell out of the toss and did a ton of economic damage yet he still lost to a 1a toss that just massed up chargelots/archons and a few collosus on 2 bases while sjow was on 4. It just goes to show that TvP and SC2 as a whole is in fact imbalanced and im even considering making a pro mod for SC2 and calling it SC2.5 or something of the sorts that will make all of the races require micro/macro instead of this 1a unbalanced bullshit that blizzards seems to deem balanced and fair.
So in terms of splash damage TvP
Terran Bio units that do splash:
Ghosts (only on shields)
Toss Gateway units that do splash
Archons
HT's
Collosus
Dont you guys see a problem here? Hell, maybe Blizzard could even think about giving terran a unit that does splash damage that starts out with a decent amout of armor. Something simliar to the firebat and make ghosts EMP actually do AOE damage over a period of time simliar to storm and I'd be happy for now. You do realize with all these toss nerfs, they'd have to buff the zealot damage by like 100% to make up for it? I don't think you understand how balance works. If the stats are ~50/50, the matchup is balanced. You cannot just remove the warp tech upgrade. That's like me saying "hey so i don't like orbital commands/pfs. Remove them, let terran use command centers only". No more scans, no more mules, no more supply drops. And your "charge shouldn't be auto cast" argument is so dumb. Should you hotkey every zealot to 1 hotkey each? I'm afraid this game doesn't have 50 hotkeys yet, so this would not be possible. You need a target in order you use charge. You don't press charge and watch your zealots charge stuff. I don't think you realize just how f***ing biased you are ^^ But go ahead. Make your "pro-mod" where Terrans can't lose. I'm sure it'll be a very popular mod! I think the reason why non-Protoss hate the warp tech upgrade is because at the most fundamental level it negates defender's advantage. It doesn't matter whether warp tech is "overpowered" or "underpowered"; it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP). I agree with you that at this stage of the game it's impossible to remove warp tech from the game. But that doesn't mean it's untouchable. Here's some ideas that I think would be interesting to try in HotS: 1. Move Warpgate Technology from Cybernetics Core to Twilight Council 2. Move Charge from Twilight Council to Cybernetics Core 3. Increase the cost of Warpgate Technology from 50/50 to 200/200 4. Decrease the cost of Charge from 200/200 to 50/50 ===== 5. Increase the Transform Gateway into Warpgate timer from 10 sec to 20 sec 6. Decrease the Transform Warpgate into Gateway timer from 10 sec to 0 sec 7. Increase the warpgate cooldown of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 8. Decrease the gateway build time of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, HTs, and DTs by 8 sec 9. Disable the Transform Warpgate into Gateway ability while the Warpgate is on warpin cooldown They would have to change faar more than that. Seeing as the new nexus-energy-cannon doesn't touch armored units, it would be 100% impossible to hold any kind of roach rush/proxy marauder rush. They would have to make dropping a research as you wouldn't be able to have warp-tech in the midgame, and you'd have to also pick between warp tech and blink, making dropping even better. And then ontop of that, robo would become shit, twilight would be the only option. And Protoss would have absolutely no offensive potential until they've got warp tech researched. Maybe these changes could do if they removed OC/PF and Queens. it's more fun to play a game of tug-of-war (TvT, TvZ, ZvZ) than it is to play a game of chicken (PvT, PvZ, PvP). I did not get that part. You're bascally a terran calling Protoss matchups boring? I think PvT/PvZ/PvP is a lot more fun than any of the Terran matchups. That's why I play Protoss. I don't find the warp-tech mechanic boring, I find it fun because you can get really slim timing attacks, especially in PvP/PvZ. You find the warp-tech mechanics boring, so you play Terran. Not sure what the problem is here. You don't like playing against it, is that what you meant? Yea, I don't like playing against drops either. Or broodlords. They're still important to the game and they're not going anywhere, just like the warp-tech mechanic. sentry chargelot would hold that fine... No, would definetly not. You're going to have almost no units at all. 1gate exp will disappear while the terran can still ffe and feel even safer than before. Your first 3 units comes 40seconds too late, charge does not make up for that by any means. Charge doesn't make a difference if you don't suck shit with your force fields anyways. There is literally nothing you would hold with this.
But your first 3 units are coming out 18 seconds faster as it is. With the reduction in unit build time from a gateway what you 'know' about the size of a protoss army at that time is just wrong. Getting 2 fast gateways would provide you with a hell of a lot more firepower now, allowing you to skip charge if you're going sentry heavy, as you pointed out, it's not required if you have decent FF, OR you can go zealot stalker with charge and monster it up. Early MM pushes would be in terrible shape vs a fast chargelot stalker force. As for punishing a gasless expand you can still do that with a +1 ar immortal bust.
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The solution is quite simple keep everything the exact same, and make chargelots have increased shields while having decrease hulls. This creates a situation whereby emp, does more damage like storm does to terran and therefore protoss has to worry about losing their zealots rather than just using them as a wall of damage that rapes everything. This way, if they see a ghost they have to split their zealots, and they cant just 1 a zealot archon for the win, they'd have to include sentries for forcefields and get good storms off as well.
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EPT
