|
On March 02 2012 22:25 DarQraven wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2012 22:21 m0ck wrote:On March 02 2012 22:04 DarQraven wrote:On March 02 2012 21:54 Mentalizor wrote:On March 02 2012 21:33 StarscreamG1 wrote:Blizzard, if you're reading this..  TvP fixes to early/late game: Banshee from light to armored; Buff Viking ground attack. Lol, you're kidding right? Making banshees armored would actually make stalkers better against them... Making vikings better on ground? Are you kidding? It's not their real purpose, so it's obvious they should not have good ground attacks. TvP doesn't seem super imbalanced to me. What league and server are you? General concensus seems to be that PvT is not necessarily imbalanced percentage-wise, but timing wise. Short games are almost always won by the T, while, the longer the game goes, the more the P start winning. This shows a dynamic where Terran are very, very threatening to Protoss during the early and midgame, but it becomes hard to beat Protoss once they get their macro going. There can be all sort of explanations for this, though. Terrans love to jump on the "Protoss a-move OP, deathball untouchable" bandwagon, but as many players have demonstrated already, it is perfectly possible to beat P lategame. Harder, yes, but the same can be said about PvT early game and it is not impossible (see: Genius proxy Stargate vs Alive). This mostly seems to be players projecting their own ladder experiences onto these graphs. Meanwhile, statistics like game length do not take into account how the game actually got to that point - if the only reason PvT's ever get long is because a T failed their early/mid aggression and are behind economically, it should come as no surprise that they are losing out in the late game, for instance. Possible explanations like these would never surface from stats alone, so I really think this is up to Blizzard to analyze and fix. It really is a damn shame we have so few good Random players around, since I'd say those are the only ones who could really see the matchups honestly from both sides. From the Protoss perspective, Terran is just frustratingly strong early on. Your units are going to be running after them, not really hitting anything. You'll get dropped in multiple locations and even if you split your army up perfectly, you're still going to take more losses than the T because of the "T>P in low numbers" dynamic. This viewpoint completely discounts how the Terran is managing two drops/fights as well, though. Meanwhile, from the Terran perspective, deathballs can seem untouchable - as long as you're on the receiving end. From the P side of things, even with a 200/200 3/2 upgraded deathball, I still shit my pants right before I engage a Terran because even slight mistakes like getting EMP'd can completely destroy you. As for my own opinion: Tone down Terran early game threat/flexibility a bit (so that Protoss actually has reliable non-cheese ways of threatening a Terran early on, then take a look at if T can still beat P and make changes to P lategame accordingly. I don't suggest this approach because I want Terrans to stop allinning me or anything, but it just doesn't make sense to address lategame issues without a solid early game - the latter shapes the former, so you can't see them as separate issues. It seems like very bad game design to me to have one race play dominant 'attacker' for most of the game, while the other race only gets to play their strong suit once the other player has failed/been thwarted. That would create a very volatile and unforgiving matchup. You're forgetting the early gateway or gateway+robo busts that are very effective. It's not true that early/mid terran >>> protoss. Are you suggesting we 4gate Terran? With Gate+Robo bust I assume you're referring to something along these lines and that only really does damage if the Terran doesn't know it's coming. Retreat lowground buildings to highground => Safe, cannot be busted anymore, still higher income than P due to double Mules.
Some statistics: Win Rate & Game Length: NA Playhem Edition
Which show that protoss has an nice advantage in early- and late game scenarios. Where as terrans are ending games with mid game timing pushes before protoss manages to get his tech up.
|
Was the big jump for Protoss at the end a result of the patch? Because that is rather odd.
|
Some stats about the match-up specific graphs for Korea:
ZvT or TvZ
106 games
57 different players
-  Noblesse 8.5% (9 games)
-  Curious 8.5% (9 games)
ZvP or PvZ
117 games
69 players
-  Extreme 9.4% (11 games)
PvT or TvP
140 games
79 players
- Tear 8.6% (12 games)
|
Stop the patching. The game is balanced. We can now fire David Kim.
|
|
|
On March 02 2012 21:54 Mentalizor wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2012 21:33 StarscreamG1 wrote:Blizzard, if you're reading this.. TvP fixes to early/late game: Banshee from light to armored; Buff Viking ground attack. Lol, you're kidding right? Making banshees armored would actually make stalkers better against them... Making vikings better on ground? Are you kidding? It's not their real purpose, so it's obvious they should not have good ground attacks. TvP doesn't seem super imbalanced to me. What league and server are you?
I'm a diamond toss at EU. Thank god you were the only one who were so extremist.
|
Oh Korean ZvP, you so crazy.
|
I think blizz has it right right now and should not patch for a while and just let the even-ness play out :D
|
4713 Posts
While DarQraven made a good point, he indeed omit some of the very popular 1 or 2 base timings, pressures and busts that Toss still use to great effect now a days, which makes it look like both terran and toss have their strengths and weaknesses in both early and mid game but toss has a big advantage late game, and it's showing on the graphs.
Here is my take on the Protoss problem.
Protoss requires way, way too much infrastructure and specialized units to deal damage. It starts at the very smallest level, at GW. While terrans and zergs often get into small skirmish fights in the middle of the map, in either early or mid game, you don't see that from Protoss, that is because zealot and stalker without sentry just sucks flat out.
Simply put they are simply not cost effective in small numbers without support or upgrades. The only time the protoss moves across the map is for a timing push. Nothing wrong with timing pushes, except terrans and zergs have timings on top of their skirmish potential.
As the game goes on even GW armies with sentries become less powerful because of production power from the zerg's larva mechanics, or cost effectiveness of terran bio with medivacs overtakes even the effectiveness of FF. So at this point Protoss has two choices, do another, stronger timing attack just before the tech and production kicks in or turtle and try to get another tech advantage in the form of storm or colossus, they need the splash to stay competitive.
Rarely can the protoss apply some pressure the same way terrans and zergs can. It needs to do damage and its much riskier. Both terran and zerg can move across the map, gain awareness, vision and reaction time without an overwhelming risk of losing the army, or the consequences of that. Bio is very mobile with stim and medivacs, zergs are very mobile due to creep. If caught in an awkward position you can just retreat fast. As a protoss, once you are committed, by your own choice of unfavorable circumstances, you remain committed, and if you lose your GW army you need to build it back up to support your higher tech units.
So the safer alternative, turtling, is often times more appealing.
Both HT+ GW armies and Robo + GW armies are powerful in their own right, but it costs a lot to assemble, so you see a lot of turtling at this stage of the game. However to a certain extent even those combinations have weaknesses, so now Protoss moves on to the ultimate composition, combining GW armies with formidable Robo tech and HT. This is even more powerful but costs even more to get up and running and to sustain, but it is damn hard to stop. I'm not saying impossible, but its so hard that it borders on the ridiculous sometimes. Situation arise where if the execution isn't near perfect you risk losing the entire game after just 1 battle, and it then leads into more turtle and standoff situations.
So, in there lies a lot of problem with the Protoss. Protoss has a hard time putting pressure early to mid game because of how specialized and inter depended their armies are, it feels like they need to commit to it, this also lead to a poor spectator experience. You won't see small zealot and stalker vs marine and marauder, or ling roach wars, because GW just sucks without sentries. But we love when we see stutter step marines vs lings, speed lings vs helions, marine splits etc. Hell, when was the last time you saw a protoss do a two pronged attack?
Mid game you rarely see Toss drop very often or use SG play, because by that time it is counter-able and less effective, workers can just run away from zealots without speed, and even if you force some lost mining time, the other races do damage + force lost mining time. On the other side SG fulfills very niche roles in the early-mid game and becomes near useless after that point because of the ease of countering it or just making the investment got to waste.
On the flip side a small group of bio can do a large amount of economic and infrastructural damage, even BFH drops can still be fearsome, a overlord drop can contain either banes or lings, both of which can do more damage then a zealot drop.
Zerg then has the option to harass with mutas, one of their best map and zone controls, while also getting more bases and teching up and building more army, infestors can be a very creative and effective way to harass. Terran also has options with banshee play and nuke drops/harass.
And again, I want to emphasize that, a lot of times when attacking/harassing, zerg and terrans have a small advantage, because they can split up their army in 2-3 areas to tax the maximum amount of multi-tasking out of a player, and force mistakes. That rarely happens against a protoss until you reach the late game. And this is because terran and zerg armies are much more effective in small groups in the early, mid and late games, while toss units only become effective in small groups in the late game.
And, the worst thing that could happen, did happen. The tournaments started making maps balanced around more turtle friendly features to help out the protoss, which in turn has lead to a lot more turtle into 3 base into ultimate composition games, far more boring then other action packed maps. Instead of Protoss units being fixed so they have a higher skill cap and can work in smaller groups for the early and mid game, the reverse happened.
Now, I am not by any means saying that the entire game is broken, or that protoss are beyond hope. The race, can work well in the right circumstances, its just that the right circumstances is completely boring to watch for the spectators and incredibly frustrating and taxing for the players on both sides. When we say we hate to see/ play TvP or ZvP, we aren't complaining about balance, we are complaining about the way protoss works just leads to very frustrating and unenjoyable kind of games.
While the new maps and balance changes have alleviated some of the issues, they didn't address the core problems that people still complain about to this day.
|
very interesting point Destruction, I think you may have hit something deep there. Unfortunately that means we are stuck waiting first for Blizzard to realize it and then fix it if they want in a later expansion. (LotV)
|
Why do they even have an international graph ... balance should only be at the highest level.
I'm only going to look at the Korean graph. This graph doesn't take much of the patch change at the END of february into account so stop saying ghost nerfs has no effects vs zergs, even though it probably doesn't effect much.
Blizz should have just left everything for a few months instead of fuking around with it every two months. It's extremely frustrating for anyone to play when they do this bullshit.
|
On March 03 2012 00:32 Apolex wrote:
Why do they even have an international graph ... balance should only be at the highest level.
I'm only going to look at the Korean graph. This graph doesn't take much of the patch change at the END of february into account so stop saying ghost nerfs has no effects vs zergs, even though it probably doesn't effect much.
Blizz should have just left everything for a few months instead of fuking around with it every two months. It's extremely frustrating for anyone to play when they do this bullshit.
You CAN'T just look at the Korean graph. There is so few korean tournaments, that there is not enough sample. It actually means pretty much nothing. A single player being super super good and having a 80% because he is tearing apart every one, could screw the data completly.
Yes, it would be more meaningful to look at it if there was more data... but that's just not the case. International do include korean data, tho.
Korean data have nothing to do with balance and pretty much only mean that Protoss had better result in the GSL. But, a single month of GSL/GSTL only don't mean anything... that's just not enough games. Looking at the average of 3 or 4 months of Korean only data would actually be way more meaningful.
|
Maybe they'll stop nerfing terran now? One can hope.
It shows that with a small sample size the results are completely wonky, in KOR, but with 30k replays it makes a lot more sense.
PvT just seems off. P's early pressure can be just as good as early T pressure, but their lategame is much better. Kind of frustrating, but there's no simple answer. We can't nerf them without affecting top level or other MUs, and we can't just 'make them harder to play'. How would we do that?
|
On March 03 2012 01:16 Xalorian wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2012 00:32 Apolex wrote:
Why do they even have an international graph ... balance should only be at the highest level.
I'm only going to look at the Korean graph. This graph doesn't take much of the patch change at the END of february into account so stop saying ghost nerfs has no effects vs zergs, even though it probably doesn't effect much.
Blizz should have just left everything for a few months instead of fuking around with it every two months. It's extremely frustrating for anyone to play when they do this bullshit. You CAN'T just look at the Korean graph. There is so few korean tournaments, that there is not enough sample. It actually means pretty much nothing. A single player being super super good and having a 80% because he is tearing apart every one, could screw the data completly. Yes, it would be more meaningful to look at it if there was more data... but that's just not the case. International do include korean data, tho. Korean data have nothing to do with balance and pretty much only mean that Protoss had better result in the GSL. But, a single month of GSL/GSTL only don't mean anything... that's just not enough games. Looking at the average of 3 or 4 months of Korean only data would actually be way more meaningful.
There are a lot of Korean tournaments now. KSL, EWM, ESV, GSL, GSTL, and the results from those are a much better indicator of balance than some crappy online euro-cup.
|
On March 03 2012 01:36 Twistacles wrote:
Maybe they'll stop nerfing terran now? One can hope.
It shows that with a small sample size the results are completely wonky, in KOR, but with 30k replays it makes a lot more sense.
PvT just seems off. P's early pressure can be just as good as early T pressure, but their lategame is much better. Kind of frustrating, but there's no simple answer. We can't nerf them without affecting top level or other MUs, and we can't just 'make them harder to play'. How would we do that?
And you are refering to what data? International data show that PvT is pretty much balanced... and Korean (and there is just not enough data to even judge yet. One month is just not enough) data show that Protoss are beating Zerg even more than Terran. So... yeah, whatever I guess.
I do feel like Protoss will pretty much be at the higher end of the graph for a while tho. The true power of the FF is probably going to show itself soon enough. A way to completly stop any micro from your opponent is really not a good design choice. I almost hope that Protoss will be owning every zerg and terran for a complete year... this way blizzard will have no choice but to review FF and Collosus completly for HotS. Deathball of doom and forcefield are just not fun to watch.
On March 03 2012 01:49 sitromit wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2012 01:16 Xalorian wrote:On March 03 2012 00:32 Apolex wrote:
Why do they even have an international graph ... balance should only be at the highest level.
I'm only going to look at the Korean graph. This graph doesn't take much of the patch change at the END of february into account so stop saying ghost nerfs has no effects vs zergs, even though it probably doesn't effect much.
Blizz should have just left everything for a few months instead of fuking around with it every two months. It's extremely frustrating for anyone to play when they do this bullshit. You CAN'T just look at the Korean graph. There is so few korean tournaments, that there is not enough sample. It actually means pretty much nothing. A single player being super super good and having a 80% because he is tearing apart every one, could screw the data completly. Yes, it would be more meaningful to look at it if there was more data... but that's just not the case. International do include korean data, tho. Korean data have nothing to do with balance and pretty much only mean that Protoss had better result in the GSL. But, a single month of GSL/GSTL only don't mean anything... that's just not enough games. Looking at the average of 3 or 4 months of Korean only data would actually be way more meaningful. There are a lot of Korean tournaments now. KSL, EWM, ESV, GSL, GSTL, and the results from those are a much better indicator of balance than some crappy online euro-cup.
1100 games? You do understand how absurdly low that number is, right? That's NOT enough, Not even near. Just wait for 2-3 months and make a average of those three months from the Korean data THEN you will have something remotely relevant. Until that, no, a single month of Korean data mean nothing. 1000 replay for each match up is just not enough.
I'm Zerg. I'm playing the race that is getting owned completly in Korea lately, by Terran AND Protoss. Still, it's just not enough data. In 3-4 months, if we make an average and Zerg is still geting destroyed by every race and Terran is still getting owned by Toss, then we should maybe start thinking that there is a problem. Until then, we just have to wait. The metagame will switch 2-3 times again and we will have more data, anyway.
|
P>T,
T>Z,
Z>P
yet closely balanced
Looks more and more like BW results!!! :D :D :D :D
|
On March 02 2012 23:48 ceaRshaf wrote:
Stop the patching. The game is balanced. We can now fire David Kim.
The game may be balanced, but that is only because people aren't using half the units in the game because they aren't viable. Carriers (and more broadly Stargate play), Ultras, Hydras and Terran Mech play is all need of work.
|
topics where people "discuss" balance always give me head ache
|
On March 03 2012 02:06 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2012 23:48 ceaRshaf wrote:
Stop the patching. The game is balanced. We can now fire David Kim. The game may be balanced, but that is only because people aren't using half the units in the game because they aren't viable. Carriers (and more broadly Stargate play), Ultras, Hydras and Terran Mech play is all need of work.
to be fair, Ultras are being used in TvZ quite a lot these days... might explain the horrible winrates of Zerg in this MU 
Terran Mech is also being used quite a lot in TvZ right now.
Stargates are getting a little more popular too, but Carriers and even hydralisks to defend against Stargates are not...
Also balanced... I'm not sure if we should call balance upon those stats. For all we know, we have one statistic that is terribly flawed due to nonpro players playing in a lot of matches against pros and therefore influencing the stats a lot towards 50-50 internationally, and Korean stats that might be too small of a samplesize to talk balance off them.
I really hope (and believe) that blizzard has its own stats for tournaments...
|
Game is so balanced now. I love it!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
